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lumiereswig · 6 years ago

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hey all so i just saw ‘hadestown’ and feel duty bound to tell you fools everything about it because i, too, remember what it is to be lonely and on the internet and too poor to see some snazzy broadway shit

there’s no fanfare or anything. the show opens with all the cast coming on—and obviously the audience is going buckwild, especially with amber gray. (u can tell there’s a lot of great comet fans in the audience.) only once everybody is settled does hermes really TAKE THE STAGE.

and boy does he take it. sassy lil shit knows he owns it and just stands there taking in his audience, before flipping his jacket back with dramatic flare (to show his SNAZZY-ASS SILVER THREADED VEST) and starting to sing. (cue noisy wah-wah trombone.)

the setting is p. clearly a bar; orpheus p. clearly works there. he’s like being artsy with the napkins and shit, blossoming them into roses. eurydice is a traveler; she carries with her, wrapped in brown silk, an alter candle that she lights. (after sassing hermes into giving her a match to light it with.) eurydice balances her candle with the paper rose orpheus later makes and gives to her.

orpheus is pretty childlike and dreaming in this version. (not the cocky boy from the off broadway production.) he comes off as kind of lanky and awkward and not quite there; naive is definitely a defining adjective for him. everything about him is soft and gentle and in a dreaming world.

eurydice is kind of a classic tough girl but she’s got a strand of helplessness to her. she puts on a show of not being impressed by orpheus until he sings her the song he’s working on, and manages to bring a rose into his palm.

environmental collapse is a HUGE theme thru this—bigger than i thought it would be. eurydice’s first lines are about how there’s no spring or autumn anymore; everything is winter or summer, too hot or cold to live. the fates sing of the winds—the fates sort of torment her throughout this—but climate change looms as a dread through the show. orpheus hopes his song will bring back summer, put the seasons back in tune.

anyway, everyone’s hanging out at a new orleans style bar. even hades and persephone are there, though above it all in a balcony of their own

did i mention bradley king is a god among lighting designers?

because that will come back a lot

anyway hermes is sort of an uncle figure to orpheus; he was friends with orpheus’s mother, a muse. as soon as orpheus sees eurydice he wants to talk to her, and hermes advices him not to ‘come on too strong’—

and well that plan goes immediately out the window : ‘come home with me!’ [eurydice: ’what?’]

orpheus is just intensely awkward. skinny pale child doesn’t know how to interact with the world

they have kind of an argumentative relationship from the start—they don’t face each other very often; there’s a push and pull as he longs for her and she, kneejerk tough girl, tries not to go for this. but the rose from his palm enchants her, and she holds on to it. ‘you have to finish your song.’

GODDDD AMBER GRAY IS JUST LIIIIIIIFE. her persephone is a total lush and frequently staggers through act 1. she also has a fabulous white coat that gradients to green at the sleeves. when she dances you can’t tell if she’s about to pass out or float up to the ceiling.

when orpheus gives the toast he’s just so awkward it’s appalling

(and everyone toasts except eurydice)

hades wears sunglasses when he comes to the world above to bring persephone back to the world below. he descends from his balcony to get her, and brings her to the center of the stage—and then, oh, SHIT, there’s a fucking perfect round trap door right where they’re standing, and they descend below. (amber gray looking up to the slowly disappearing sky with the face of a martyr who’s used to the gig.)

winter’s hard. eurydice has to bust back out her old ass coat (instead of the winsome black slip thing and brown vest thing she was wearing), and the Fates, bitches as they be, try to fuckin rip it off her. (and succeed. the choreography looks like wind! also chairs and tables looked like they were floating earlier but i forgot to mention that.)

eurydice is trying to get ORPHEUS’S FUCKIN ATTENTION bout the fact they got no food and, uh, three bitchy old ladies dressed all in gray just took her coat, but he’s submerged in writing his song to bring back the weather. and while this is all going on, hades and persephone are having their age-old argument about how hell is too hot and too loud and IT AIN’T RIGHT, IT AIN’T NATURAL.

because, get this, after descending to hell they descended /back up/ into it, and u can tell cuz the lighting is fuckin genius. i’ll explain later except i won’t.

orpheus is just OUT OF IT and not hearing anything at all eurydice is tryin to fuckin say. (the tune keeps going wrong.) hades is sick of persephone not being with his electric shiny no-good shittiness and lays his eyes on eurydice as easy prey.

he puts on his sunglasses again and u know it’s bad news.

he talks her over and gives her her ‘ticket’—two silver coins that she momentarily holds up over her eyes as she looks at us, letting us know that this is some death imagery. she holds both hades’ coins and orpheus’s flower—and, making up her mind, calls out orpheus’s name one last time and descends into the underworld through that same miraculous trap.

and then, fuck me, the trap comes back up but just the red flower is on it. fuuuuuck meeeeeeee i may have wept.

orpheus finishes his damn song and hermes lets him know that hE FUCKED UP HIS WHOLE DAMN LIFE SHE GONE, BITCH, and orpheus sees the flower on the trap door and then he’s weeping, too.

and then we get to ‘wait for me’ and holy shit, y’all, i never been so fully into something in my life? it was so physically intoxicating i almost wanted to throw up. like, wonder as a liquid beverage. tHE LIGHTING? ? i fuckin felt awe on this earth today, i saw god and he’s lit by bradley king.

because! hades’ workers bring on these industrial metal lamps, and they hook them to the wires in the ceiling, and they SEND THEM SWINGING OUT INTO THE FUCKIGN AUDIENCE. they fuckin—they—they they they!—they fucking did! that! sent them swinging out in perfect rhythm and time, fully lit, swinging around orpheus and into the audience. and tHEN! THE FUCKIN SET! BEGINS TO GROW!!!

remember the first time u saw the nutcracker as a child and the growing christmas tree fuckin ripped ur world apart? it’s like that except times ten thousand

like it felt like. like the fuckin world was coming apart. the bar set is slowly ripping open and golden light is just searing into your eyeballs and the golden lamps are still swinging around orpheus and it literally felt like god had opened up a cold one and was just singing something horrible into being. it was wonder. i want to see it again.

like. stagecraft, babyyy

and u think act 1 will end on that because why would it nOT but no, we get ‘why we build the wall,’ which is a sort of chilling propoganda thing where everybody is facing forward and just telling back to hades whatever he’s yelling about, and persephone is there and i’m not sure why (like does she believe this? is she the unwilling consort? what’s the deal?)

and at the end eurydice comes in, and sort of picks up on the gestures everybody is doing—in that way everyone does when they come into a room and they want to vaguely pass as with it so they try to sync in to the general vibe. ‘uhh sure everyone’s waving their hands and talkin about walls so i guess i will too’, that kind of thing

hades shows her up to his office (the balcony door) to sign the papers. as soon as he’s gone, amber gray whips round to face the audience. ‘anybody want a drink?’

it’s intermission and i’m still trying to catch up on all the gasp-crying i started during ‘wait for me’

we also get an overpriced hadestown cup cuz get while the getting’s good, right?

back in act 2 and it’s our lady of the underground, ie amber gray in her exact outfit from above except instead of lurid green it’s savage black. (and instead of a bouncy curly brown wig it’s a black sparkly snood.) she dances and pivots and rivets her way through it, introducing the band, being winsome savage bite-your-face-off-and-offer-to-share-it-with-you amber gray. she’s got a neat little ring-shaped silver flask that hangs from her hand like a purse, and i want one.

eurydice emerges from the office dressed in the same overalls as the other workers—though she looks sexy af in them, ngl—and sings ‘flowers,’ and talks about how nobody down here looks at her, and how it’s like they don’t even see her. the underworld is not what she thought it would be. she wants to go home but can’t. she can’t remember orpheus’s name.

uNTIL HE SHOWS UP! Punk ass bitch made it, somehow, and stumbles onto the stage with guitar in hand. she knows his name immediately. but she can’t leave, because she signed her soul away.

u knew all this. it’s classic myth. did i mention patrick page as hades sounds like the combined harmonics of every rumbling truck on the george washington bridge every time he decides to sing?

orpheus has A Moment™ where it’s like, if this is what the world is, if people sign their names up for shit and i can’t save them, i guess i’ll just go home. but he talks himself out of it (apparently his magic vocal cords work on him, too), and actually talks himself (and the stone workers of the underworld!) into activism.

amber gray and patrick page share a duet i’ve never heard before, and it’s fine, and i think it still needs fine tuning cuz im not sure exactly how persephone feels about hades in this bit. it’s fine. what matters is that at the end of it, hades is FUCKED because rebellion is brewing.

he gets orpheus to sing his song. and holy shit, is it a doozy. holy shit, but were we all crying. hooooolyyy shiiiiiit.

holy shit.

when hades sings the refrain at the end, amber gray looks like she’s experiencing the most visceral, exquisite, heartfelt, heartbroken pain of her life. she literally bends as if she’s felt this pain in her stomach—this pain, this anguish over the song she hasn’t heard for so long from this one man she loved so well.

and when a rose blossoms from hades’s palm, persephone is both crying and laughing. it’s like the old times have bloomed again.

and then they dance.

also, should have mentioned earlier, it’s implied it’s not an og song orpheus is singing; he’s actually stumbled on an ancient one, perhaps one hades used to sing, and THAT’S why it’s so devastating—not just his talent and voice, but the memory of it, the memories it brings back. it’s an ancient song, almost a spell, that can heal the seasons.

hades and persephone hold each other close, nuzzling almost, and eurydice faces orpheus, and for a second u think it’s going to be ok because eurydice is so joyful and persephone and hades have healed. o & e think they’re gonna leave. they think everybody can leave.

but nope, hades can’t have that. damned if he does, damned if he don’t—so he sets the test for orpheus, but u really get the sense that he’s not doing it from a sense of cruelty any more. it almost pains him to do this shit. but the rivet of steel in his character won’t let himself become king of nothing.

hermes presents the challenge: ‘ive got good news, and bad.’ orpheus keeps asking hermes if it’s a trick; hermes keeps saying it’s a test, a trial. (it’s really a TRAGEDY.)

persephone is wooed by the fact that hades even let them try.

ugh, doubt comes in is. devastating. every single person in the audience audibly gasped—u FELT the air leave the room—when he turned around. we all genuinely believed it would end differently this time. we thought it would. i knew it was coming and i still was DEVASTATED.

eurydice is, too. she started as the doubter, and she had so much BELIEF they were gonna get out of this. ‘it’s you—it’s me—’ she says. she’s already sinking through the trap. fuckin hell, they were on the last few steps. i’m still fuckin emotional about it

orpheus just crashes to the edge of the trap, staring down into the abyss. hermes is singing, softly, about how it’s an old song—it’s an old tale—it’s a tragedy. and then he roars—in a way that cheers me up—WE’RE GONNA SING IT AGAIN.

because that’s the power of it! it happened, it was horrible, but we’re going to SING about it—and maybe change the ending this time—the way orpheus tried to, when he sang his way to hades and sang his way to the stones. it’s the singing of the event that matters, that might matter.

and eurydice is back at the bar, wanting matches—orpheus is back at the bar, seeing her for the first time across the room—and the story goes on, like the seasons .fuckin incredible. everybody in the auditiorium now is tear-stained.

APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE

lasted for like.....seven minutes?? it took ages and the actors were just soaking it up, looking exhausted, because DAMN it is exhausting to chart anguish and joy and victory and determination and love in two hours and 25 minutes

and then hermes shushes the house—because of course he does—and amber gray leads the final toast. it’s acoustic—it sounded to me like she wasn’t even using her microphone? it wasn’t brash at all, just raw—and a simple, honest, kind of homespun way to end the show. and it finally ended, and we cheered one last time, and then we went home sobbing and shaking and wanting to do the whole damn thing again

it was great and the stagecraft was some of the best i’ve ever seen and i’ve literally felt maybe only 3 productions like this, where this emotional shit is actually sitting in your lungs, and u should go, the end

#hadestown #rachel chavkin #anais mitchell #amber gray #patrick page #reeve carney #broadway #oh also there was a revolve that was pretty neat and used well

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fics-not-tragedies · 5 years ago

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One Day in December: Chapter 10 🎇

one - two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight - nine - ten - epilogue

That’s a wrap folks! I’m so happy when I can finally finish something I was writing. Also look out for epilogue tomorrow 👀

Words: 1480; Warnings: few mentions of previous sexual innuendos and some alcohol drinking; Summary: This year the pair hosts their own Christmas party.

Hozier tag list:

@letoursilencebreaktonight; @angelpeachamber; @sgt-morgan; @julessbrown;

December 2019

“Festive” Andrew commented, a smirk on his lips as he rounded the kitchen island, moving closer to her, two glasses of champagne in his hands.

Bianca laughed, glancing down at her dress covered in sparkly red sequins, “Listen, it’s the occasion, okay!”

They made good on their vows to never go back to that holiday party again, and decided that this year, they were going to throw their own. At Andrew’s… and Bianca’s. It still took some time getting used to saying it, but… she’d moved in.

It was official.

After visiting him last December to celebrate the New Year; they both realized they wanted her to stay. It wasn’t easy. She had to leave her job in L.A. and the only place she’d known for almost a decade… but by the end of March; Dublin was her new home.

“All the guys are coming, yeah?” Andrew called to her from the hall, his lean body wrapped in a suit.

Bianca stood on tiptoes, struggling with the holiday lights she was stringing around the bar. They were excited to be hosting. Andrew loved it so much.

“Yes! Everyone’s coming!” Bianca called to him over her shoulder, balancing precariously on the bar stool.

She nearly screamed when she felt his hand on her back, the both of them laughing. “Thought you could use some help.”

“If you were a few inches smaller I could…” she teased, and he shouted at her, eyes twinkling before he playfully bit at her waist, “Just kidding.”

“Gotta hurry up and do this quick…” Alex shifted his weight back and forth, holding the flask between the five of them.

“Why’s that?” Rory looked at him, taking the flask, and bringing it to his mouth to knock it back.

Alex gave him a funny look, shoving the toy whistle he’d received in his cracker back between his lips, “Because this is our thing. No one else.”

“Not even your wives…” Bianca tsk-tsked him with a small smirk, as the flask was passed from Rory to Cormac to her, “Our little tradition.”

“Damn right. Yous were there from the beginning Bianca.”

Alex chuckled and wiped his mouth, “She was even once the honorary crew member the year you couldn’t make it.”

Cormac winked at her, “And I bet she did me proud.”

Bianca laughed, holding her chest, the holiday spirits burning on their way down as always. Andrew choked on his sip beside her when Alex made an inappropriate comment, “God, I missed you guys.”

“Me too” Andrew murmured, handing the flask back to Ryan and busying himself with his own paper crown. He slowly unfolded the thin purple piece of paper, remembering the very first party.

“Remember how pissed you were, Andy? That first year? Didn’t shut the fuck up about Bianca that whole tour.”

Andrew’s face flushed, and he looked down, nodding, “I do, yeah. Of course I do.”

“Now look at you two!” Rory teased them, reaching over to pinch Andrew’s cheek.

“Alright, alright!!” Andrew yelled, his arm sliding around Bianca’s waist, “Let’s have some fun then, yeah?”

“Have you been waiting here long?” she asked him, her voice soft, shy. Andrew glanced up, grinning at Bianca’s perfect smile and those eyes of hers he’d fallen in love with ten years ago.

“Em… not too long… a minute or so” he glanced up towards the front, seeing another person leave the room and three girls go in together, “Well… looks like it’s moving fast, eh?” Andrew assured her, feeling like he was experiencing a very strong sense of deja vu.

She nodded, seemingly relieved, “Good.”

Andrew chuckled, suddenly remembering the woman standing across from him back when she was a girl he had a crush on in a cute little dress and blinking reindeer antlers. Now it was a striped red and white towel wrapped around her waist, a red sequin dress, and a sprig of mistletoe on a bouncy spring on her head.

Still the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

“Too many ales, then?” He teased, his voice deep and slightly intoxicated as he looked her up and down.

She snorted, “Partying with you guys? Of course too many ales. You know that.”

Andrew grinned, leaning in to her conspiratorially, “Could always skip the line and go upstairs to ours.”

“We could, couldn’t we?” she pressed her forehead to his and pecked at his lips.

“Mmm…” he moaned, tasting the mintiness of her ice cold drink on her lip, “Putting that thing to good use for once, are you?”

Bianca scrunched her nose up, the facial hair Andrew was attempting to grow again tickling her lips, “Yeah… finally” she teased him, “You’re the only guy I’m kissing tonight, though… don’t worry” she assured him as the mistletoe sprung back and forth on her head.

“Wasn’t worried” he told her softly, pecking at her lips a few more times, “Only took us… almost ten years now, didn’t it?”

“Mmm… almost whole decade of pining for you” Bianca hummed against his mouth, “Come on…” she held her hand out, gesturing towards the staircase. Andrew’s hand slipped into hers, squeezing tight.

“Oh, the weather outside is fright-ful…”

Bianca smiled, tightening her hold on his hand, fingers laced together, cheek pressed to his chest. With Andrew’s arm wound around her, they swayed back and forth to the very familiar opening notes of a song they both loved quite fondly.

The party was nearly completely fizzled out in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve; but still they danced on over the debris on the floor of their living room. Andrew had silver tinsel wrapped around his neck, and each time they turned it tickled Bianca’s nose.

“What is your favorite memory? From the parties?” He asked, his lips brushing the top of her tawny-colored hair.

“I was quite fond of you in that maroon sweater, serenading me…” she murmured with a little smile, quickly swallowing back the lump in her throat that always followed shortly after she was reminded the events that followed directly after the karaoke serenade that particular year.

“You mean the year you broke my heart?” Andrew asked coolly, and when her head whipped up, mouth open ready to protest, he grabbed her chin and kissed her quiet, “Just kidding, love. The one time you broke my heart versus the countless years I broke yours…”

“I’m not taking this trip down memory lane if you’re just gonna keep a tally of who was more destructive each year…” Bianca warned, the colors from the Christmas lights reflecting in her bright hazel eyes.

“Promise, I’m not” he assured her. His eyes swept over her, the same girl he’d fallen in love so long ago now a permanent part of his life. If someone had told him back when he was twenty… “Thought you were gonna say, em, that one year in the coat room.”

“Oh” she breathed, eyes widening, “Ohhh…” her pretty pink lips curved into a smirk, “Well… that year was… God, I couldn’t believe how fucking hot you were when I saw you that year.”

Andrew chuckled, remembering the exact look on her face when she entered the room, fur coat half-unbuttoned, “That skin tight dress you wore…”

She nodded slowly, in a trance remembering Every. Single. Detail. Especially the after-party in her flat directly after that.

“I think it was a good year for both of us, huh?”

“Yeah except for when you came the instant you were inside me.”

“HEY!” Andrew shouted, drawing the attention of a few people still smoking on the patio. He laughed, his cheeks blazing a bright ruddy red as the embarrassment crept up his neck. Bianca couldn’t stop giggling, “In my defense… I’d waited an awfully long time for that to happen.”

“That’s very true. C’mere… ” she wound her hand around the tinsel, pulling him down for a kiss, “And if I recall properly… you more than made up for it-”

He’d crushed his lips against hers before she could even finish her thought, “Now that’s one of me favorite memories…” they smiled and laughed as they kissed, “Not my absolute favorite but… it’s up there.”

The tension that had built up between them over the years hadn’t disappeared; and the honeymoon phase was seemingly infinite. Bianca always wanted to adorn his perfectly sweet face with endless amounts of kisses, “My favorite memory has always been the look on your face the moment we spotted each other at the party each year.”

“Mine too” he confessed, his muddy green eyes dancing in the light from the fireplace. “Didn’t thought that, we, em, we’d ever make it here.”

“Me neither. But here we are.”

Andrew took her hand and spun her away from him, the two of them laughing as he pulled her in real close again, “How are we gonna manage to top this next year?”

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mooosicaldreamz · 5 years ago

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please do a song by song review of lover i beg u

oh......u didn’t have to beg!!!! i’ll give it to you 4 FREE.

I FORGOT THAT YOU EXISTED: what i enjoy about this song is that it is fun and not especially mean, just like, shrug emoji. i think sometimes when ur in a relationship that is not especially amazing and you reach the point where you forget that you dated someone is the funniest thing and its such a strange moment. it’s a good tonesetter for the album, bc its so fun and chill and like, whatever. it has the same energy that i think we are never getting back together wanted to have. i LOVE the “i just forget what they were” breakdown. what a fun, bouncy song. easy listening to start the album. calvin harris rip.

CRUEL SUMMER: i love jack antanoff vERY much and have liked his work with fun. and as bleachers, and i think his production on lorde and taylor’s albums has been so wonderful. this song just reeks of him and it’s so like, ascendent, how it builds up and up into the chorus. i think it’s interesting that she reaches so high on the chorus. “summer’s a knife/i’m always waiting for you to cut to the bone/devils roll the dice/angels roll their eyes.” the breakdown is once again wonderful abt crying in the back of the cab on the way back from the bar - i feel like this album and its concept brings a much more natural version of taylor that i think has largely (and perhaps rightfully, considering the evolution of her fame and craft) been in hiding since probably red but maybe even since speak now. “I LOVE YOU AIN’T THAT THE WORST THING YOU EVER HEARD // HE LOOKS SO PRETTY LIKE A DEVIL” while she’s screaming it is more exuberant than ANYTHING on 1989 or rep (and i love both of those albums).

LOVER: i love how sleepy soft this song is, i love how simple it is, and it’s made me cry like, six times. the wedding band sound is just, so fun and beautiful. it really makes me feel like i’m drunk, happy, and dancing really slow on an emptying dancefloor. i’m going to assume that was the vibe. it’s so soft. god it feels like a cloud. i enjoy how simple the lyrics are in this song, and how the words get to breathe and simmer. they take on a lot of meaning bc of how much space they’re given by the echo and by pacing. it’s so nice. i’ve gone back and forth on whether i like the wedding vows thing, but i think it might be nice. i love “swear to be overdramatic AND TRUE! to my lover”

THE MAN: the bumpy sound of the bass beat is really fun, and i think the song is a good bop, but it doesn’t say anything i don’t already know - but i think taylor bringing up the back end on the Woke train, trying to reach all those people who still aren’t totally sure about the gays or feminism but also think trump is terrible and are now reconsidering their life choices is a fine enough goal for her social justice initiatives. also i just realized she says “getting bitches and models” which she already does, you don’t have to pretend taylor

THE ARCHER: this song is sonic perfection the rolling synths the dreamy voice, the awful awful breakdown at the end of “they see right thru me / can you see right thru me / i see right thru me” “help me hold onto you” i just ... can’t handle this song. it’s perfect. i like the implication throughout this album that taylor is in Love, the big real kind, and i support her and joe bc i think it’s obvious their relationship has totally like, taken her to a new and good emotional space. anyway i like the implication that taylor fell in real, big Love and realized that love is still a fucking mess, like it doesn’t solve all the problems. “ALL OF MY HEROES DIE ALL ALONE” i mean come on. i hate her

I THINK HE KNOWS: this song is a bop “i think he knows his hands around a cold glass make me wanna know that body like it’s mine” is a stn move. the rumbly noise in the chorus and the synthy breakdown is a beast, it owns itself. there’s a real comfortable self-confidence that i, once again, maintain has been missing from taylor’s music up until now. also that moaning noise distracts me every time. “hand on my thigh/we can follow the sparks/i’ll drive” tAYLOR! inappropriate. i’ve seen some takes on this song that it’s not a fave, but it’s a fun song and people are wrong. there’s not one song on this album that i’m like this is bad in the way that i DO NOT like some songs on rep

MISS AMERICANA AND THE HEARTBREAK PRINCE: the first thing i thought when i heard this song is that it sounds like lana del rey. give it a re-listen, it does. sounds just like idk, “high by the beach” but it also rings a bell for me of electra heart era marina and the diamonds (like “teen idle”). i like this song a lot, even though it’s relatively oblique in my opinion on what it’s.....actually about. “you play stupid games / you win stupid prizes” is a great lyric in masterful taylor swift fashion bc it looks stupid when u write it on paper. i like the shouting breakdown thing that happens on the back end of the song with go/fight/win (OH I JUST GOT that, it’s like cheerleaders shouting). i’m a fan of it, but it’s an oddball on the tracklist.

PAPER RINGS: this song rings with a lot of red’s chaotic energies but with the adult sensibilities that she’s rolling with on this album. i love the sort of down-home shouty stuff happening on the verses, and the “kiss me once / kiss me twice / three times” bridge. it’s a good one. “i hate accidents/except when we went from friends to this” is a fun and good lyric. i LOVE the key change i LOVE the “wrap your arms around me baby boy” for some reason very much.

CORNELIA STREET: i mean obviously this song is wonderful. i’ve seen much Discourse about this song being related to Kaylor which seems plausible. it’s clear that taylor wrote some of these songs in the present tense when they’re in the past, which i think is really interesting. i LOVE “jacket ‘round my shoulder is yours” what a good inversion of the phrase. i love the way that the phrase cornelia street breaks up the lines in a really weird way, because of how its syllables run. it’s a good song. it’s a soft boi

DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS: early frontrunner for my fave song!!!!! love the opening repeating noise, and the simple guitar plucks initially. taylor’s voice takes up front and center bc it isn’t especially altered/layered/echoed like it is in some other spots on the album. it has an amazing rolling pace on its verses that’s followed by the slower pace on the chorus. “i ask the traffic lights if it’ll be okay and they say i don’t know” i am certain that this song is about karlie kloss and i will not accept any other possibilities i know she said it was about a movie but i don’t care. “my hips my heart my body my love / tryna find a part of me you didn’t touch” wow taylor god what a gifted lyricist i hate her

LONDON BOY: this song is fun. “i saw the dimples first / then i heard the accent” i love the rising effect on “walking on the afternoon” resetting with the horns. it’s just a song that makes you bob your head. she does sound like she’s throwing out as many english references as she possibly can which is amusing and i don’t know what the legs are on this song bc of that - it could come across as somewhat kitschy. but! also i’d like to start some discourse bc i think it’s CLEAR that taylor isn’t afraid of using pronouns or even very direct references to who she’s with (this song is basically an I LOVE JOE ALWYN shirt), and it makes it even more clear when she’s avoiding using pronouns or direct description. the two songs before this don’t do that in the same way that this song does. 1989 barely uses pronouns at all. i’m just saying. taylor is bi is what i’m saying.

SOON YOU’LL GET BETTER: obviously this song is sad and it makes me cry i have no further commentary except that it’s a wonderful, simple song that has an excessively odd placement on this album following after london boy

FALSE GOD: this song is sexy! and interesting. the horns come back again, which is good and her voice is lower. honestly the line “the altar is my hips” is just..........a lot for me to compute. “i’m golden when you touch me / hell is when i fight with you” the bridges are really fun, sexy, soft. this song is like when lover ends and a song with a little more of a sultry feel comes on but ur still drunk so its a little sloppy.

YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN: obviously this song ruined my life. it sent me to the heights of elation and then i sort of had a hangover on it but i’m back around on it guys! it’s a fun, fun, summery song. that chorus with the oh-oh is just .... pop perfection. the bumpy synth noise that goes ba-duh-duh-duh like it’s reverberating is absolutely perfect for the pacing of the song. it’s excessively well-crafted to the point of slickness. it should have been the lead single but what do i know about anything

AFTERGLOW: i know that i wasn’t supposed to be into i pinned your hands behind your back but i was so. this is a continuation of the theme of like, i’m in love but i’m still a mess!!! sorry :) i like this song but it does not inspire me.

ME!: i don’t know why the exclamation point is there and it sounds much more like a brendon urie song than a taylor song, but it’s fun! i don’t hate it! i can see why it was picked as a lead single - to really illustrate the tonal change from rep to here, but still. spelling is fun, tho.

IT’S NICE TO HAVE A FRIEND: this song is simple and so, so so sweet. i love the childhood friends to lovers narrative, and i just. like it. so much. it’s so sweet. and then obviously the horns come back for this one, but don’t overwhelm. this song is a good palette cleanser after the bombast of me!

DAYLIGHT: i tweeted about this but this song reminds me of clean and long live (particularly long live, it for some reason really sounds like that in my head). but i like that it really relates a feeling that i feel sometimes of like, my life was a mess and sometimes still is a mess but bc i’m in a stable and good relationship, things feel approachable, like, if everything goes wrong again, i’ll at least know for sure i have this, and i think this song sort of shows that off with the “I don’t want to think about anything else.” it’s nice. it’s calm. i read an oral history today about the kanye storming the stage moment at the vma’s because it’s been 10 years since it happened - and i feel like this album and this song, in many ways, are a plateau on the meteoric catapult of taylor’s relationship with fame that really had started to run before that moment but certainly started rolling after that. i think this song is a demonstration of the growth that she’s gone through over the last ten years that we’ve all watched with such close attention. it makes me feel happy for her. i hope she gets to keep this the way it is. i’ve read that she thought for the longest time that this album would be called daylight and i’m honestly? not sure it shouldn’t be. but the vocal note at the end sort of draws it back thru.

it’s a good album. i think the back half of it doesn’t hang as tough all the way thru as the first half, but overall, i think it’s overall quality is better than reputation even though i think reputation, as a concept album, works very well. it’s a great evolution and a real, authentic thing. very impressive that she’s managed to produce four very different albums successively where as many artists don’t change that much from album to album. but i think that’s evidence of the work that’s gone into them, to be honest. death by a thousand cuts is my early fave.

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torestoreamends · 5 years ago

Text

Mine to Make: Chapter 4

Scorpius is in a good mood, Albus is in a good mood, Delphi, however, is not. Elsewhere, in a fit of spontaneity, Albus decides it’s time to go and talk to his mum...

Beta’d by @abradystrix.

N.B. This fic is complete on AO3, so binge read away if you want! Here on tumblr I’ll be posting a chapter every day until it’s all done.

Read it on AO3

IIII Waiting

Albus is sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor, surrounded by a mountain of all his possessions, when Ginny knocks on the door. He looks up at her, and there’s a flash of panic in his eyes as he leaps to his feet and starts throwing socks into his trunk.

“I’m packing,” he says. “I am. You don’t need to-“

Her heart breaks at the sight of him trying so hard to convince her that he’s doing the right thing. She knows all too well how hard this is for him. She’ll never be upset at him for finding it difficult to get ready to go back to school, but maybe she hasn’t done a good enough job of telling him that.

“I’m not here to tell you off,” she says softly, taking a cautious step into the room. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He stops packing and stands there for a moment, then he starts messing with a hole in the toe of the sock he’s holding and his shoulders collapse. “I don’t know what I need to take,” he says in a very small voice. “I-I don’t know... I don’t think I can do this.” His head bows onto his chest and he curls in on himself as his body begins to shake with sobs. He sinks onto the bed and pulls his knees up to his chin, hiding his face.

“Albus,” she breathes. “Sweetheart.” She picks her way through the mess on his floor and sinks onto the bed beside him. When he doesn’t shuffle away from her she reaches out and puts a hand on his arm, then slides her arm round his back and gathers him to her. He curls up in her arms as easily as he did when he was still a baby, and holds onto the front of her jumper as he sobs into her shoulder.

“I-I don’t want to go, Mum. I don’t want to-“ He gulps in a breath, and she grips him tighter and kisses the top of his head.

“I know,” she murmurs. “I know.”

She doesn’t know what else to say besides that. She’s his mum, she should have the right words to fix everything, but this is one of the times when she really doesn’t. He’s desperately unhappy, that’s plain to see, but she’s powerless to do anything about it. They’ve already talked about him staying home from school, but he’s always refused, and now she’s running out of options to help beyond just holding him while he cries.

“You don’t have to go,” she murmurs, brushing her fingers through his hair.

“Y-yes I do,” he sniffles. “I do. I-I can’t stay here.”

“At least Scorpius is at school,” she says.

Albus gives a hiccupping little sob and nods. “H-he is.” He draws in a shaking breath and pulls out of her arms, stumbling to his feet. He wipes his nose and eyes on his sleeve and starts looking around at the mess on the floor. “I need- I don’t know what I need.”

Ginny gets to her feet and picks up his folded up robes and school uniform, complete with emerald green tie and jumper. “These are a good start. And you need socks and underwear. If you don’t have those you’re not getting anywhere.”

Albus sighs. “I know I need underwear, Mum. I’m not a complete idiot.”

“If you know you need underwear then that’s half the battle.” She picks a couple of t-shirts up off the floor and starts making a pile of things he needs on his bed. It doesn’t take long before he becomes so intent on rearranging the pile of things she’s picked out that she gives up on helping select things and gets down to the business of actually packing them in his trunk.

By the time they’re done he looks calmer and she shuts the latches on the trunk and straightens up to shoot him a smile.

“How are you doing now?”

He looks down at the trunk and gives a small shrug. “I’m not sure. I think I’ll be okay. Thank you for helping.”

She ruffles his hair, and he ducks away from her, pulling the same disgruntled face as his dad does whenever anyone touches his hair. “You’re welcome.”

He smooths his hair back into position and looks at her. “Mum?”

“Yes, Albus?”

“I... I love you, you know that?”

Her heart melts at the sight of his tear-stained face, and the soft warmth in his expression. He’s so brave, so good despite everything, and these are the moments when she feels most proud of him and most desperate to make his world perfect. “I know,” she says, going over and wrapping him up in the tightest hug yet. “I love you too. I love you so much, Albus Severus Potter.”

Draco is sitting in the library when the front door creaks open and clicks closed downstairs. It’s not a loud sound, but after so many years of living mostly alone in this house he’s attuned to all of its tiny creaks and cracks, and any change in its occupancy.

He’s also become very used to listening for Scorpius tiptoeing up the grand staircase. He knows what it sounds like when Scorpius is tired or angry after a day at work. He knows the regular pattern of Scorpius’s footsteps on any average day. And then there’s this, the softest of footfalls, a pause every time a stair creaks. This is Scorpius when he doesn’t want to be heard, and if Scorpius doesn’t want to be heard then that either means he’s so upset that he wants to avoid talking, or it’s because he’s done something he shouldn’t have.

Draco sets his book aside and crosses to the library door, footsteps silent on the soft rug. He opens the door and leans in the doorway, trying to look casual while he waits to ambush Scorpius, who can’t get to his room without walking this way.

What Draco sees when Scorpius rounds the corner is not at all what he expected. Scorpius is grinning. He’s almost glowing in fact. There’s a radiance to him, a buzzing energy of sheer joy. His eyes are shining like stars. His hair is a ruffled mess. He’s hugging himself, and hunching down to try and make himself quieter, but it’s not the sort of hunching down where he wants to occupy as little space in the world as he can, it’s the sort of hunching down that Scorpius did as a child when he and Astoria were trying to sneak past Draco’s office to steal sweets from the kitchen. He looks like he’s playing a game. He’s enjoying himself, enjoying trying to be silent and stealthy, and when he finally looks up and spots Draco waiting for him his smile only swells bright on his face.

“Dad,” he chirps. “I didn’t think you’d hear me.”

“I hear everything,” Draco says, pushing off the door frame and blocking Scorpius’s path, arms folded. “You look happy.”

“Oh,” Scorpius says, beaming, the corners of his eyes crinkled up with joy. “Do I?”

“Yes,” Draco says. “You really do.” And he means it. Scorpius looks happy. Truly, deeply, genuinely happy. Inescapably, indescribably happy. The sort of happy that comes shining out of him and makes the world brighter around him. It has been a long time, years, many years, since Draco saw him look like this. This isn’t ‘happy enough’ or ‘as happy as it gets’, this is the real thing, and it’s been so long since Draco saw Scorpius looking like this that he doesn’t quite know what to do about it.

Part of him wants to grin back at Scorpius and demand to know everything that’s so joyful in Scorpius’s life right now. Part of him wants to cry with relief that despite everything the world has thrown at him, his son is still capable of feeling like this. Part of him is sceptical, because surely nothing can make any person this happy – it’s an impossibility.

“It’s a nice day,” Scorpius says, gesturing out towards the flash of sunny summer evening visible through the window. “It’s a beautiful day in fact. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I stroked two cats on the way home.”

Draco scrutinises him carefully. “Are you going to tell me why you’re this happy?”

Scorpius gives a bouncy little shrug. “It’s just been a really good day.”

“Haven’t you been with the league all day?” Draco asks. “Has it gone this well?”

Scorpius’s smile stretches so wide that Draco is amazed his face isn’t aching. “It was pretty good. Nice and smooth. I got almost all the answers I need to start with; there’s just a bit of desk research to do.” Scorpius makes a move to duck round Draco and escape to his room. “Speaking of which, I don’t want to stay up too late. Lots to do tomorrow.”

Draco blocks him. “Not so fast.” He points at Scorpius. “You’re smiling like the sun, you tried to sneak in, and you won’t answer my questions. Did you see Albus again today? Is that what’s going on here?”

“Albus?” Scorpius asks, and the feigned surprise and confusion in his voice gives him away. He’s a brilliant liar, but not at times like this. At times like this he wears his heart on his sleeve. “No, I didn’t see Albus today. He wasn’t even at the training ground!”

Draco sighs. “Scorpius.”

There’s a momentary pause, then Scorpius’s smile fades a tiny bit, and even though it’s only by a little it’s still heartbreaking to see. That smile had been so warm and hopeful. If there’s one thing Draco has wished to see in his son for years it’s hope, and there it was, but it’s already fading.

“If I tell you you’ll just lecture me,” he says. “But I don’t need lecturing, Dad. I’m an adult. I know what I’m doing. I know what I want to do at least. And even if it goes badly I still want to try, because it makes me happy. He makes me happy.”

“So this is about Albus?” Draco asks softly, already regretting having stopped Scorpius. If he’d let him go uninterrupted he’d probably be humming and bouncing round his room by now, filling the house with joy like it hasn’t been for years. Now Scorpius looks stormy, and his smile is fading into defiance.

Scorpius folds his arms and lifts his chin. “Fine. Yes it’s about Albus. I met him for coffee this afternoon and-“ He swallows and does a little shrug and head tilt, like he’s trying to look casual but can’t quite manage it. “And he kissed me. And I kissed him back. So that’s why I’m in a good mood. Are you happy now?”

“Albus Severus Potter... kissed you?” Draco asks, trying to comprehend the words.

“Is that a problem?” Scorpius asks, and now his eyes are bright not like stars but like lighting. There’s a dangerous spark there. He’s crackling with energy and fight. He looks so much like his mother.

Draco doesn’t know what to say. Yes, of course it’s a problem, he’s Albus Severus Potter, the cause of years of distress. But at the same time... Anyone who can make Scorpius smile like that with something as simple as a kiss has Draco’s blessing to stick around for as long as they continue to make Scorpius happy.

Draco swallows. He tries to put aside all his scepticism and misgivings (so many misgivings) and go along with this, because Scorpius is right, he’s an adult. Adults are allowed to make their own choices, their own mistakes, their own triumphs. And if this is the choice Scorpius is going to make then, mistake or not, Draco will support him. He’ll support him not just on principle but because of that smile. Albus has been back in Scorpius’s life for two days and he’s already lit it up like dawn at the end of a very long night.

“He took you for coffee? Where did you go?”

“Are you interrogating me now?” Scorpius asks. “If this is you trying to find out where he lives so you can turn him in, it’s not going to work.”

Draco shakes his head and uncrosses his arms. Instead he twists his hands together and starts running his fingers round the edge of his wedding ring. “I’m not trying to interrogate, I’m just curious about your date. It was a date, wasn’t it?”

“More a coincidental meeting,” Scorpius says, eyeing him warily. “He ran into me, literally, and we went for coffee.”

“And then he kissed you,” Draco says, waving a hand to indicate the passage of time.

Scorpius’s smile rekindles. “There was a bit of talking in between, but... yes. Then he kissed me. Only after I told him I wanted to. I mean he told me he wanted to first, and then he panicked and tried to run away, so I went after him and told him I wanted to too, and then he kissed me. If that makes sense.”

Draco smiles and shakes his head. “Very little, but it made you happy so I don’t think it needs to make sense.”

Scorpius sinks against the wall, smile widening a little further, the dreamy shine returning to his eyes as his gaze softens. “It makes no sense. He makes no sense. None of this makes sense, but I really like it. I really like him.”

Draco leans his back against the opposite wall and looks across at Scorpius. “I can tell. You’re glowing.”

Scorpius flushes bright pink and claps his hands to his cheeks. “I am? I didn’t mean to be.”

Draco shakes his head, and his own smile grows wider too, almost matching Scorpius’s. “It’s fine. It’s nice. It’s... it’s a relief actually. I haven’t seen you this happy since... Maybe not even since before we lost your mother. It suits you.”

Scorpius lowers his hands. “Do you think?” He breathes. “I didn’t know if it was...” he shrugs and seems to cast around for the right word. “Disrespectful, or...”

“Your mother only ever wanted to see you happy,” Draco says. “I know that for a fact. It’s never disrespectful to find happiness after you’ve lost someone, especially not her. Happiness was what she was about.”

Scorpius bows his head. “It was, wasn’t it...” He twists his hands together and takes a breath. “I think I would have been happy. If everything hadn’t happened the way it did. But now Albus is back, and it feels...” He shakes his head and glances up at Draco. “It feels like I’m complete again. And I know that’s a stupid thing to put on one person. I shouldn’t let him have that much power over me. But he’s Albus, and he does.”

“People are stupid when they’re in love,” Draco says. “I was. Your mother was. It’s normal.”

Scorpius rubs the fingers of his left hand over his knuckles and rests the toe of his shoe on the floor, so he’s all off balance. He has a tendency to stand like that sometimes. “I know that he might break my heart. Again. But it feels like it’s worth it. You don’t get the important things in life by keeping your heart locked away, right?” He looks up and meets Draco’s eyes.

“No,” Draco murmurs. “I don’t think you do.”

Scorpius pushes himself off the wall and crosses the corridor to lean right next to Draco. They’re almost the same height these days, but Scorpius is still just an inch shorter; he probably always will be, and Draco knows he finds it irritating, but Draco likes it. As long as he’s taller than his son, even if it’s just an inch, he feels as though he can truly protect him.

“If I keep seeing Albus,” Scorpius murmurs, glancing across at him. “Will you be mad at me?”

“Of course not!” Sometimes the things Scorpius thinks about him are ridiculous. He’s still working on setting each and every one of them straight. “I’ll be mad at him if he hurts you, but I’ll never be mad at you for trying to find happiness. If there’s one thing in the world you deserve then it’s that.”

“I really do feel happy,” Scorpius murmurs. “Right now. And earlier. I thought my heart might burst. I don’t know how to be this happy without exploding.”

“Please don’t explode,” Draco says, giving him a look. “That might give me reason to be mad at Albus.”

“Right,” Scorpius says with a smile. “I’ll try to contain myself.” He pauses, then he looks right at Draco, and Draco twists round to look him in the eye, because he can sense that’s what Scorpius wants.

“You really are okay with this?”

Draco looks at him, bathed in the warm, peach glow of the setting sun, relaxed and peaceful and buoyant, still ruffled from Albus kissing him earlier, still with that sparkle of happiness and contentment in his eye even though his expression is serious now, and he nods. “Yes. Not completely yet, after everything. But making you happy is a good start. If he can keep that up I think I’ll get used to him. As long as you’re happy I can get used to anything.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Albus gasps as he comes sprinting into the blue and gold Puddlemere United changing room, bag bouncing on his back. The colour scheme makes him think of Scorpius, with his sky blue Ministry robes and the pale, flaxen gold of his hair. This is a good place to be tonight. “I lost track of time. Can I-“ He gestures to Delphi, who’s sitting in front of his stall. She doesn’t move an inch, and only then does Albus realise that he’s never seen her look more angry.

Her arms are crossed, her feet, which are so often swinging back and forth beneath her chair, are planted firmly on the floor. She’s almost crackling with energy, and she keeps twisting the handle of her wand between her fingers, like she’s deciding which spell to use to punish him.

“You lost track of time,” she says, in an ice cold voice that sends shivers down his spine. “With Scorpius Malfoy, I assume?” She gets to her feet and reaches out a hand, brushing the back of one finger down his cheek, which is still warm not just from running here but also from when Scorpius kissed him.

“I- no,” he says, shifting his head back an inch. “No, I was flying.”

“All day?”

Albus shrugs. “I was hungover. I didn’t wake up until the afternoon, and then I wanted to clear my head. Please can I get changed?”

Delphi stands there for a moment longer, then she steps aside, and Albus exhales and puts his bag down. He pulls his t-shirt off and starts rummaging around for his racing clothes. Usually he checks and double checks his kit before he leaves but today he didn’t have the time or brain power. He never fancies the idea of racing in his jeans and t-shirt, that’s practically asking for his shoulder to be in excruciating pain for the next week.

“I don’t believe you,” Delphi says after a few moments of silence. “I think you’re lying to me.”

Albus sighs and stops searching for his clothes. “I didn’t come to the training ground, but I still wanted to fly. I like flying. That was how I spent my afternoon.”

“So you didn’t?” Delphi asks, pausing halfway across the room and glancing back at him. “See Scorpius?”

He can feel the dragon-skin of his jacket beneath his fingertips. At least he packed that. Despite that kiss there’s some part of his brain was still functioning when he left his house. He pulls it out of his bag, along with the shirt he wears while he’s racing, and starts pulling it on.

“I want you to look me in the eye and promise me you’re telling the truth,” Delphi says.

Albus very slowly buttons up the front of his jacket and looks down at his bag. His racing trousers have surfaced now too, thank goodness. He’s not going to have to burn to a crisp.

He kicks his shoes off and wriggles out of his jeans, very aware that Delphi is watching him. He can feel her eyes burning into his back, and even though he’s not shy and he’s got changed in front of her hundreds of times before, it’s still not completely comfortable. But he’d rather she be watching him change than hexing him.

“I told you,” he says, glancing over his shoulder but not looking at her. “I went flying.” He squirms his way into the tight trousers and starts buttoning them up.

“I still don’t believe you.” She’s sitting on the opposite side of the changing room now. He can see her out of the corner of his eye. The distance between them feels like a vast chasm. Normally, whether she’s angry with him or pleased with him she’s at least close by, but now there’s a coldness to the distance, and it makes him feel guilty.

He finishes getting his trousers on, buckles his belt, and turns to face her, knowing there’s no avoiding it. Despite the brightness of the room, and the gleaming gold fixtures that send light bouncing and dancing through the space, her eyes are still dark as he meets them across the distance.

“I-“

He doesn’t get chance to even think of telling another lie before she’s in his head. She hasn’t done this many times before, but she‘s done it often enough that Albus was expecting it. Expectation doesn’t mean he’s prepared though. A sensation of floating overcomes him. He feels powerless inside his own head, and he can feel her flicking through his memories, perusing them at her leisure. It makes his head ache, and he lifts his hands up to claw at his temples, but there’s no way of getting her out.

He sees himself waking up to nausea and an excruciating headache. Then he’s making breakfast in the kitchen and discovering that he doesn’t really feel sick, he’s just starving hungry. He’s stepping out of his upstairs window and flying up into the blue sky. There are clouds around him and the odd bird. The rolling hills are below him and the air is fresh and smells sweet. He dips down to see where he’s got to and discovers that he’s flown arrow straight, right to a familiar little village with a pond in the middle of the green, and a pair of houses on the outskirts, one tall and held up by magic, the other with climbing roses trailing round the front door and two people in the garden and tears well up in Albus’s eyes, and-

And Albus realises that even if he only visited them inadvertently, Delphi knowing he’s been to see his parents is far far worse than her knowing he’s kissed Scorpius. She already knows he’s met Scorpius again. Maybe she even knows how he feels about him. But she has no idea about today’s unfortunate excursion, and Albus is very much aware that if she found out she would incredibly disappointed and upset. It would be a betrayal of everything he’s ever promised her, and of their whole mantra. It would be the undoing of more than seven years of mutual trust. This lapse is something that she cannot know about under any circumstances.

“Fine,” he shouts as loudly as he can, trying to snap her out of his head.

She releases him and he collapses onto his hands and knees, breathing hard and massaging his forehead.

“Fine, I admit it. I had coffee with Scorpius.” Albus lifts his head and looks at her. “I didn’t know he was coming. We didn’t arrange it beforehand, but he noticed I wasn’t at the training ground today so he came to check I was okay.” He pushes himself upright so he’s sitting on his heels. “We got coffee because he knew I was hungover, and then we... we talked, about a lot of things, and then I realised I was late to come here so I left.”

Delphi is also rubbing her forehead and frowning at him. “That’s why you were upset? Because you had to leave?”

“What?” Albus manages to catch his breath and picks himself up off the floor. “I don’t think I was upset. I mean, I’d rather have stayed with him, but I know I’ll see him again. No, I was quite happy actually. I-“ He swallows. “I kissed him.”

Delphi’s head flies up from her hand. “Excuse me?”

Albus nods and despite the pain in his head a small smile blossoms across his lips. He can’t help it. “It was a really good kiss too. He’s almost too tall but not quite, and his lips are so-“

Delphi gets to her feet and walks towards him. “You kissed...” Delphi pauses for a moment, allowing the word to sink in, “Scorpius Malfoy?”

Albus grins and nods. “Yes, I did.”

Silence draws out between them as Delphi stares at him, and he realises that she’s lost for words. But despite not saying anything, he knows exactly how she feels about what he’s just told her, because her expression has turned to thunder again and her fingers are clenched so tightly into fists that her hands are shaking. And maybe her finding out about his parents would have hurt and disappointed her more, but her finding out about Scorpius isn’t brilliant either. Albus can already feel the waves of guilt rolling in, and his smile melts off his face.

“Delphi,” he says softly, getting to his feet. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have- I told you I’d be careful, and-“

She holds a hand up to stop him. “I don’t think you or I have anything to say to one another now.”

Albus bows his head. “I really am-“

“No.” She draws in a long breath, like she’s trying to stop herself from doing something she’ll regret, and that just makes Albus feel worse, because he shouldn’t be driving her to get so upset with him. He should be better than that.

“Sorry,” he murmurs.

“I think you have a race that you’re late for,” Delphi says in a frosty voice. “I’d hate for it to start without you. Go on.”

Albus nods and picks up his goggles and broom in silence, utterly crushed. He tries not to look at the colours of the changing room and the tunnel beyond as he walks out onto the pitch; thinking of Scorpius is the last thing he needs. He tries not to even hear the crowd roaring as he steps into the golden wash of light in the stadium, because he doesn’t deserve their adulation, he doesn’t deserve anything right now. If he’s going to make up for this he’s going to have to win, and win big. Thankfully, winning is something he’s quite good at.

At the end of the evening, Albus sits on one of the tables in the medical room, pressing a cool, salve-dampened cloth to his left shoulder. It’s only a very minor burn, not normally even worth paying attention to, but given his history he’s trying to treat it carefully. The most important thing, though, is that it didn’t stop him winning every single race he took part in over the course of the night, from the carnage of the 32 racer mass start elimination race, right down to the final four. He’s come away the undisputed champion, and if that doesn’t convince Delphi to stop being angry with him then nothing will.

He lifts the cloth to inspect his shoulder and sees that although his skin is still a little bit pink there’s not much lasting damage. There’s no point sitting here tending to an injury that barely counts as an injury, and anyway, he wants to get home. He also desperately wants to find Delphi.

Privately he’d been hoping she’d be concerned enough by his injury to come and find him in the medical room, but maybe she’s so mad at him that she doesn’t care about his physical well-being at the moment. Or maybe she’s busy. She’s just secured two new sponsors after all; perhaps she’s entertaining them up in one of the suites.

He weaves his way through the busy underbelly of the stadium, and a few people pat him back or congratulate him as he passes. For all he’s been away, and as much as it’s a competitive league, everyone’s still friendly – they have to be when their whole lives are spent training and racing together.

“Good work tonight, Sev,” Jamal says, holding his hand up for a high five as he passes. He’s come second all evening, and he seems quite pleased about it. When Albus is as unstoppable as he was today, second is a good place to be.

“Have you seen Delphi?” he asks briefly clasping Jamal’s hand.

Jamal nods and points up the tunnel. “She’s on the pitch. I bet she’ll be thrilled with you.”

“Thanks,” Albus says with a somewhat lacklustre smile, worried that it doesn’t matter how good his flying was. He hurries up the tunnel towards the pitch and out into the gathering dusk. The quicker he finds her and gets this over with, the better.

Even though the pitch is crowded with people it doesn’t take him long to find Delphi. She’s walking down the stairs from one of the boxes with a triumphant look on her face – not a smile, she doesn’t smile much, but an expression of grim satisfaction. She’s in a much better mood now, that’s plain to see, so this is the perfect time to talk to her.

He jogs through the crowd and blocks her at the bottom of the stairs. “Delphi!”

“Sev,” she says, and her tone is considerably brighter than it had been last time they’d spoken. She’s not being cold anymore, and that’s a good start.

“Is this a good time to talk to you?” He asks.

She pauses on the step above him, so she’s just a touch taller than he is, and scrutinises him. “Are you going to apologise for earlier?” She asks.

Albus nods. “Of course I am. I didn’t-“

She holds a hand up to stop him. “I may have been a little irritable before, you were late, after all, and you did technically lie to me, but-“ He opens his mouth to interrupt and she makes a ‘shut up’ gesture at him. “But, I’m not really angry. A bit disappointed, and I think you could make better decisions, but I’m not mad at you. And you flew very well in front of your new sponsors so I’ll let you off.” She gives him a gesture to speak and folds her arms, watching him intently.

He takes a step up the stairs, so he’s on the same level as her, and he rests his hand on the bannister next to hers. “I did want to say sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have lied to you. And I also wanted to give you this.” He holds his hand out to her and opens his palm up to show her the small, glittering medallion he’s received for winning the evening’s final. “I flew for you tonight. I fly for you every night. And I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Delphi reaches out and brushes her fingers over the surface of the medallion, then she picks it up and inspects it. Finally she looks up at him. “Why are you giving me this? You won it. It’s yours.”

Albus shrugs. “Because I love you, and I wanted you to have something to remind you of that.”

Delphi stares at him, fingers slowly closing round the medallion. “Okay...”

Albus takes a breath and presses on. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t love Scorpius too, though. I do. I really do. And I can’t promise that I won’t see him again. He makes me happy.”

“Don’t I make you happy?” Delphi asks, rolling the medallion over in her hand.

Albus sighs. “You both do. In different ways.” He withdraws his hand from the bannister and tucks it into the pocket of his trousers. “I don’t need to choose between you, Delphi. I don’t want to. I want you both. I love you both. So I’m going to keep seeing him, and I hope that’s okay. If it’s not, then...” He shrugs. “It needs to be okay. And I’ll care about you none the less because I care about him.” He pauses, looking at her, waiting for a reaction, and when he doesn’t get one beyond her staring at him in stunned confusion he cuts his losses and steps in to kiss her on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon. Goodnight, Delphi.” He waits another second for her to say something or call him back, then he turns and walks away.

Albus wakes up to an aching shoulder and a hollow, heavy feeling in his stomach. He lies flat on his back and stares up at the ceiling. Everything that happened yesterday floods his brain in an overwhelming stream, and he struggles to make sense of how he feels about it.

First, he said all those things to Delphi. It’s not often that he truly speaks his mind around her – most of the time it’s not worth his while to stand his ground and argue with her – but Scorpius is worth fighting for. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel weird about the confrontation – Delphi is everything to him, and laying down an ultimatum that might mean he loses her is terrifying – but he doesn’t regret a word of what he said. Not yet, anyway. That might change with her reaction.

Second, there was Scorpius. Talking to Scorpius. Kissing Scorpius. Kissing Scorpius. A slow grin spreads across Albus’s face, and he covers his face with his hands and digs his toes into the mattress as he lets himself remember how good it felt.

Last night he didn’t have time to reflect on it, but now... Now he’s alone, safe in his own house, with an empty day stretching out ahead of him. Now he can lie here and luxuriate in every tiny detail of the kiss: the softness of Scorpius’s lips, the warmth and sweetness left behind by his tea, the delicate brush of his fingers, the depth of colour in his eyes, the tremble in his voice when he’d told Albus to go for his race...

Albus sinks into the memories and gets lost there. It isn’t until almost an hour later, when he’s showered and dressed and pulled himself together a bit, that he remembers the third thing that had happened yesterday.

His parents.

He sits down on the edge of his bed and stares across at the window. For so many years he’s sat there, gazing out at the rolling hills and the distant lights, wondering what they’re doing. He’s lost track of time as he’s wondered whether they miss him, whether they’re searching for him, whether they even still talk about him. Sometimes, on the particularly dark and painful nights, he’s dreamed of flying out of the window and going to find them. Even if the idea of seeing his dad is too panic-inducing to contemplate, he would give anything to speak to his mum again. He’d give up his career in a heartbeat if he had to. In a very secret inner part of his heart, he even thinks he’d give up Delphi, not that that’s a decision she’d ever let him make.

And now, on this beautiful, sunshine flooded morning when he might already have lost Delphi, there is absolutely nothing to stop him going to see her.

This week his heart is open. This week his life is changing. Scorpius is back, he dared to finally fly to Ottery St Catchpole yesterday, why not just another step further? If the future is his to make, why not have his mum in that future too, sooner rather than later?

In a moment of sheer madness he glances at the clock. His heart pounds hard in his chest as he realises his dad will already be at work, but he knows there’s a big Quidditch match tonight – that’s why there are no races today – and his mum goes into the office late on match days. Sometimes she doesn’t even go at all. If there’s a good time to catch her, it’s now.

He gets to his feet, grabs his broom, and strides across the room before his brain catches up with what he’s doing. He slides the window open and pauses on the ledge, staring down at the drop then up at the blue sky then out at the heather grey hills beyond, shadowed by scudding clouds and bright sunshine.

The future is mine to make.

He steps out into the void, and for an instant he‘s free falling, stomach swooping, then his broom catches him and he’s soaring upwards. Free and hopeful. Flying.

He skims through the clouds, moisture dampening his hair and clothes, but it’s a warm enough day that he doesn’t mind – he dries out fast enough through the sunny stretches. As he flies he tries not to think too much. He doesn’t want his brain to process what he’s doing, and he doesn’t want to start trying to plan what he’s going to say when he finds his mum. If he does that then he’ll panic and turn straight round and fly back the way he’s come.

Several times he dips beneath the clouds to check where he is, too nervous to stay up high in case he misses the village altogether. Not once does he recognise any of the villages he’s flying over, and he’s just beginning to wonder whether he’s gone off course when one final foray down to check out his surroundings shows him the familiar sight of Ottery St Catchpole.

He grips his broom handle tight with both hands and tries to draw in deep breaths past the stinging, breathtaking cold of the wind on his face. He’s shaking, both from the cold and from the adrenaline rush of what he’s about to do. Broom racing is one sort of jeopardy, but this is definitely worse. It’s difficult to keep the broom steady as he descends because he’s so tense and trembling, but he manages to touch down in a field near his parents’ house, and he doesn’t think any Muggles see him, so that’s about the best he can do. Now he just has to make himself walk up to his parents’ house, knock on the door, and say hello.

It’s easy, he tells himself. It’s fine. She’s just your mum. You know how to talk to your mum.

But what if Dad’s there too? Another little voice inside him pipes up. You definitely don’t know how to talk to him.

He won’t be, the other more soothing, sensible part of him replies. He’s at work. It’s fine. She’s your mum. You love her. It’ll be easy when you get started.

Easy or not, by the time he’s passed the entrance to the Burrow and is halfway past the orchard, almost at the edge of his parents’ yard, he feels sick. His stomach is lurching like he’s trying to fly in a gale. His hands are shaking so hard he has to stuff them into his pockets to keep them still. He keeps his head down and tries to breathe, to reassure himself, to make himself keep walking.

Even though he hasn’t been here in years, his feet find their way to the garden gate even when his brain is otherwise occupied with freaking out, and he pushes it open before he’s given himself time to think. The gate squeaks, and he freezes at the end of the path towards the house as he spots his mum just across the lawn, levitating an enormous metal watering can that’s sprinkling water onto the vegetable patch outside the kitchen door. Last time Albus saw that vegetable patch it was still just a bit of brown earth and a dream inside his dad’s head. Now it’s blooming, a riot of colour in the summer sun.

Captivated, all his self-preservation instincts having deserted him, he walks across the lawn towards his mum and opens his mouth to say something, whatever comes to mind first, but he doesn’t get the chance.

As he approaches she glances up, apparently noticing there’s an intruder in her garden.

“Hello,” she says. “Can I help y-“ Her eyes go wide and the watering can drops out of midair and onto the ground with a clang that makes Albus flinch, but Ginny doesn’t seem to hear it. She stares at him, and keeps staring.

Finally, he swallows. “H-hi, Mum.”

Her hands fly to her face and she covers her mouth. “Albus,” she breathes. Then she starts walking, holding her hands out to him. “Albus. Albus.” She doesn’t seem to know what else to say, and he doesn’t know what to say either, but he gives her a shaky smile.

“I-I missed you,” he murmurs. And then he discovers that he can’t keep himself together anymore. In an instant tears overwhelm him, and he buries his face in his hands as he starts to sob.

She’s there straight away. Her arms close around him, just as warm and solid as they had when he was sixteen years old and he said goodbye to her for the last time on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. He’s a lot taller now, taller than her, so he’s not swamped by her hug anymore, but it’s still good. It’s still everything he’s been needing and wanting for so long. He grasps fistfuls of her jumper and clings to her as he buries his face in her shoulder and cries like he hasn’t done since he was a child.

She’s crying too, he realises. Somehow he’s curled himself up so she can litter his hair with kisses, and he can already feel how damp it’s getting, not that he cares. He doesn’t care about anything now. Nothing can hurt him, there’s nothing to worry about; his mum’s here. He’s safe. He’s home.

“Sweetheart,” his mum whispers, voice trembling. “My baby boy. You’re here. You’re alive. You’re-“ She brushes her fingers over his hair, and he wishes he hadn’t cut it so recently, because he remembers how she used to run her fingers through his hair when she hugged him, and he wishes she could do that now. “You’re really here.”

“I am here,” he breathes in reply, and she hugs him harder.

The longer and tighter his mum holds him, the better he feels. There’s a warmth spreading through him, and an intense comfort. He feels whole in her arms. He feels like himself. With her here he can simply exist, there’s no expectation to be anyone or anything except her son. Now he knows she’s not angry at him; that she’s simply happy to have him back, he’s aware of how pure and unconditional her love is. It’s everything he’s been missing, and it’s such a welcome relief that he bursts into a fresh wave of tears. It feels as though all the weight of the world has been lifted from him.

Finally, his mum draws in a deep shuddering breath and holds him at arm’s length, her hands on his shoulders. She smiles at him, and it’s warm and bright even though her eyes are red and her cheeks are stained with tears.

“Hello,” she says.

He smiles back, wiping his eyes on his back of his hands. “Hi.”

“Look at you.” She squeezes his shoulders and starts examining him. “You’ve got so tall. You’re taller than me.”

“Finally,” he says with a snuffly little laugh.

“And you look so... you look like your uncle Bill,” she says, skimming her fingers over his pierced ears.

He lifts his hand to his ear and follows the path her fingers have just brushed over. “Do I?”

She grins and her eyes sparkle in the sunshine. “You do. You look far cooler than I ever could have hoped to be.”

“But you’re Ginny Potter,” Albus says, dropping his hand back to his side. “No one’s cooler than you.”

She laughs. “I won’t tell anyone that you just admitted you think I’m cool. I’d hate to damage your street cred.” She runs her fingers over his head next, examining his hair. “It’s so short,” she says softly. “You had such beautiful hair.”

Albus pulls a face and shifts his head away. “When it’s long it looks just like-“

“Your father’s,” She says, with a knowing nod. Her fingers trace down to his jaw, and she lifts his chin by an inch so she can examine his face. He blinks and turns his head away, not wanting her to see, but he can’t hide anything from her.

“And your eyes,” she says. “Albus.”

“I’d rather they looked like yours,” he mutters, bowing his head. “And I didn’t want anyone to recognise me. I didn’t want to be found.”

His mum withdraws her hands, so for the first time since she started hugging him there’s a physical distance between them. Albus can’t stand it. He reaches out for her hand, and she lets him take it and lift it to his shoulder, where it rests, her fingers grazing over the skin of his neck. It’s better knowing that she could draw him back into a hug if she wanted to. He wants more hugs, but he doesn’t know how to start them or ask for them. He certainly doesn’t want her to let go of him. Not now. Not ever again.

“But you’re here,” she says, in a soft, uncertain voice. “If you don’t want to be found, why are you here now?”

“It feels different if I let myself be found,” he explains. “I think. I don’t know. I’m... I’m trying some new things out.”

His mum looks him right in the eye, and for the first time she looks broken and desperate, and a little bit lost. It’s shocking in a way, because he’s never before in his life seen her look like that. “This can’t be something you’re trying out,” she says, gesturing between the two of them. “I hope you know that. I’m not letting you disappear again, Albus. We spent years searching for you. We were worried you were-“ She swallows, and her grip tightens on his shoulder. “I know things were hard, I know there was so much that wasn’t working, and I-“ She breaks off as tears well up in his eyes. She sniffs and brushes them away, even though they’re starting to trickle down her cheeks and drip off her nose and chin. “I’m sorry I didn’t do enough to help you stay. But that’s not going to happen again. I will do whatever it takes to help you feel comfortable here again, Albus. I will do anything to help you feel part of this family, because-“ Her voice goes high-pitched as the tears start to overwhelm her, and she hides her face behind one hand for a moment, taking several breaths, her shoulders rising and falling as she tries to control herself. Finally she withdraws her hand and looks at him. “Because you are. We need you, we want you. We love you, understand me?”

Albus chokes back tears and nods, his vision blurred so he can barely make her out anymore. She’s just a smudge of red hair and soft turquoise jumper. “I-I understand.”

“Good,” she says, voice breaking, and now she pulls him into another hug, and he holds onto her as tight as he can, hoping that that will show her that he doesn’t want to lose her again; that he doesn’t think he can.

They cling to each other for another minute, Albus getting lost in her warmth, the softness of her jumper beneath his fingers, the gentle floral scent of her perfume, the soothing beat of her heart. When they finally part, she doesn’t move far away. There are still just inches between them, and Albus suspects that after all this time it’s painful for both of them to be any further apart. He suspects she’s worried that if she moves any further away he’ll slip through her fingers and vanish into thin air, and he doesn’t have the words to reassure her that that will never happen. Not now. Not ever again. He doesn’t know how to tell her that he needs her with everything he has.

“Will you come inside?” She asks. “I can make tea. I want to hear everything about your life. I’ve missed out on so much.”

Albus looks over her shoulder at the kitchen door and his heart skips a beat. His chest gets tighter just thinking about going inside, especially into his dad’s space – the kitchen has always belonged to his dad most of all – and he grips his mum’s arm and tries to steady himself. “I don’t want to go inside,” he whispers. “Not yet. I... I’m really sorry, Mum. I can’t- I’m not ready.”

She looks at him, and he knows she sees his fear. He’s good at hiding so many of his emotions, even from her, but this one is too much to keep to himself.

“Alright,” she says gently, leaning across and planting a kiss on his forehead. “We can sit out here, it’s a nice day. Would you like tea?”

He nods vigorously. There’s nothing he wants more in the world than a cup of his mum’s tea. “Yes please.”

They sit on the narrow doorstep, pressed side by side to make room for them both, and they sip their cups of tea as they watch the summer breeze stir the green leaves and bright flowers of Harry’s vegetable patch. A couple of gnomes dash across the yard, giggling maniacally, and the cat chases after them. It’s a peaceful, idyllic afternoon, and Albus breathes in the mingling scent of sweet-peas and bergamot.

“So where do you live now?” His mum asks finally. “Do you live alone?”

“I have a house,” Albus replies. “In Bristol. I don’t want to say where, but... it’s nice. It has a nice view. I actually got it because I knew I could fly straight here from it.”

His mum smiles and looks at him. “Do you do a lot of flying?”

Albus nods. “It’s sort of my job. I-I’m good at it. Not as good as you, but... I think I’m better than Dad.”

“What sort of flying do you do?” She asks, expression soft and bright with curiosity.

“Broom racing,” He says, taking a sip of tea.

“Not the illegal sort?” She asks, tone suddenly sharp and stern. When he bows his head she exhales and sets her tea down on the ground. “Albus... It’s dangerous. Is this what you’ve been doing the whole time?”

He glances at her. “I like it. I’m good at it. It pays well. And I’m still alive.” He shoots her a nervous little smile. “Mostly.”

“Merlin,” she breathes, and he nudges her gently on the arm.

“I really am okay. I promise. I’m being careful.”

“Is it possible to be careful with that sort of racing?” She asks, giving him a hard look.

“Well, no,” he admits, “but I’m more careful than some people. I race in full dragon-hide for starters, and...” He trails off, knowing he’s not going to convince her. “I’m sorry, Mum.”

She pats his hand. “It’s okay. Tell me about something else. Are there any other dangerous activities you enjoy that I need to worry about?”

He smiles sheepishly. “I don’t think so. Other than that I try to behave myself...”

“Good,” she says. “That’s something at least. What about friends, partners? Is there anyone looking out for you?”

“My manager,” Albus says. “Delphi. She’s my best friend I suppose. And as for partners...” He trails off and a smile spreads across his face. His mum beams and nudges him.

“And as for partners?”

He ducks his head, cheeks heating up. “It’s not exactly official or anything, but I um... I-I’ve been seeing Scorpius a lot recently.”

His mum blinks. “Scorpius Malfoy?”

He nods and grins. “Right. Him.” He pauses for a moment to give her time to react, but when she doesn’t he goes on talking. “I only met him again a couple of days ago – did you know he’s working for Dad? But we’ve been talking and seeing each other, and...” He shrugs. “And I really really like him. Still. More than ever.”

As he watches, his mum’s beaming smile seems to fade a little. He doesn’t understand why though, she’s never had a problem with Scorpius before. He shifts an inch away from her so he can twist round to look at her properly.

“Is it a problem?” He asks. “Me and Scorpius?”

“No,” she says quickly, squeezing his hand. “Not at all. I’m not even surprised. But a lot has happened while you’ve been away, and...” She looks at him, and he knows she’s trying to read him, but he doesn’t know what she’s looking for. “I’m sure Scorpius will tell you everything when he’s ready. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Are you sure?” He asks, wondering whether he really should be worried.

She nods. “I promise. So, you and Scorpius?” Her smile blossoms again. “How is that?”

Albus sighs and melts against her side. “Wonderful. He’s wonderful. I love him, Mum. He’s even better than I remember.”

She wraps an arm round his shoulders. “Go on.”

He looks across at the vegetable patch, trying to work out how to put it. “You know how when you haven’t seen someone for a long time you build them up in your head? All I remembered of Scorpius were the good bits. The best bits. He was perfect in my head. And then I met him again and he really is that perfect. I mean, no one’s perfect, but he’s... He’s Scorpius. And it feels so easy with him. Everything is so easy. It feels right. He makes me feel like I’m home. He’s- he’s why I’m here today actually.”

His mum squeezes his shoulder. “Is he?”

“Yes he-“ He breaks off as her fingers close just a little too tightly on his burned shoulder, and he twists sharply away, breaking out of her grip and rubbing at his shoulder with his right hand.

“Albus, are you-“ She eyes him carefully. “Are you injured?”

He shakes his head, apparently so quickly that he looks suspicious, because she edges off the step and kneels in front of him.

“Please let me look at you,” she says. “I might be able to help.”

He brushes her away. “It’s fine, honestly. It’s nothing. I’ve had worse.”

“That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” she says, reaching out for his shoulder. “Please let me see. If it’s nothing then there’s nothing to hide.”

He doesn’t know what to do. On the one hand, she’s his mum, and if he trusts anyone to look at his scars and say the right things, maybe even help, then it’s her. On the other hand, she’s his mum and this isn’t the sort of thing he’s ever liked revealing to his parents. For several seconds he weighs up the options, but eventually the fact that she might just be able to help wins out, and he peels off his jacket to reveal the sleeveless shirt he’s wearing underneath, and the long section of skin that’s marred by scarring and ink.

The angry red of his latest burn mingles with the deeper, ember dark red of the old scars, running all the way down from his shoulder to his elbow. It looks worse than he’d expected, and he’s used to it. He can’t imagine what it looks like to his mum who’s never seen it before.

She shifts forward on her knees, reaching out to take hold of his wrist so she can keep him steady while she inspects his arm. She’s utterly silent, but her face says everything. Abject horror is written across every inch of it. Her eyes are wide and she seems to have been struck speechless. She grazes her fingers lightly up his arm, touch barely whispering across his skin, and when she gets to the new burn, his flinch finally breaks her silence.

“Sorry,” she whispers. She looks up at him. “How did this happen? This is really... really really not good.”

“I got a bit too friendly with some Fiendfyre,” Albus says. “Occupational hazard, you know.” He gives her a grim smile, and she shakes her head.

“Did you ever see anyone about this? Did you go to St Mungo’s, or... anywhere?” She looks up at him.

“It’s a bit difficult to go to St Mungo’s when you don’t want to be found,” Albus says, gently easing his arm from her grip and covering it up with his jacket. “I’ve been dealing with it. It’s not great but it could be worse.” He meets her eyes, and tries to ignore the pain and fear there. “Mum, when we were little you used to make that stuff, you know the really good stuff that you’d put on burns and things. That cream or whatever it was.”

His mum sits back on her heels. “I think this is beyond the help of cream, Albus.”

He sighs. “Humour me. Please?”

She eyes him for a moment. “Let me see it again? Don’t worry, I won’t tell you off. I just want to look.”

He hesitates before shrugging his jacket off once more. This time she’s far more matter of fact about the whole thing, and spends more time examining the swirling tattoos that circle and twist their way down his arm than she does looking at the burns.

“Did you get these before or after you got burned?” She asks, tracing her finger over part of the pattern.

“After,” he says. “I thought I could cover them up, or...”

“They’re nice,” she murmurs. “They’re beautiful.”

“I have another one on my back too,” he tells her. “On my shoulder blade. Some wings. To remind me that the future is mine to make.”

His mum smiles and glances up at him. “I like that sentiment.” She gets to her feet. “I think I actually do have some of that burn stuff,” she says thoughtfully. “Not much, but if you won’t let me take you to St Mungo’s-“

“No,” Albus says, as adamantly as possible.

“Then it’s better than nothing,” Ginny says with a nod. “I’ll be back in a second.”

She disappears into the house through the kitchen door, and Albus sits and waits for her for a minute or so before she’s been gone long enough that he gets curious.

He gets to his feet and stands in the doorway, peering through into the kitchen. His dad’s domain is just the way he remembers it. Everything is identical: the pots and pans hung in the same way by the stove, the mugs stacked the same way on the mug tree, the pots of herbs thriving on the window ledge, the vast rack of multi-coloured spices that Albus used to sit and smell for hours. The kitchen table is the same too, still pockmarked from years of familial wear and tear, right down to the char mark from when James had detonated three decks of Exploding Snap cards all at once and nearly set fire to the house.

Grinning, Albus steps over the threshold and re-enters his home. It’s just as warm and bright and airy as he remembers. It still smells of home in that way that no other building does – it smells of his dad’s cooking, and the climbing roses whose scent comes wafting in on the summer breeze, and most of all it smells neutral. Normal. Familiar. Albus leans his hands on the back of the chair he always sits in for meals and inhales.

“There’s only one pot left unfortunately,” Ginny says as she comes striding back into the kitchen. “But I can make more, especially if-“ She stops when she sees that Albus has moved. “Hello.”

He looks down at himself, and only when he realises that his feet are on the tiled kitchen floor, and that he’s very definitely inside the house, does he look up. “Hi,” he says. “Is it alright for-“

“This is your home,” his mum says. “Of course you can be in here. Now sit down and let me sort your shoulder out.” She draws her wand and gestures for him to take a seat. He doesn’t need telling twice.

He sits in his own chair at the dining table, which still creaks just the way he remembers. It’s still as comfortable as he remembers too, and he leans back as his mum starts working on his arm.

Her magic is soothing and gentle. She’s doing something that numbs the burns and diminishes their aggravated red to a pink that’s only just a little bit darker than his normal skin tone. The pain subsides more thoroughly than it has in years, and Albus closes his eyes and luxuriates in how good it feels. There’s no better Healer in the world than his mum. Her care and attention, the warm familiarity of her magic, helps just as much as any spell a professional might use on him.

His eyes fly open when he realises she’s been massaging the burn cream into his skin for several seconds already without him noticing. The urge to pull his arm away is almost too much to bear, but he makes himself stay still and take deep breaths. He hasn’t let anyone else touch his scars since he came round properly after getting burned. But if he’s happy for anyone to do it then it’s her.

“They’re so hot,” she murmurs, pressing the back of her hand to his skin. “Are they always like this?”

“It comes and goes,” he says, voice shaking because he’s so tense and on edge. He clenches his fingers into fists and braces himself against the chair. “It’s- it’s the Fiendfyre. It never really goes away. It sort of... keeps burning you forever...”

She swallows and nods, and gives his arm one final inspection before releasing it and looking up at him. “Well,” she says with a wavering but cheerful smile. “It looks a lot better now.”

“It feels a lot better,” he agrees, twisting his shoulder round so he can have a look, then sliding his arms back into his jacket. “Thank you.”

She pats his knee and gets to her feet. “That’s alright.” She picks up the mugs from the kitchen table and starts bustling around the kitchen, tidying up. He watches her for a second, then feels bad about sitting there and letting her do all the work, so he gets up too, and starts running a basin of water so he can do the washing up.

“So... what’s been happening here since I... you know... left?” Albus asks, trailing his fingers in the water to check the temperature, then squirting in a spray of washing up liquid so the water fills with clouds of white bubbles.

His mum pauses with her back to him, resting her hands on the back of the chair in front of her. Her head is bowed, and there’s a tension to the way she’s standing. Maybe that was the wrong question to ask, Albus reflects, and he opens his mouth to retract it or change it, but his mum gets there first.

“It hasn’t exactly been easy,” she says, so softly he almost doesn’t hear over the sound of the running water. “We thought that you’d- We didn’t know what had happened. Scorpius couldn’t tell us anything.” She turns to face him. “You disappeared, and we had no idea... You could have been anywhere. You could have been dead.” She takes a step towards him. “Your dad scoured every inch of the country personally to try and find you, and when he couldn’t he did it all again. Your case is still open. I know it is. Even though there was no trace of you anywhere he couldn’t close it. He couldn’t admit that you might be gone forever.”

“I’m here now,” Albus whispers. He turns the tap off and looks at her for a moment, but there’s so much pain in her expression that he can’t stand to look at her, so he grabs the nearest mug and starts washing it as thoroughly as he can.

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” he says, focusing on the movements of his hands and on keeping hold of the slippery china. “I didn’t have anywhere to go. I wanted to... I wanted to stop failing everyone. You, Dad, Scorpius, the teachers, myself. I didn’t want to be a disappointment anymore. I wanted to fit somewhere.”

“You were never a disappointment, Albus.” His mum is right behind him now, he can feel her hovering by his shoulder, but he still doesn’t look up.

“I was rubbish at magic,” he says, setting the mug down in the sink and ticking the ways he was a failure off in his fingers. “I was terrible in all my classes. I kept getting into trouble. There were all those bullies. I couldn’t fly properly and I hated Quidditch. I did horribly on my O.W.L.s. I got put in Slytherin right at the start. I was angry all the time. I didn’t fit in, not at home or at school...” He glances up at his mum. “I was a useless son, a worse brother, and Scorpius deserved a better friend. You all deserved so much better. A-and I wanted more. I wanted a future where I didn’t have to be Albus Severus Potter. Where I didn’t have all those expectations and I could work out who I was for myself. That’s why I ran away.”

“You were not a useless son,” his mum says, tone low and shaky. “Albus, you were not. And you’re still not now.”

Albus looks down at the murky, frothy washing up water. “Does Dad agree with that?”

“Yes,” his mum says, taking another step forward so she’s right beside him. He can see her out of the corner of his eye. “Yes, he does.”

Albus snorts and picks up the next mug, clattering it into the sink and throwing water everywhere as he washes it with far too much ferocity.

“Your dad loves you,” Ginny says. “Very much. I know things were difficult between you but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. Not being able to communicate and not loving are two very different things.”

“He communicated just fine with James and Lily,” Albus mutters. “But then there was me. The weird, rubbish Slytherin. Not a proper Potter. Just Albus.”

Ginny sighs. “That’s not what he-“

“Can we talk about something else?” Albus asks loudly, cutting her off. “What are James and Lily doing now?”

She walks away to collect some empty breakfast plates from the kitchen table, and to fetch their abandoned mugs from the doorstep. “James is working at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. He’s developed quite a head for business actually. And Lily is at Gringotts. She’s a Curse Breaker. It’s comforting to know that almost all of my family are in potentially fatal professions.”

Albus isn’t sure how to take that comment, but when he twists round to look at her, he sees a smile on her face, and realises it was meant to be a joke. “I suppose I haven’t helped that,” he says.

She shakes her head and her smile grows an inch. “Not really. One day I’ll get used to it.”

“So does Lily work abroad? Where is she now?”

“At the moment she’s not far away, just in Germany. But in a couple of weeks she’s starting a case in Peru. Sometimes it’s difficult to keep up. She should be home before she goes, though.” His mum looks at him and a spark of hope kindles in her eyes. “I know she’d love to see you. Maybe you can come and have dinner when she’s here.”

Albus sets a plate in the drying rack and looks around at the kitchen, imagining it full of the happy hubbub of conversation and the delicious smells of dinner. The idea is a little overwhelming, but at the same time he can’t think of anything he wants more than to sit down in the kitchen with his mum and sister and brother. He’d even take his dad if he agreed to cook.

“I-I think I’d like that,” he says. “I think I’d like that very much.”

His mum beams at him. “I’ll let you know when she’ll be around and we can put something in the diary.”

“Okay,” Albus says, giving her a smile. There’s a tiny flutter of nerves in the pit of his stomach, but he thinks they’re excited nerves. They don’t feel like pure dread.

His mum doesn’t stop smiling after that. She brings over the last couple of plates and plants a kiss on the back of his head, squeezing his shoulders. “Thank you for helping with the dishes. You didn’t have to.”

Albus smiles. “I have seven years of washing up rotas to catch up on. I have to start now or I’ll be on washing up duty until I die.”

She wraps her arms round him at that and squeezes him tight. “You’re such a good boy. And we really did miss you. All of us. Terribly. I don’t think you left any of our thoughts for a second.”

Albus dries his hands on a tea towel and closes them over hers. “That’s why I have to make up for all the washing up I missed. It’s the least I can do.” He squeezes her hands, then releases her and starts drying the dishes. She doesn’t let go of him while he does it.

“Albus,” she says softly, words whispering right by his ear.

“Yes, Mum?” He asks.

“When I say your dad loves you... I hope you know it’s true.”

He glances round at her and meets her eyes. “Is it?”

She nods. “He would have done anything, given anything, to bring you home. There were nights he refused to sleep. He had nightmares... he still does.” She looks Albus right in the eye. “He still thinks about all those arguments you two had,” she says. “He thinks about what he would have said and done differently if he had the chance. And I think – I really think – that he’d like chance to say sorry and start again.”

Albus wriggles round in her arms, so he’s facing her. “I tried to talk to him so many times, Mum. I didn’t want to fight. We didn’t when I was little, remember? But ever since Hogwarts started... I could never do or say anything right. It was always an argument with him. I don’t know what went wrong.”

She skims her hands gently down his arms. “I think he’d really like the chance to have another go. Seven years is a long time to reflect on everything. I think he hopes he’d do a better job now.”

Albus thinks back to the last time he’d seen his dad, just a couple of days after New Year’s Eve in his sixth year. His dad had turned up in his room and tried to help him pack. It was a nice enough gesture, but somehow it had all gone wrong. It had ended with another shouting match and his dad telling him to leave if he was so unhappy. And Albus had gone, storming out and locking himself in the freezing cold broom shed. He hadn’t come back into the house until his mum had come out at midnight, in the snow, and coaxed him back inside with hot chocolate. He’d cried himself to sleep in her arms and had slept the whole way to the station the next day. He’d slept on the train too, and most importantly he hadn’t said another word to his dad.

“I hope I’d do a better job too,” he murmurs. “I-I hope I’ve grown up a bit. I think I have...”

His mum takes his hands and squeezes them. “I think you have too.”

“It’s hard though,” he says softly, looking down at their linked hands. “The idea of seeing him again... it’s terrifying... I left to make things different, and what if I come back after all this time and nothing’s changed? I still remember how much it hurt when we fought. It made me feel like... I don’t know. I never fitted.” He looks up at his mum. “What happens if I changed my whole life and still don’t fit?”

“I don’t think it’s about fitting,” she says. “It’s about understanding. If you’re happy with how you are, if you have a life you’re satisfied with, then you don’t need to change it to fit in. We all need to work out how to embrace it.” She brushes her thumbs over the backs of his hands. “You are happy with your life, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t meet her eyes. The honest answer is that he doesn’t know anymore. Everything felt so satisfactory when it was just him and Delphi, but now he has Scorpius and his mum he’s beginning to see the gaps in his life. He misses his family, he’s missed Scorpius so much, racing has always been fun and an adrenaline rush but it’s hard work and it hurts; he can’t do it forever, but he doesn’t know what comes next. He’s been so busy trying to make his future right now that he’s never paused to think about what he wants from his life. Sometimes staying alive is such hard work that there’s no time for anything else.

“I want better O.W.L.s,” he says quietly. “And some N.E.W.T.s. Maybe. If I can get them. Then I could get a job that’s not, you know, that’s not so illegal... And I want Scorpius back, and you and James and Lily. Dad too. I don’t miss the fights but I miss him... It might be too much to ask, but I think if I had those things, even some of them, then I could be happy.”

His mum nods, her eyes sparkling too bright in the summer afternoon sun. “Well,” she says, and a tear trickles down her cheek and drips off her chin as she holds his hands tight. “You’ve got me. So I hope that’s a good step.”

His eyes sting as he looks at her, and within a couple of seconds she’s nothing more than a blurry outline as salty tears flood his vision. He sniffs and frees one of his hands so he can wipe the back of it across his eyes. “The best,” he chokes out, and she hugs him again.

#Harry Potter and the Cursed Child #Cursed Child #Cursed Child fic #Scorbus fic #Scorbus #Scorpius Malfoy #Albus Severus Potter #Draco Malfoy #Ginny Potter #Delphini Diggory #HPCC Fic #Keep The Secrets #My writing #Mine to Make #Mayhem to the nth degree

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cherry3point14 · 6 years ago

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Three men and a Mary

Pairing: John x Mary Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy stuff but mostly fluffy fluff. Word Count: 1,460 words. Square Filled: Pregnancy Summary: The story of bringing the brothers Winchester into the world. A/N: This is a fill for @spnfluffbingo also it’s literally pure fluff. It’s not my fault that because, with foresight, it also hurts.

2018 SPN Fluff Bingo Masterlist Ao3 link if you prefer.

Being pregnant the first time is a roller coaster ride on account of everything being new. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t also scary as hell. Especially with how much this baby kicks. At one point Mary asks the nurses if it’s normal, but they only smile sweetly and tell her that she’s got a little athlete in there. John agrees and wonders if they have the next Terry Bradshaw on their hands. Of course, he's thinking about throwing around a football with his son, not the bruises on her internal organs. She couldn’t complain though, besides the tiny feet working away at her, the pregnancy is textbook. Even as the holidays approach and she still can’t stand the smell of ham, it’s picture-perfect. No false starts or anything. Baby Dean, named for her mother, is born a cold morning in January and he pops out a week early at that. He's out so fast that hours later she quips that he didn’t like it in there. It’s her way of thanking whoever was watching over her for the quick delivery. For someone who had hunted the stuff of nightmares, the thing that had kept her awake at night was giving birth. As speedy as he was born Dean does have a big head. It's big enough that the Doctor feels the need to reassure them more than once that he’ll grow into it. It almost earns him the honor of being named for his grandfather, someone else renowned for their large head. But it’s his eyes that are his grandmothers. His eyes and his tufty golden hair the same as hers. The resemblance is uncanny and almost takes Mary's breath away. Like her mother is alive again but only with John’s square jaw. That’s how Deanna gets her namesake. It turns out Dean hadn’t been in a rush to get out, he was only getting restless to meet his parents, Mary in particular. Dean is a clingy baby. John calls him a mama’s boy but it’s soft and without an ounce of malice. He thinks his son, his son, must be pretty smart. If John had to choose between the two of them he’d pick her too. Dean spends entire days refusing to sleep anywhere else but resting on Mary’s chest. John comes home on more than one occasion to find her on the sofa with Dean snuggled in her arms. Her eyes would always light up at the sight of her husband, her escape. He’d return the smile only for it to become a knowing smirk when Mary begs him for a drink or a snack. It’s all very amusing to John who laughs and asks her why she doesn’t ween him out of it. He didn't build Dean a crib for nothing. Mary defends her baby boy with all the adoration of a new mother. She insists that he does sometimes before she gives up and melts into staring at her baby boy again. Her face still caught in amazement that this tiny pink thing is something they made together. She always finishes the conversation with the same whispered sigh, “he’s so peaceful here.” Looking at them both it’s hard for John to disagree, Mary looks pretty cozy herself. It’s months later when Summer arrives that she finally relents, forcing herself to endure Dean wailing until he learns to sleep in his room. It is a nice crib after all and once she gets her freedom back it’s hard to let go of it again. Except for the odd time when they're both exhausted and fall asleep together. That doesn’t count. Dean grows into a bouncy toddler. He’s a kid that at two years old is already fiercely protective of everyone around him. Mary sees it when her and John fight. Dean gravitates to comfort her even before he understands what’s happening as if her two years old can already read her like an open book. He’s also a little ball of sunshine. John teaches him to play ball and Mary teaches him to read. They think it evens out to a pretty well rounded little kid. Even with the increasing fights scattered throughout the years, Dean is such an angel that they decide to try for another. Neither of them wants Dean to be lonely but only Mary sees Dean’s face when he comes home from a playdate. Only Mary sees how much he longs for a permanent partner in crime. John always wanted two anyway. Both secretly hope it’ll fix them as well. Mary can’t remember who said pregnancy number two would be easier but she’ll later claim it was John’s terrible mistake. Baby number two doesn’t kick as much, that’s where the positives end. She swears that she shows earlier this time and her bump is bigger. John says that’s nonsense but it's the way Dean looks at her stomach with wonder in his wide green eyes that draws a smile. It’s bigger but she can live with it. The morning sickness? Not so much. With Dean, it had been a few times in the morning for four weeks, at most five. This time she’s lucky to stop feeling nauseous by noon, and it lasts well over a month until it finally fades after ten grueling weeks. John theorizes that it’s a girl on account of how fussy the second baby is. Mary does not find the joke amusing while she’s trying to find a dress to cover the beach ball she’s smuggling. Then April arrives and so does an unprecedented heat. Mary spends entire days not knowing which part of her body is sweating. Although even if she could tell she probably couldn't reach since she's now the size of a small car. By mid-April, she’s on bed rest but her childless neighbor two doors down comes every day to help her. Patty chases Dean around with the vigor Mary once possessed and Mary has to remind herself that she will again. Of course, Mary has no idea that baby number two will be two weeks late. The heat peaks on May 1st when she feels something familiar stir in her stomach. It’s already late afternoon and she’s suffered the sticky spring heat all day, but she still pinks with happiness. It's all about to be over. The hospital room is hotter than hell and she screams to that effect several times during her thirteen-hour labor. No amount of ice chips will do. John says maybe this one likes it in there too much, so she clamps down on his hand extra hard as a contraction hits. After two extra weeks and thirteen hours, she’s almost ready to kill someone and John Winchester is the only none medical person in the room. Somehow she resists and is duly rewarded because at six am on May 2nd he’s out. It’s another boy and he casts the same spell over John and Mary that Dean had four years before. She finally laughs, it doesn’t feel like she’s done that in weeks. And she runs a gentle hand over his tiny bald head telling John that he’s definitely a Sam. Later they bring in Dean who, despite the preparation, can’t seem to believe that the wriggling, hairless thing wrapped up in blankets is his baby brother. Or that it’s what was inside his mummy’s tummy anyway. Mary can see his confusion when Dean crawls next to her on the bed and rests his little hand on her middle with a childish frown. But John says the magic words, “Dean, this is your baby brother, Sam.” That’s when they see it. They see what their faces must have looked like hours ago. They see the moment Dean sets his eyes on Sam’s squishy little face and falls in love. Love is a big concept for a four-year-old, but he doesn’t need to understand it to feel it. He’s a big brother. Mary thinks only a monster wouldn’t tear up at the sight of Dean pressing a kiss to Sam’s forehead. Or that’s what she says watching them through blurred vision. John beams, proud, and ruffles Dean’s hair which leads to Dean asking if Sam will ever grow any. May 2nd, 1983 is the day the Winchesters become a complete unit. A whole. It’s the day they spend together in a hospital room with nothing but each other. Counting Sam’s toes while Dean asks every question his young mind can think of. For those few hours, there are none of the fights John and Mary have made it through, there’s none of the pain she’s suffered for nine and a half months. It’s just them, the Winchesters, and what they can only imagine will be forever.

#spnfluffbingo #spn #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #spn fanfic #dean winchester #sam winchester #john winchester #mary winchester #john x mary #do they have a ship name?#FLUFF #FWP #Fluff without plot #The title is funny because in Three Men and a Baby the baby was called Mary #ha getit?#THEY ONLY GET THIS FOR SIX MONTHS #first time I've written for SPN and it's not reader insert #go figure

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2paperairplanesswift · 7 years ago

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Once upon a time a 17 year old English girl fell in love with a talented but relatively unknown country singer by the name of Taylor Swift. PLOT TWIST: 11 years later she is one of the most successful artists in history and I just spent my Friday night hanging out with her at her house. Wanna know how this happened? I'm going to tell you my story. Get yourself comfy (maybe some cocoa or a nice sweater) and listen up. I don't claim to be the biggest Taylor Swift fan in the world, but like every Swiftie I would always like to think I am. I have loved Taylor for longer than I can remember and one of my biggest dreams in life has always been to meet her. On 3rd October 2017 I woke up around 5am as I do every morning, and I turned off my alarm and turned my internet on. I had a few notifications, Facebook messenger, twitter, tumblr....but then there was a DM? I never get twitter DM's, I'm not remotely interesting enough for anyone to want to speak to me, so who was this messaging me? Half asleep and with my eyes still adjusting to the light I opened the DM screen and saw the words 'Taylor Nation'. My whole body froze...that's not what is says is it? I rubbed my eyes and looked again...it was. I clicked on the message and read it quickly. I didn't really take it in, something about a Confidential Event. I dropped my phone onto my chest and looked at the ceiling trying to take in what I had just read. Was I having another Taylor dream ? Somehow I knew I wasn't - the last Taylor dream I had we were eating banana splits in an old railway carriage turned into a diner...i don't even like bananas. Somehow this seemed more plausible. I closed twitter and decided to ignore it for a second and look at my other notifications. There was a facebook message from my Swiftie friend Bethy telling me to have a good day and reminding me to keep my DMs on....wait, she had one to? I replied back saying 'I have, you too?' and for a solid hour we were messaging eachother in code without either of us admitting what we had received in text...but we both knew. I sent my details over to Taylor Nation and tried to get ready for work...putting my jeans on back to front, loading the laundry into the machine without adding the washing liquid, walking around my house doing things which usually came naturally but for some reason took extra effort and concentration...something I was lacking. It was another 10 hours before my DM was replied to saying they would contact me soon. Soon? How soon is soon? Bethy and I continued talking to eachother imagining what it could be. Would we be in a live stream? A music video? Are we being invited to a show? An interview? In the back of our minds we wanted it to be a secret session but it wouldn't be would it? People like us with a handful of followers whose idea of a great Friday night is to play Yahtzee while listening to Taylor Swift on repeat wouldn't get invited, would we? Luckily soon was only 3 hours and I got a call from a New York number. I was at my parents house so I ran up the stairs to take the call. Some other Swiftie friends in a group chat were messaging me about stuff and I was trying to pick up but notifications were sending my phone into meltdown. Eventually I managed to pick up...then hang up on Taylor Nation. Yes, I hung up on Taylor Swift's management group!!! (Sorry Ali). I tried to call back but it went to voice mail, so I sent them a DM and went for a wee. Ali called me again while I was on the toilet so I was nervously trying to finish peeing and then ran out to the top of the stairs to take the call. The signal in my parents house was awful and I kept shouting 'huh' and 'hello?' down the phone but Ali was so lovely. She told me I had been picked to be invited to a special event because I was a super fan and I could bring a +1. I knew Bethy was already going and I made a pact with Megan if ever we had an opportunity to meet Taylor we would take eachother. I hastily gave her Megan's details and then passed Alex's on to Bethy for her call before screaming at Alex to keep 13th October clear (for the record he is so difficult). On top of this I was also on holiday that day and so going to this event also meant cutting my holiday short...but this was Taylor Swift! I found out on Sunday 8th October that we had to meet at a hotel and would be shuttled to the location via bus. Unfortunately my bladder condition flared up on 10th October and I nervously contacted Taylor Nation for details of restroom facilities, scared I wouldn't be able to go. I cried as I waited for an email back but Taylor Nation were so lovely....you could tell they worked for Taylor. I went to the local Dr on holiday and got antibiotics and instructions for bedrest for the 2 days before the event. My bladder was still bad by early morning day of the event but luckily started clearing up as I travelled from Devon to London. The day of the event we all met up at Waterloo Station in London before travelling to the hotel where we needed to meet Taylor Nation. I was so nervous that everything was going wrong and had been in so much pain and in denial I was going to be well enough to go that I couldn't believe it was happening. On the way from the tube to the hotel we saw a funeral directors with 4 gravestones in the window - were they for us when Taylor killed us with her music? A bus went past...the number 13? So typically Taylor! We arrived at the hotel and checked in. Taylor Nation were in the lobby (we didn't know it was them). The receptionist asked if we were going to the knitting convention? I was confused...was this a cover story? All I kept thinking was 'I knit sweaters yo'....'no, we are going to meet some friends' we told them. We went upstairs to our room to get ready and when came down we didn't know where to go. There seemed to be some type of line forming around the building and the sheer quantity of red lipstick and floaty dresses told me we were in the right place. We checked in with Taylor Nation and as I gave Elise my ID she said she liked my passport cover. It's a picture of Taylor with 'grab your passport and my hand' written on it. She confirmed with me that she was the one I had been emailing and I thanked her for her help. I then signed a NDA and got my really cool wristband which has 'United Kingdom' in reputation font on it. And then we headed downstairs to wait for the bus. I was on bus number 3/4 with Megan- Alex and Bethy had already gone on bus 2. I sat right behind the driver and he had his Satnav programmed with 3 different routes. He took the first route to somewhere random, loaded the second route and followed it, then loaded the third. It was clear he was trying to throw us off. As we entered part of the neighbourhood I felt very out of place. The cars had personalised plates, the houses were getting bigger, the hustle and bustle of London life seemed to getting further in the distance. Suddenly the bus stopped in front of a beautiful house...this was it...this was Taylor's house? We were escorted off the bus and down to the side door which lead to a basement. The carpets were bouncy and the soundproof walls were so soft. We waited patiently for a few minutes and then suddenly the door opened and I caught a glimpse of a canvas of the New York skyline....this IS Taylor's house. We were taken up the stairs to a central entrance hall with a staircase leading up to the top of the house and a corridor towards a large group of people with music playing - her Spotify playlist. The party was in the kitchen. Megan and I walked in to the kitchen, everything was so perfect. Ice buckets full of cans of soda and water, the best chicken bites I have ever tasted, cheese, vegetables and dip, reputation m&ms and cookies with REP on. There was so much I couldn't even see it all. We spotted our friend Bethy over in the corner by the French doors and headed over to speak to her. As we got there so did Scott Swift....the total legend and biggest fangirl ever. I told him I had briefly seen him in Nashville for 1989 and be told me the Mick Jagger story...the same one Taylor tells in interviews. Word for word and he beamed with pride as he told us stories about Taylor. There I was on a Friday night in Taylor Swift's house talking to her dad about 2 megastars as if we were all old friends. And he was really interested in us, not just polite conversation but so enthralled that we loved his daughter as much as he did. True to Scott Swift fashion he gave us some guitar picks as me made his way onto the next group. I asked Alex where the toilet was and he took me out to the corridor...which hid a restroom behind huge grey panels. It was the nicest smelling toilet I have ever been in...and I have been in a lot! As I sat there peeing in Taylor's toilet and looking at the Jo Malone candle burning by the sink I wondered...how did I get here? Shortly after I left the toilet we were ushered across the entrance hall to a huge rectangular room. Opposite the door were large windows covered over by drapes and a single armchair - Taylor's seat. The floor was adorned with cushion after cushion and Megan and I ran to the closest cushion to Taylor. Megan sat right in front of her and I squeezed in behind. This was a SECRET SESSION!!!! A few minutes later I looked behind as the door opened and in walked a real angel to a round of screams and claps- red lips, natural 'I've just washed it' curly hair, snake boots and a huge smile. She sat down in front of us on the seat and said 'Hi I'm Taylor'. Just like at tour, only this time not to 70,000...to just 100. And then the mystery was revealed. Taylor Nation hadn't just randomly picked us off of various social media sites - we had been hand selected by Taylor herself who had stalked us for over a year and sent TN our profiles to invite us. It hit me...Taylor picked me?!?! The woman I have been 'stalking' for 11 years had been stalking me too? Out of all the fans in Europe I was one she wanted to meet. I don't think that will ever fully sink in. Taylor played us her album, telling us little stories about each song - the inspiration, the recording processes, the reactions from friends and family. It was so much to take in but watching Taylor mouth along to the words, act out different expressions and sitting-dance to all of the songs was hilarious - I wasn't in the presence of a celebrity, I was sitting with my best friend appreciating the biggest achievement she will ever have - true happiness. Taylor Swift is truly happy, about life, about her music, about her fans and it is nothing short of magical. As each song played I really wondered how Taylor could top it, but she did...over and over again. Time went so quickly and it felt like the world's biggest and best slumber party, except we didn't get to sleep over. At one point it was so hot that Scott Swift had to open all the doors to let the air in. As Taylor played his favourite song from the album she called for him to come and listen and he made a joke that he was actually handing out guitar picks to the neighbours. After Taylor finished playing the album I looked around. Everyone was so Wonderstruck by what they had heard and I looked at Taylor and she looked so content. I don't know whether she was worried by what our reactions would be but all we had for this album was love...and I hope Taylor knows that. After the listening session we were handed copies of the reputation magazines while we were waiting for photos. Megan and I were some of the first to go in. I was so focused on getting to the event that I hadn't even thought about what to say. Taylor ran over to Megan and hugged her and started talking about her bright pink hair. She loved it and it had been distracting her all evening. Then Taylor hugged me and I hugged her back like I had never hugged anyone before. She was so tall like a giraffe but with the grace of a swan...and I was me. I whispered 'thank you for inviting me' and she smiled. I didn't want to let go. As so many people were waiting they sort of rushed us with a picture. Taylor grabbed hold of us with her arms around our shoulders and smiled so sincerely at the camera. I wanted to talk to Taylor as I didn't get a chance but we were ushered off. As Megan walked out front if me I went to turn and talk to Taylor when Megan suddenly shouted 'we went to Nashville'. Taylor screamed back excitedly 'I know' with the biggest smile on her face. So...I didn't get to talk to Taylor but she knew we went to Nashville. She really did stalk me. When we left the room we were greeted by Mama Swift. I told her about my mum being terminally ill with Cancer and how she had gotten test results that day but she wanted me to be with Taylor instead. She gave me an extra hug and told me to hug my mum for her. I told my mum later and she started crying. Someone she has never met wished her well...it isn't just Taylor, it is her whole family. We were taken back to the basement to collect Merch bags with a T-shirt, hat, sticker, pop socket and exclusive secret sessions keyring. It was so lovely of Taylor to give us something more to remember the day. I got the bus back to the hotel and sat talking to Ali the whole way about the album and Nashville....I may have also invited her to CMA fest next year. By the time I got back to the hotel and collected my belongings (which had been taken from us earlier) I was shattered but I couldn't sleep. I posted on twitter and suddenly my phone couldn't stop vibrating...thousands of retweets and likes. I sat there trying to figure out what happened but I'm still not even sure I believe it myself. It took me 2 whole days to cry...not because I didn't care but because this wasn't the norm. I had stood outside countless radio stations and events before and not met Taylor...I had cried. I had come away from concerts and not been picked for Loft or Club Red etc and cried...but this was different. Not only had I met Taylor, she had picked me. I couldn't cry...I just felt a sense of fulfillment, of achievement, of love. By the time I did cry if wasn't because of what happened; it was because I missed her. But this is not the end of my story with Taylor...I feel like this is the start of a new chapter. I came away with a whole mind of memories and countless new friends - affectionately known as FANtom Squad. Friday 13 October was the best night of my life; I will never be able to thank Taylor enough and I'll probably never have a chance to say what I wanted to say. But after years of hiding it & toning down this side of my life to please people I can honestly I am not ashamed of who I am because who I am is exactly how @taylorswift likes me.

#taylor swift #taylorswift #reputation #reputation secret sessions #reputationsecretsessions #reputationsecretsessionlondon #reputation secret sessions london #November 10 #ts6 #taylor nation #FANtom #FANtom squad

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mandimormon-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Door-No-More

Once upon a time in a village named Covington. A vibrant, young housewife polished her floors to reduce pathogens transmitted by bodily fluids (primarily vomit). She scrubbed and scrubbed the tiles with a brush assuring each square was meticulously cleansed and free of germs. She mopped the entire home, freshly. Just then, the smaller, younger, less feisty girl on this given day, entered the bathroom, and in a blink of an eye explosive diarrhea splattered across the bathroom, covering the girl’s clothing, the bathtub rug and virtually every square of tile in the entire room.

We’ll call this story Monday. (In case you were wondering, I repeated the process of sanitation. Names of persons have been protected. If you don’t have children and you find this story gross or inappropriate, good luck in your future.) Since the morning routine had been unusual, getting just two kids ready for school, while trying to separate them from the illness occurring in the same little cottage, when my son arrived home after school, and had been hanging out for over an hour, Remi realized he'd worn his pants backwards, all day long, and the zipper was unzipped in the back, displaying the perfect view of his Big Hero 6 undies. Wow.

On Tuesday morning, my oldest daughter said to me, “Mom, I want to make a unicorn for my Valentine’s Day box.” Admittingly, I was up for the challenge but a part of me thought back to simpler times, when I was an elementary-aged child and Pinterest didn’t exist. We didn’t get samples of the best of the best Valentine boxes ever made in the history of crafting.

Here came the moment I’d been waiting to happen for months. Which ‘recycled’ or ‘repurposed’ boxes from my storage closet would be utilized and which ones would be truly “recycled”? If you missed it, several weeks ago, I wall-posted a friend of mine who happens to be the blogger behind “Save Time, Make Time”. My predicament was – I long to be a minimalist. I dislike clutter and too much “stuff”. But I’m not a true minimalist, because I will occasionally buy paper products for convenience and drink out of a plastic water bottle. I have my shortcomings, as we discovered in ‘Purgeney 2017’. Regardless, Lamora wrote a spot-on-topic blog focusing on how to organize these items that seem to get tossed into my utility closet into an unruly heap. Things like plastic bags, used gift bags, grocery sacks (ALDI shoppers unite!), and cardboard boxes.

After her inspiration, I organized this closet. I even put a couple of nails into a board 1) to hang my grocery sacks on and 2) to manage clothes to be donated < #organized - I give a half laugh at that because of the current status of my closet upstairs, it’s better. After recycling two ginormous bags full of paperwork, but FAR from perfect. Another side bar, I hate staples. I broke two nails in the process from ripping staples out of schoolwork. After I was finished with hours of sorting, organizing, and recycling, there were probably 57 (no joke) staples I had to clean up.

Did you know you could create a unicorn out of two empty cereal boxes, an empty oatmeal box, and a square kettle box? You can. Magical crafting supplies include duct tape, a white roll of paper, a variety of colorful crepe paper, and a Sharpie.

I’d done extensive Pinterest research on choice Valentine’s Day boxes. I had even found a few unicorns but Reis wasn’t impressed she wanted a very specific head-shape, like the unicorn emoji. So, on her handy, dandy Chromebook (I wonder if modern-day Steve from Blue’s Clues would have a Chromebook?), she pulled up Google Images and showed me. Maybe I’m not remembering accurately, because it was a few days ago now, but I think at that point there was the sound of dramatic scissor chopping, duct tape tearing, and my eyebrow lifted slightly higher on one side, as I glanced back and forth at my cardboard and at the screen of the “perfect unicorn representation”.

As did my thing, Reis did hers. She chopped three strips of crepe paper, out of each piece of approximately 18 inches, in each of her desired colors. She was very particular over this. She also chopped hearts out of the glitter duct tape, printed her name, and cut small pieces of “frayed” white crepe to add texture on a couple of the sides of the box. Very clever.

It only took a couple of hours, start-to-finish, and a Dollar General Run for tape, glitter duct tape, and more crepe paper, and it was done. Voila! Presto!

The crown of the unicorn head, (I’m guessing it’s the crown - like a human head), there’s a flap we taped, and double taped, and triple taped - in every direction – maybe 22 times – to allow entry for Valentines!

Too much detail? I apologize. Let me briefly explain Remi’s Valentine Box (which is actually a bucket). Sure, this isn’t in chronological order, Remi went with me to the Dollar Store a couple of days before unicorn crafting, to select her supplies. She, too, had found a great example of a cupcake on Pinterest. She loved it! The thing is, this pinner somehow had access to a rounded piece of foam and was able to shove all of her pieces of tissue paper into that to secure it. We had no such luck with a rounded piece of foam. But while shopping Remi came up with the idea we could probably use a bowl. Best suggestion ever. We found a cheap plastic bowl, a plastic bucket, tissue paper (ripped into strips), a red bouncy ball, cardstock for the cupcake liner, and about 24 glue sticks to secure the tissue paper to the plastic bowl. Thanks to my husband’s handy work, he cut the perfect circle in the bowl for the “cherry” or the red ball to fit on top. Kids insert their cards and candy through that, and it falls into the “cupcake”.

This project, too, was a little bit time consuming. I had a meeting on Monday night so after getting about ¼ of the way through it with Miss Remi, I had a short recess but came right back to hot gluing the night away, when I returned. Remi helped by gathering a couple of strips of tissue paper in the color she wanted (she wanted a pattern, friends), and folding those, using a small elastic to tie around each piece and fluffing it. Then I’d place glue and she’d carefully stick it down to the bowl. She was happy to be able to take it to school the next morning.

A piano lesson, a basketball practice, a choral performance of the Star-spangled Banner, a basketball game, a trip to the Temple, an afternoon enjoying PERFECT weather, and The Lego Batman Movie.

This was just the latter-half of the week. A few time slots in our schedule were double-booked. For example, baseball camp. Oh, baseball camp.

I will never be prepared when unexpected tantrums arise. I have two examples from this weekend.

This first concerning baseball camp – we arrived on Saturday morning a few minutes later than our goal. There was much scurrying around the house, beforehand, it didn’t help I, personally, was running behind after running. So much so that I didn’t shower… yeah, that happens, a lot. I sometimes have to blow the sweat dry in my hair, because that’s the only option I have. Saturday mornings seem to be notorious for my children turning off their listening ears. I only said, “Please get your shoes on.” or “Get your shoes on.” or “GET YOUR SHOES ON NOW!” – only like 18x. I asked my oldest daughter and her friend to straighten up her bedroom and get into real clothes, as opposed to pajamas, because the day was expected to be glorious, as my two youngest and I shuffled out the door, to my younger daughter’s first basketball game of the season.

Back to where I deviated from when beginning that last paragraph, we had to round up a jersey, go change into it, and by that point, the bleachers were almost full, so Jude and I opted to sit on the floor. At this moment, Jude realized it was Saturday. He realized Baseball Camp is on Saturdays. Then he got really frustrated because he was upset I was prioritizing Remi’s first game over Baseball Camp. He began to sob stating in between gasps, “I want to go to BASEBALL CAMP!” Then he began to hit me every 15 seconds or so, out of anger. He was clearly throwing a tantrum, which I hadn’t seen in months, not even in the privacy of our own home. Being a child you always pick the most in-opportune moments to breakdown and give the illusion your parents suck and you don’t have to obey rules. There were only like 100+ other parents, grandparents, siblings, and kids, there, witnessing my child’s tantrum.

I didn’t speak under my breath, while gritting my teeth, (although I’ve used that method before, come on, we all have), I just ignored him. I told him we couldn’t make it this week, we will try to make it next week. I didn’t threaten him (I’ve done that before, too). I didn’t bribe him (this is my favorite choice while in public). I just patiently waited until my husband arrived. Usually, I vocalize, “Your dad will be here in five seconds, cut it out.” But I refrained. He naturally quit when my husband arrived and said the exact same thing I said to him. “We couldn’t make it this week, we will make it next week.”

Why does it work for him and not me? The world may never know, but this is how the dynamics are. I’ve been told I lack a follow-through. I threaten but it’s white noise, because my kids know I become soft and don’t follow through with punishment. It’s honestly because I start considering how my children really are good kids, the choices they’re making are just because they’re independent. Should they respect their parents? Absolutely. There’s a fine line, friends.

Remi did great at her first game. She was a little nervous but she made a couple of baskets and did a good job of listening to instruction. She loves sports and physical fitness.

When we returned home, I went to check on the oldest girls and guess what? They were in their jammies, the room was a disaster, and they were watching a video on the Chromebook. I reminded them 7x more (give or take), the room needed straightened up and they needed to get out and get some fresh air, but it was like I was speaking a foreign language.

I bobbed and weaved around the house as I picked up shoes, and random items, wiped down counters, and threw laundry in. I was trying to expedite the cleaning process so I, too, could get outside and enjoy the beautiful day. My personality type will not allow me to “enjoy” anything until my tasks are done, otherwise, my stress levels rise. I don’t think I’m the only one.

I reminded my oldest, again, and again. So, I sent my husband a text and said, I’d like for her to get outside but not until her room is cleaned up and she’s ignoring me, Ignoring me while I beat on the door over and over, again, because it’s locked.

A few minutes later, he walked through the door with a drill. Without saying anything, he unlocked the door, and took the door down, as in removing it. That was the moment crap it the fan. This was the most ultimate punishment in the entire world, friends. You would think that we grounded her for all eternity. Nope, just removed the door. She had a complete and total meltdown. The reason I’m saying this isn’t because it’s funny, (it’s a little funny because as an adult human, we know this is minor in an eternal perspective) but to shed light for other parents, sometimes something seemingly subtle can make the biggest different in obedience. Through the complete meltdown, my husband told her if she changed her behavior he would put the door back on that night, but not until she changed.

It worked! It worked! If you have a tween or an 11 going on 25 year-old, this could help you, too. You’re welcome.

Let me back all the way up to last Sunday, because I finally posted the last blog on Saturday. Last Sunday, we had our Second Annual Sabbath Bowl!

What is Sabbath Bowl? It’s exactly as it sounds. We prepped some amazing superbowl-inspired appetizers, quite the spread. We turned our dining room table into a football field and created two teams. This year it was the Lumpers v. Jedos. A set of Elders (or boy missionaries, as Jude calls them, usually 18+), and a set of Sister Missionaries (girls 19+) that are serving our Ward currently, or the church building we attend, participated. My mother attended this year, too. She has vast knowledge of the Bible and that is our basis, a bible trivia game. We began with our mini football on the 50 yard-line. Coin toss gave possession to our starting team who answers questions until they can’t answer or answer incorrectly, gaining 10 yards with each correct answer. If the question isn’t complete, the other team can intercept the ball. Gram was on fire. She carried her team to the lead and maintained a tie. In fact, they were more than generous during a question for the other team (consisting of all males), or else the girls would’ve clinched the victory. When the score was tied up the final question was a written question to see how many of the original apostles they could name, accurately. The Jedos ended up with the win on this one, but Gram was still our Sabbath Bowl MVP for her biblical accuracy.

This is such a great time that we feel like adding in an Olympic Games or Final Four version of this would be super great. As soon as it was over I was ready for the Third Annual Sabbath Bowl, next year. Is this how football fans feel about the Superbowl? I wonder if next year we should add in some gospel-related commercials, like a mix between Taboo and Charades? I enjoy doing the sports announcing for this activity. It’s great to witness this game going down, so much passion!

Here we are to Sunday, again. The sun is shining gloriously outside. I love the sun. In my mind I wanted to take a family walk, but the wind is crazy out there. I’m on a gluten-free cake pop kick, not for myself, I can’t eat that on AIP, but for anyone else. I’m been making them like they’re going out of style. Also, I found this yummy snack mix recipe that my children enjoy and I gave to our Young Women, at church, today, as a Valentine gift. It’s super easy to make and it’s gluten-free! Win-win.

Do you remember that mantra kick I was on a couple of years ago? Yeah, I think it was right after Time Out for Women, which is coming up, woot-woot!

Anyway, in my head, I create mantras all of time like self-talk. Sometimes it’s something like, “You can do hard things” or “Just breathe.” or “Brussel Sprouts are good. You should like them.” To be brutally honest, I was on a Brussel Sprout kick and now to think of them makes me want to gag. Everything in moderation, even Brussel Sprouts.

There is a point, I promise. The point or quote I recently have discovered and felt impressed to focus on is, “Nothing changes until YOU change. Everything changes once YOU change.” Apply that to everything. To give you a visual or more personal example, consider these areas: Fitness, Health, Diet, Occupation, Education, Church Experience, Work Relationships, Marriage, Personal Relationships, Parenting, Budgeting - I could go on but those encompass a lot. There’s a video circulating about how blaming lack of motivation is complete crap, as in it doesn’t exist. This isn’t my advice to you, this is my advice to me. I just wanted to remind everyone life isn’t perfect, my life definitely isn’t perfect and change is what’s going to make a true difference. I don’t want to have a perfect life that’s not what I’m striving for, but I am trying to be better than I am, now (note: not better than anyone else but myself). Progress is important - it’s growth. Choices are what determine destiny.

#LDS #mormonmommy #motherhood #parenting #children #family

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