Midwinter, prompt 4 | Unexpected (Harry Potter)

Jan 20, 2012 00:19

Title: Unexpected
Author: shimotsuki
Prompt: #4 | deep
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters & Pairings: Albus Severus Potter, (fairly predictable) spoiler; highlight to read [Severus Snape]
Rating & Warnings: G | post-DH AU, purely for the fun of it
Word Count: 390 words
Summary: Al has a very odd encounter with a stranger in a Muggle bookshop.



Unexpected
Al felt the back of his neck prickle. He was being watched.

He closed the Muggle comic book he’d been leafing through and turned around slowly, carefully.

In fact, he wasn’t just being watched. He was being flat-out stared at, by a pair of glittering black eyes above a hooked beak of a nose.

So, of course, he stared back.

The watcher, a man in a green muffler and a raincoat speckled with the morning drizzle, crossed his arms over his thin chest and raised an eyebrow.

“You,” he said, in a slow deep voice, “could only be a Potter.”

Al glanced around. He could see Aunt Hermione’s bushy hair about seven aisles over, and if he called out, she would come running. But this was a Muggle bookshop, and the man at least looked like a Muggle.

And Al was curious.

“What makes you say that?”

The man snorted. “With that hair and those eyes? There is simply no question.” He sneered, but somehow, it wasn't a nasty sneer, exactly. “I suppose your name is James. Or Sirius. Am I wrong?”

Al had to grin. “You are, actually.”

The man scowled.

Perhaps he didn’t like to be wrong.

“That’s my brother,” Al admitted, with a shrug. “James Sirius.”

“Ah,” said the man, looking both satisfied and superior at the same time. “So very predictable.”

He stared at Al again, shaking his head slightly. But somehow, as strange as this conversation was turning out to be, Al wasn’t afraid of the odd dark man.

“I’m Al,” he said, finally, relenting.

The man went quite still, and the sneer faded. “That’s not short for-Albus, is it?”

“Right in one,” Al grinned. “Albus Severus Potter.”

Now the man was positively white. “You must be joking.”

“Not at all,” said Al, fascinated. “Dad says he named me after two of the bravest men he’s ever known.”

The stranger in the raincoat stood, frozen, with no expression on his face whatsoever.

“So...” Al crossed his own arms. “Who are you, then?”

The man blinked.

“I’m no one,” he said. “No one at all.”

And with a crack of Disapparition, in the middle of a Muggle bookshop, he was gone.

~ fin ~

midwinter: prompt 4, fandom: harry potter, author: shimotsuki

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