Falling Short of Expectations

This was written for the Bookshelf Challenge, as well as the Character Diversity Bootcamp with the character Albus Severus and prompt #19, writing.

Albus Severus Potter frowned at the letter he was attempting to write home for a long time, before crumpling it into a ball with a sigh. It shouldn't be this hard to write, it was only his parents, but he simply could not find a way to put his first week at Hogwarts into words.

The first day had been great; the Sorting had been a huge relief. Not only was he anxious about how the sorting took place (as it was a kind of tradition for parents not to reveal the manner of how they were to be sorted) but where he would be placed. Ever since his older brother, James, began attending Hogwarts and was placed in Gryffindor like their parents, he began worrying he would not follow in their footsteps. His father had told him earlier that day before he boarded the train that he would not mind where Albus was sorted, but he felt they would be disappointed nevertheless.

He need not have worried, the Hat had barely touched his head when it said to him that there was no place for a son of Harry Potter than Gryffindor. This had solved one concern, but began another.

The son of Harry Potter was expected to be many things, all of which he did not fit. He saw his professors frowning at him as he struggled through their classwork and homework assignments, his fellow housemates becoming uninterested after learning he knew nothing more than them about his father's defeat of Lord Voldemort. He wondered how James coped, but the answer was clear – he was as brilliant at spell work as their father had been, and relished the attention he received for being the son of the saviour of the Wizarding World. Albus never expected that he would be outshined by his name at Hogwarts, and that his brother being a miniature of his father did little to help. As much as he loved James, he resented him for causing others to set expectations he could not reach.

Staring back down into the parchment, he lamely wrote 'Everything at Hogwarts is going well.', dispatching it with his owl before he had a chance to pour his heart out to his parents, he didn't want them to know how weak he really was.