frustrations and broomsticks
Ok. First, Merry Christmas. Here’s some cheese.
This story I wrote a few months ago as a birthday fic for my dear friend Trixie. She requested an Albus and Renesmee fic. I TRIED to keep in canon as much as possible - as ridiculous as it sounds. Imagine that this takes place when everyone is at least 17 (ha ha). Cheers!!
Title: frustrations and broomsticks
Cast in order of appearance: Renesmee, Edward, Emmett, Bella, and Esme,
Special Guests include The Potters: Albus, James and Harry Potter
Timeframe: Post BD and Post DH
Words: 3,387
Rated: There is a little cursing. It’s like PG-13?
The Cullens have acquired a new residence in London…
Nessie was frustrated. Infuriatingly frustrated.
Her father sighed from across the room. “It’s not that we don’t believe you, Renesmee, but -“
“You don’t believe me,” she snapped.
“I totally believe you saw a kid with a broom, but up in the sky? Like he was flying?” Emmett scoffed. “It’s not possible.”
“I don’t care that it defies the laws of gravity; I Know what I SAW!”
Edward groaned. He knew that Emmett was just teasing Nessie, but only partially. He couldn’t shake the fact that Nessie believed this little dream of hers so emphatically that it was real to her. However, everything that he knew just wouldn’t allow him to fully believe it either.
But he hated seeing her upset, and she was getting mad. Just as Emmett opened his mouth, Edward intervened. “Em. That’s enough.”
Renesmee spun on her heel. “Why do you even bother; you don’t believe me either,” she growled, storming up to her room, breezing past her mother.
Bella eyed Edward warily. “The flying broom?”
“Of course.” He welcomed his wife into his arms.
“I personally think it’s the London fog. It’s making us all hazy,” Bella said.
“I HEARD THAT!!!”
Bella smiled up at Edward. “You were the one who wished for children,” she whispered in his ear.
“I know,” he chuckled, remembering that wish he had had for her so many years ago.
-=-=-=-
He couldn’t get that stupid grin off his face. He’d never been so happy to stay at Grimmauld Place before in his life.
“Ah, my brother,” James grinned, kicking his feet out of the way. “What’s that look on your face? You didn’t take some of Uncle George’s power-up potions, did you? Or were you looking at a particular beauty down the street?”
“Oy, shut it,” Al kicked his feet back up on the ottoman.
“You know, I’ve been thinking. We’ve been in and out of this place since we were little sprites. It’s a wonder that Dad let us take the place, you know. But I swear this is the first time I’ve ever known of that the whole neighborhood seems to be nearly vacant except for a handful of people. And one gorgeous filly, I might add.”
“Eh, she’s probably taken,” Al sighed. “All the good ones are.”
James looked out the window and whistled. “Blimey. Have you ever seen a television set like that?”
Al stood up and stretched. “I’m going for a ride.”
James chuckled. “Don’t let anyone see you this time!”
He scoffed. “They’d see your red hair first!” He rolled his eyes and headed up the stairs.
There were times that he loved being at Grandmum and Grandpap Weasley’s - especially the orchards where one could fly his broom and zoom through trees without a care in the world. In the city, however, precautions had to be taken. He groaned at the memory of both his mum and dad lecturing the Potter kids on Concealment charms, security measures and Constant Vigilance.
He opened the hatch that led out onto the rooftop. Definitely not the Weasley orchard, but the London fog seemed a pretty strong cover this season. He sat down and looked over his broom.
Then he saw her standing there.
Across the rooftops at about what would be two doors down. She had beautiful long, curling bronze hair, and her skin - there was something different about her. His heart skipped a beat as he realized she had looked straight at him.
Say something, you twit! He thought angrily to himself. The goddess you’ve been over the moon about since you saw her the other day is looking straight at you!
“Ah, hello, there!” That’s all you need to say… Come ON, Albus! Do it!
She suddenly looked down and pulled a small box from her jeans pocket, whipping it to her ear. As she spoke, he recognized she had an American accent, and that she spoke very fast. Her voice was positively musical.
Ay, didn’t James say that American girls love our British accents?
He groaned again, trying hard to not appear that he was listening in on her conversation. He remembered what James had said about not letting anyone see him fly.
This girl - this goddess of beauty - had been outside yesterday. She saw him on his broom. Fortunately, her family didn’t believe her. Unfortunately, she appeared to have a boyfriend.
“Not you too!” She cried exasperatedly into the phone. “You know I’d show you the truth!”
She gasped sharply and he looked up automatically.
“Jake, I gotta go. No, no. Say hi to your dad for me. Yeah - bye.” She met his eyes. “Hello,” she said, tentatively. She approached him carefully.
She had the prettiest brown eyes. Almost the color of Honeyduke’s chocolate…
“Ah, hello,” he managed. Damn him and his insecurities!
She continued to look at him curiously.
“Er, you all just moved in, right?”
“Why are you carrying a broom?” she asked suspiciously.
“Oh! I, er, came up to sweep up the rooftop.” What. The. ??!!??
“It doesn’t look like a cleaning-type of a broom.”
If his mother knew that he was just seconds away from demonstrating his prized Silver Comet Quidditch racing broom as a common household mop she’d - well, he didn’t want to think what she would do.
“Yeah-er … “ What could I possibly say?
She narrowed her eyes. “You live here long?”
He shrugged. “Off and on over the years. My brother and I are holding down the place until my god-brother comes back from Albania. So, do you like London, so far?”
“It’s alright, I guess,” she answered. “My family thinks I don’t, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said bitterly. She looked up and down the rooftops. “Which house number did you say you were? I thought we were the only ones on this block.”
He smiled. “We thought it was kinda quiet here too, my brother and I.”
“Well, yes. My family bought all the houses on the street. My- er, Aunt Esme likes to remodel.”
Damn. “Huh.” He didn’t know what to say. It was then that he realized she was now standing before him.
“So, the, er, broom?” she pointed.
He looked down. “No, it’s not the sweeping sort,” Shall I confund her now, or later?
“You must come down and tell my family that I wasn’t making it up,” she insisted.
“Making what up?”
“That you can fly on that broom!” She rolled her eyes. “I saw you yesterday! Emmett just teases me mercilessly over it!”
He threw her a panicked grin. “I haven’t a clue what you -“
“Don’t deny it!” She grasped his wrist and -
Visions of him flying the cursed broomstick entered his mind, and he realized that they must have been from her perspective, probably from the window in her room. He snatched his arm back. “What are you?” he hissed.
“How can you fly that thing?”
“Answer me first.”
“I asked you first!”
He sighed. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you -“ you’re just too beautiful “so, let’s just start all over. Hi. My name is Albus. Albus Potter.”
A funny twitch tickled the corner of her mouth. “Albus? Interesting name.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, well, my father named me after his favorite professor.” And I’m NOT telling you my middle name, either.
She shrugged. “I should laugh, but I can’t. My name’s Renesmee. Renesmee Carlie Cull - er, Mason.”
“That’s a different name,” he smiled. “Have any meaning?”
“My mother blended my grandparent’s names, Renee and Esme, Charlie and Carlisle.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Thought you said Esme was your aunt?”
“Oh, damn,” she flinched. She looked around nervously.
“Don’t go,” he said, worried that she might run for it. “I -“
She met his eyes. “I’m sorry. I just think I got a little excited seeing different people. People that aren’t like humans or va-.” Her eyes went wary again. “You’re not, are you?”
Constant vigilance!!! “Are you?”
“No. Far from it, actually.”
“I didn’t go to a traditional school,” he started.
“I didn’t go to school at all. Too dangerous,” she smiled to herself. “I’ve watched hours of football with my Grandpa Charlie and Jake. And my family likes to play baseball from time to time.”
“We didn’t play traditional sports, either.” Subconsciously he held up his broom.
She smiled genuinely; a barrier had broken between them. “Can two people ride that?”
Now, you’ve got it!
“I think we can manage,” he grinned. He set the broom before him, and mounted. “Hold on to me tight.”
--==--==--
The beauty of this house, or technically houses as it were until Esme was finished, was that he and Bella could have their own section of the house. The farther away from Emmett, the better, as far as she was concerned. It had been ten years, and she was still endearingly sensitive about their private moments. Within reason.
He held her close, marveling in the peace she surrounded him in. These were the only moments that he could completely relax, focus on nothing but her; enjoy the peace and quiet.
His head snapped up. It was too quiet.
A wild panic took hold of him, and he jumped up.
“What is it?” she asked, looking at him curiously.
“Renesmee,” he choked out. He yanked his leg into the nearest pair of pants, only to realize he had ripped them in half in the process. Growling a few choice words, he quickly put on another pair.
“If you guys tease her more about the boy and the flying broom, Edward; No wonder she’s been so upset! It doesn’t make anything any better that Jake had to go back to La Push to help Billy, and you know that!”
“No! I don’t hear her!”
Bella jumped out of the bed and was dressed before he finished buttoning his shirt. He followed her out their bedroom door.
The most curious thing about the houses Esme had bought in London was the fact the numbers on the houses didn’t match up. And where the numbers didn’t match, were oddly impenetrable walls. So, Esme allowed Bella and Edward the Number 13, while the rest of the family took the other half of the house. Renesmee included.
“Edward, maybe it’s the walls - you know the weird ones. Maybe you can’t hear through them,” Bella offered, but she sounded as nervous as he felt.
He shook his head. “No. She’s gone. She was last up on the roof thinking about that kid on the broom, and -“ he growled as they approached Esme in her study. “I thought no one else lived on the street.”
Esme looked up. “I have all the deeds right here,” she said. “Everything’s in order.”
“Renesmee saw a boy -“ he winced, remembering his daughters visions more clearly. “A young man, more or less, but he lives here.”
“No one else lives here, Edward,” she argued as gently as she could.
“It must be the Number 12, then,” he concluded.
Esme sighed.
“Every now and then, I hear flashes of other people’s minds,” explained Edward. “They aren’t people walking by either. But they are muddled - muffled somehow.” He glanced at Bella. “Like they have some sort of shield.”
Bella and Esme looked at each other.
“It wasn’t a dream of Renesmee’s,” he said.
Bella gasped. “And you still can’t hear her now?”
He shook his head.
She flashed out of the room before he could tell her there was no use. He followed her up to the roof anyway.
Esme appeared at the rooftop as well. She looked around and gasped. “Bella look, There IS another house!”
Bella counted the rooftops. “But from the street -“
Edward watched the skies, his eyes zeroing on a speck - a speck that was growing. Coming closer, rather.
Oh shit. Mom? Dad? See Dad? SEE??!? I wasn’t making this up!!!
BUGGER!! Bugger, bugger bugger! Three of them!! Four including Renesmee!! Wonder if the wards have gone off? If Dad get’s called here, oh hell. Merlin, I hope James doesn’t come up!
Esme gasped. “What is that?!”
“The boy on the broomstick. With Renesmee literally having the time of her life.”
He couldn’t deny it. She was ecstatic.
Bella sighed. “We’re going to have to move again, aren’t we?”
“And Carlisle was so pleased to finally find a house in London again,” Esme lamented.
“Perhaps not. He has just as much to hide as we do,” Edward said.
The brooms swerved into a landing at the rooftop, and the boy gently helped Renesmee dismount. She giggled and ran up to her mother, hugging her tight. “See? I wasn’t making it up!!”
The vampires looked upon the boy with the broom.
Fuck me.
Edward raised his eyebrows at the boy.
“Right. Well, I really hate to do this, but it’s for the best,” the boy suddenly brandished a wand and twirled it before them. “Confundus!”
The vampires looked at each other. “I don’t think that did what you wanted it to,” Edward said, trying not to smirk.
The boy stepped back cautiously. “Look, she’s home, she’s just fine. She just wanted to take a little ride. We weren’t gone more than 10 minutes,” he said, clearly unnerved. Merlin, I really don’t want to Obliviate them. If the standard charm didn’t work… Maybe I do need Dad…
“Edward, what do you think,” Esme prompted.
“He didn’t mean her any harm,” he answered.
“Absolutely not,” the boy agreed. Cor, how could anyone harm her? Hell, why is he looking at me like that?
Edward turned to Bella and Renesmee. “Let’s go inside, shall we? The fog’s about to lift.”
Renesmee smiled at her new friend. “Will I see you later?”
“Of course,” the boy smiled.
---===---===---
“You did WHAT?!?”
Albus flinched. It wasn’t very often that he’d ever angered Dad. Dad was always the easier one to go to - Mum was the one to be wary of.
“I tried to confund them, but nothing! And she did something strange - she touched my arm, and I saw things. Things that she had seen.”
“She saw you. You gave her a ride on your broom, Albus. You have exposed us to the Muggles!”
“How could I not?! You should have seen her!”
“Al’s right, Dad,” James chimed in. “If she’d asked me, I would have given her a ride.”
Harry glared at James. “You will stay out of this.” He turned back to Albus. “It is a serious offense to perform magic in front of Muggles.”
“I know that Dad! But listen to me - she was not a Muggle! I don’t think any of them are.”
“What are they?”
“I - I don’t know.”
Harry groaned. “They are the ones that bought the houses?”
“Yes.”
“So, they must realize there’s another house amongst theirs,” Harry said more to himself.
“Yes. She asked me about it.”
“And what did you say? Exactly?”
“I avoided the conversation. Just said that we’d lived around here for years.”
“Not good enough, son. You know that.” Harry paced around the room. “I ought to send in a Ministry team to clear this up. But that would open up the fact that we still own Grimmauld place. Blimey. What were you thinking?”
James snorted. “He was thinking with his -“
Albus interrupted his brother with a swift punch in the arm. Unfortunately James just laughed.
“Boys,” warned Harry. “Right. This is how we are going to fix this.”
----====----====----
“Is it really nothing to worry about?” Esme wondered aloud.
Edward smiled reassuringly. “Everything is alright, Esme. You know that Alice wouldn’t have recommended us come here to London if there were the slightest bit of danger. And Carlisle, Jasper and Alice will be here in two days,” he reminded her, even though there was no need.
Now that he knew what voices to listen for, he was much more relaxed. His assumptions that the boy and his people had just as much to keep secret as they did were on the mark.
Renesmee, on the other hand was completely content in the fact that she hadn’t been making up the whole flying broom story, and was plotting at how to get back at Emmett. He grimly sighed at the last plot that flew through her mind, and approached her.
“I know, I know!! I wasn’t really planning on it,” she protested.
“I understand,” he said. “I’m just curious how Jacob will react.”
She looked up at him bewildered. “What do you mean?”
Bella, who had been reading on the couch whipped her head up in attention.
“That boy -“
“Albus.”
“Albus was just trying to impress you with that ride,” he started.
“Daddy, don’t do this,” she started. “It’s positively painful that I don’t see anybody other than the family here. And I do miss Jake terribly. Is it really that bad that I met a new friend?”
“No, it’s not that bad,” he hedged. “However, I do urge you to not get too close to him - we won’t stay here for very long, and I don’t want you to slip up and expose us further.”
“But I didn’t say anything! I didn’t tell him what we were!” she snorted. “He didn’t even tell me what he was.”
“His father is very influential in his world. And whereas he may, for all intents and purposes seem human, he’s not. He has some magical ability. That’s what he was attempting to do: modify our memories so that we hadn’t seen him or his broom. But of course, those simple spells wouldn’t work on vampires.”
“But he said he didn’t want to do that!”
“True, but he’s obligated - both for our protection and his. And, my dear, it seems that he’s harbored a little crush on you for quite some time.”
“What!? Gah - Dad!! Don’t you dare read his mind!”
“Edward!” Bella chastised.
“You know as well as I do, that there’s no control over it. Furthermore, I’m astounded that you showed him your gift. Renesmee, really, what were you thinking? These are the very things that we need to keep most guarded.”
She tearfully stood up to him. “Don’t you think I know that?”
“I’m explaining these to you so that you understand why I’m going to-“
“Don’t you dare,” Renesmee interrupted him. “Don’t tell me I can’t have any friends.”
Edward sighed, and turned to the door just as the bell rang. “Well. This ought to be interesting.” He squared his shoulders and answered the door. Esme followed close behind.
Albus and his father stood there. “Hello, there,” the father introduced himself. “I understand you have met my son earlier today? I’m Harry. We own a home just down the street.” He extended his hand in a friendly gesture.
Edward rubbed his hands together briskly and shook the offered hand. “Edward.”
“Ah,” Harry said, noting the coldness of hand he shook. “Well, we all clearly have secrets we need to protect. I’m sure you understand that I request your silence over any odd things that may occur in the neighborhood? You are more than welcome to contact me if you have any issues or questions.”
Edward nodded. “I don’t see any issues. I think Albus and Renesmee made fast friends,” he offered.
“Renesmee is your… sister?” Harry asked.
Edward nodded. He hated lying as such, but not even this wizard would understand. “This is our aunt Esme,” he gestured.
Esme gave him a warm, inviting smile. “You must be our neighbors. Won’t you come in?”
“Ah, sorry, we really have to move along. However, thank you for being understanding about our situation.”
“Surely, and likewise,” Edward said.
The two wizards left and Edward watched them from the window. Bella took his hand. “Everything alright?”
“Seems so. But I was wrong earlier.”
“About what?”
“The Albus kid. He doesn’t just have a crush on Renesmee. He’s fallen head over heels for her.”
Bella sighed. “And here I was worried about Nahuel and Jake.”
He smiled at her. “It all depends on who you want to see win.”
“I’m conflicted. It’s a good thing that’s not my choice.”
Shrugging, he pulled her close. “It’s not really much of a battle, you know.”
“STOP READING MY MIND!!!” shrilled a voice from one of the upstairs rooms.
See? It could work. In a very Swiss sort of way. :)
-scr