written for: the houses competition

house: slytherin

category: short

prompts: Guilt [Emotion]

word count: 1176

warnings: some swearing

notes: i'm just so tired and now i'm actually going to bed so i can wake up in time for this exam. also albus is dramatic and this is Quite Different from the last

disclaimer: disclaimed.

You're not supposed to have feelings—other than friendship, or maybe antagonism—towards your brother's girlfriend. Albus knows that.

It's just hard sometimes to remind his heart of that.

He doesn't want to feel this way, all right? It's not something he's remotely proud of, nor does he want to spend any time analysing. In fact, he's pretty sure that if he just ignores it, it'll go away.

(He hopes, anyway.)

The worst part of it all is that James would never do anything like this to him. It's not like Albus has done anything, nor does he intend to, but he can't help but think that James would never get himself into this situation.

James isn't the smartest member of their family, nor necessarily the kindest or most popular, but he's absolutely built out of love, and Albus can't help but feel like he's letting him down. It's eating him up from the inside.

The worst thing is the ways the situation is forcing Albus to be honest with himself. Most damning is the realisation that, if an opportunity was offered, he can't be sure that he'd be strong enough to say no. It's not like he thinks that she'd ever want to do something with him—as if. Even if she and James weren't happy and laughing and perfect and charming, she's still too Gryffindor to ever do something quite so ignoble. It's not like he buys into this ridiculous narrative Gryffindors have about themselves as protectors of good and heroes and whatever, because he doesn't, really, it's just… she's one of the Gryffindors who really does exemplify the best of the house. She's not perfect—she's impulsive and too fierce and is mostly ruled by emotion, despite having a pretty clever head on her shoulders—but she's genuinely good, just like James is, just like Albus is scared he isn't.

And yeah, okay, it's not like he thinks he's actually in danger of this situation because he really doesn't think she would ever want to do something with him—why would anyone want Albus, when you could have James?—but somewhere along the way of thinking about it, he had to admit to himself the truth: he's not sure that he'd be strong enough to say no, if it was offered.

James, Albus is sure, would be able to, if their positions were reversed.

(Albus hates James, just a little bit, but he loves him so much that it eclipses that.

Himself, though, he hates pretty freely.)

He tries to find a date for the next Hogsmeade weekend because, honestly, this pining is ridiculous, but after the third time he dismisses one girl for having blonde hair and another for being absolutely uninterested in Quidditch, he realises that he's not looking for anyone new—he's just looking for her in other people.

His mind is a maze to get lost in, full of intertwining passages of fury and guilt, because he hates this, but he hates himself for it more.

He's sitting with them one day, through absolutely no desire of his own, but Rose had been sitting with them and there had been no way to avoid it once they'd seen him coming. Rose suddenly stands, pulling James to his feet, dragging him over to someone on the other side of the courtyard, and Albus is alone with her.

He can't even say her name. In his mouth, it feels like hope and desperation, fantasy and guilt, and it's a heady combination that he doesn't think he can handle right now.

"How've you been?" she asks, nudging his foot with her own. "I haven't seen you in class as much recently."

The reason for that is that he's been avoiding her like the plague, but he resolves then and there to stop doing that. Not because he thinks he can get through it perfectly fine, but because she's noticed, and the only thing worse than this feeling is the idea of anyone knowing about this feeling.

"All right," he says, voice cracking slightly. "Just tired, you know how it is."

She laughs. "Rio working you to the bone?" she asks, mentioning the Slytherin Quidditch Captain.

He grimaces. "Nothing out of the ordinary," he quips, and she smirks.

"Yeah, captains these days, right?" she says jokingly, glancing over to where her Quidditch captain boyfriend is arguing with Lucy while Rose rolls her eyes.

"Insufferable," he says, and when she shoots him a small smile, it shatters right through his entire heart.

The thing is, all right, he knows this is terrible, and he's trying to get over it because, honestly, it's probably the result of having so many close friends in common and the sexual tension of attractive, bickering rival seekers. He's very good at rationalising it all to himself, and he has done so many times, trying to reduce everything he feels down to textbook reasons and logical answers.

The thing is, that all flies out the window whenever she smiles at him.

He swallows. "Hey, what are you—" he begins, before stopping, half in shock, half in horror, when James' shadow reaches them. He has no idea what he was going to ask, genuinely, but he's nothing short of appalled that his mouth ran away with him, and James' sudden presence makes the guilt all the more acute, shaping it into something white hot and devastating.

She looks at him funnily, probably because of his aborted sentence, but he just ignores that, instead looking at Rose, who's a step behind James.

"Have you seen Scorpius?" he asks her, trying not to notice James in his peripheral vision. He's not even doing anything, but the sight of him makes something twist in Albus' chest regardless. Albus refuses to think of these uncomfortable and unwelcome feelings as anything more serious than the generic label of feelings, but even if they were, he still wouldn't want to do anything about them. He loves James more than himself, and he always has. It's part of why this feels so awful.

Rose blinks. "Uh, yeah," she says, observing him carefully. He flinches. He doesn't need her perceptiveness right now—in fact, the idea terrifies him. "He's in the library with Cassius."

"Cool," Albus says. He glances generally in the others' direction, very careful to not make any actual eye contact with either of them. Both guilt and attachment will cause his heart to beat erratically, and he doesn't need either right now. "We're going to do some Charms revision together. I'll see you guys later."

He walks off, not even looking back at all the called farewells. He feels like Orpheus, but he doesn't know if he wants to look back at Eurydice in this situation to make sure she's following him, or to make sure she's not. They both simultaneously feel like the worst thing in the world.

There are worse things in the world than harbouring feelings for your brother's girlfriend, Albus knows. It's just that right now, he can't think of any.