What would any of you do?

In a flash of ebony curls and milky skin, Athena’s arms wound around Albus’ neck and hugged him tight to her, her chest heaving against his as shackles she did not realise she’d been bearing lifted themselves from her neck and loosened their grip on her wrists. Her mouth slid across his cheek, pressing a smear of red wax into his skin before she buried her head briefly in the space between the plane of his shoulder and the hollow of his neck, the air passing her lips in short, sharp bursts. Her eyes shuddered shut for the barest of moments and then finally she allowed to set into her very core the circumstance which she had been afforded: total and final freedom.

Two decades had provided Athena with many an identity, each one switching and leaving her with more questions than answers each time it altered. First she had languished unaware of her illegitimacy. Then, continuing to live in her ignorance she existed beneath a name that was hers in blood but not in right. Then her persona changed under the slurs of ‘Death Eater’ and ‘murderer’ – followed, inevitably, by prisoner number algiz eihwaz hagalaz nine two. Then, inexplicably, she became a Rookwood – a wife and a mother. Somehow, she’d emerged from the dark she’d been hurtling through. Somehow she emerged as a mother, still, but crucially as her own person. As Athena, solely.

The young woman pulled back, extricating herself from the man she had enveloped so willingly in her rather spontaneous embrace. She cleared her throat, awkwardness taking hold as a little smirk peered at her lips, the absurdity of the situation sinking in fully. Athena tugged down her jacket and smoothed off some invisible lint from her skirt before dipping her gaze back up to Albus’, that famously dull grey of hers seeming for the first time in a long time that little bit brighter as optimism set in. Bunk beds and lack of doilies be damned. They were all free.

“You are an angel of a man, do you realise that?” She smiled breathlessly and took Albus’ hands in her own, her smallest finger reaching to lace around his. “I adore you. I don’t deserve this. You don’t know how grateful I am.”

She wanted to laugh and say something silly like she’d find out exactly how to make his favourite food in the world and make it as often as possible in order to show him how thankful she was but she couldn’t find the words, happiness bubbling up within her and leaving her feeling dizzy and ridiculous. Her mind had already drawn up a list of what she’d need to get from the manor besides her babies. She knew the Elves would take care of the majority of that and she could almost envisage the rooms done up for the children. It would be perfect.

“Thank you. I’ll…I’ll go and get them. I won’t be long. Twenty minutes at most. I just…I feel so light as though a breeze could carry me away I just…I can’t believe this. You Potters are knights in shining armour whether you like it or not, you know.”

Another kiss was pressed to his cheek and Athena laughed a little, rubbing off the scarlet from his skin before she moved to her feet. Then, with a wink and a crack, she was gone – bound to return in time.

(OOC: Okay, so… shall I make a nice on-going sort of fluff thread that can be dipped I and out of for them to have Christmas and the twinsies’ birthdays and argue about schools and everything else? )

((OOC: Yess……except I was thinking that we could include the move in plus the first awkward dinner in this thread itself. What say? ))


Then, it happened again. The phenomenon. He was half inclined to call it the ‘Rookwood effect’.
Except of course for the obvious fact that she, they really, couldn’t really lay claim to that name any longer.

It had made its beginning when that little voice had called him ‘Mr. Albus’. Tugged on his sleeve, insisted on fish and chips and the Tower of London, that bright, exuberant smile gifted to him so openly and freely- like solving a colour puzzle made him the best person in the entire world. Dearest Cecilia……”Can we keep you?”, she asked, sounding happily, achingly earnest. Then, Archie: stretching out stubby fingers and brilliant blue eyes, a Rookwood never looking so content as to cling to the arms of a Potter. Even Aurelia with all her reserve, sipping hesitantly at a Muggle drink, granting small smiles to the world over the bunch of gladioli gripped in her fingers. He didn’t know how long it took for anyone else to get Aurelia up to that point. He could, however, guess.

For a boy who grew up more akin to corners and silence and the quietest nook of the common room than centre stage- it took very, very long. But this, little, family seemed to specialise in something trivial, unimportant…..but something previously thought impossible. They specialised, and insisted, upon making Albus Potter feel like he was more than leftovers. More than the background artiste. More than the Potter who wasn’t worth the name. More than him.

The second Athena Rookwood nee Goyle hugged him, hands flying to his sides, nails digging, holding on as if he was the anchor that would draw them out of the storm- all this flew past Albus’ mind like a whirlwind. Some part of his head remembered the fact that he wasn’t a tactile person by nature. Which meant……that he had forgotten.

How could he be expected to remember? There was a woman before him, a naturally dignified and reserved Pureblood lady, directing a Solaris maxima smile in his direction that alternately, made the sun winking at the blinds of the window behind her pale by comparison; and made him feel like he had done something worth doing. In the rush of pressed hands, curled fingers and breathless words- a small part of his mind almost thought that he could understand his father and James and Teddy and the rest of them. Almost.

It was a thought that cornered him out of nowhere, revolutionary. Because they weren’t being selfless when they did generous acts…..like this. This- having someone look at you like you had gift-wrapped the universe and dropped it in their palms- this was the epitome of selfishness.

The soft, still coded scent pervaded through the inhaled air one more time, and lips pressed softly, fleetingly over his jaw; a flighty brush of butterfly wings. He looked up, she winked- and the room was empty.

Albus leaned back, head coming to rest on the cool, leather back of the couch, eyes scoping out little cracks in the ceiling for long moments. Like he had been not twenty minutes ago, except then the ceiling had been moss-streaked stone, and there were jail walls behind his head, and iron bars catching at the corner of his sight, not the rays of the morning sun sifting through the insubstantial, transparent material of his drawing room curtains. Categorising the differences, it was almost easy to forget how his memory had taken the words…”You are an angel of a man, you realise that? I adore you.”…..and added it to the list. The list a frustrated, fifteen-year old Albus had started compiling….."You Potters are knights in shining armour whether you like it or not.”….when he had first failed to perform the Patronus charm. The twenty three year old man was still incapable of it. How could he have known that the morning he woke up to prison air and another day of unadmitted guilt, would be a morning of adding one to the list of happy memories.

But he had a curious feeling that there were several more additions to come.