PSL with @audax

[chambermusicandtenpins]

[Returning to the city had been a whirlwind. Even if he still had memories of the place, the city as a whole was a great deal to adjust to, even without the city's intense attempts at orientation. Still, he would manage.

It was just a tad bit more difficult when the city was insisting that he make nude artwork with a student.

Granted, he had not, technically, ever taught Harry. Yet. He would one day, and would presumably also be teaching his parents. Even if he knew full well he would not carry memories of this place back home with him, it was still an awkward layer to add to the whole thing.

Still, it wasn't as though they had much choice in the matter.

With a slight, sheepish smile, he asks:]

Which would you prefer, to pose first, or to have me do so?

Comments

[chambermusicandtenpins]

With a faint smile, he answers, "Ah, but when you are at your desk, you do not have people staring at you the whole while and making you conscious of your position. And certainly not with pencil and paper in hand."

Speaking of which. He starts sketching an outline, just soft lines indicating the general position of his form and the lines of his limbs. It's not something he is used to, so his movements are stiff as he tries to get it into a reasonable-enough shape.

[audax]

"Maybe not with paper and pencil, but I think you've too kind a view of Aurors and the Ministry if you don't think they're not giving me a side-eye." Harry's laugh is a quiet, huffed out thing - it is funny, because it has to be.

"There are times I wish I was less of a cynic, but after the second coworker sold a story to the Prophet -- well, I can't blame them, I suppose. It pays well enough, and I know it's all rubbish as it ever was." Occasionally, he lets it bother him, but it doesn't hit with the immediacy he felt when he was a child. "There were a couple of rough years, right after I became an adult and they could print whatever they wanted, but I made it through that."

[chambermusicandtenpins]

He feels a pang of empathy for Harry, for years of being written about and looked at, for needing to learn to live with it as a child. Albus has had things written about him, too, of course, but not by his colleagues, not in the school. Nothing quite like this, where doing a day's work might mean a headline.

"They do sound rather awful," he says, glancing up from his paper, his voice sympathetic. "The Prophet has always been rather dreadful. Shame to hear they haven't changed much in the next seventy years."

[audax]

"Albus, it is entirely possible they get worse." Given some of the things they've implied and the harm they've caused. "Muggle British papers really are some of the worst out there. And, frankly, I think the wizarding sort might be worse."

"D'you think it odd that there's really only one source for news? That it's so heavily tied into the Ministry?" He tilts his head and then realizes he's meant to be sitting still. Oops. "In my time, there's a sort of alternative that's not ideal, but it's something."

"To my knowledge, the Quibbler never called for children to be tossed into Azkaban and Kissed - a marked point in its favour, I feel."

[chambermusicandtenpins]

That last bit is quite a lot to take in at once, and there is a moment where Albus seems to grow rather tense at the description provided. He has always, always detested Azkaban and its particular horrors, ever since he was a child watching his father dragged off in cuffs, but to have the Prophet suggest such a horrific thing...

"I don't think I'm familiar with the Quibbler," he answers after a moment. "If it's an alternative, then, well, perhaps that is what our press needs most of all. If the Prophet's reporters are truly suggesting what you say, I wish them all the success in the world."

[audax]

"They're trying to be an alternative, and it's something like progress. Hit and miss. Sometimes they're a sober second thought, sometimes it's all about erumpet migration." Potter shrugs again - you take what you can get.

"As one of their favoured targets, I will admit that I have a rather strong bias against the Prophet, so do take my words with a rather large grain of salt."

[chambermusicandtenpins]

He lets out a wry sound. "You need not hedge any dislike of the Prophet, at least not while speaking to me," he answers, still idly sketching in lines, trying to focus some of his attention on the drawing. "They can be provide valuable information and horrific libel all in the same page, which is a tad distressing when they are -- what's the phrase? -- 'the only game in town'."

Albus hasn't had a full taste of the things the Prophet will say in the future, of course, but he and his family have had entanglements with it already. He doesn't doubt that whatever Harry goes through is horrific.

"And even if your other source is uneven, well, sometimes we all might need to learn about an erumpent migration or two," he muses, a tad more good-humored at that particular thought.

[audax]

Harry rolls his shoulders, stretches just a bit, and then returns to his pose. "Good, because they're appalling muckrackers and I feel that given the number of times I made the front page, they really ought to pay me."

"I will admit, I was tempted to keep and frame the 'Undesireable No.1' cover."

[chambermusicandtenpins]

"They should, I'm sure," Albus agrees, pleased by the renewed directness. No need to be anything less than blunt when it came to the Prophet and its tendency for hawking scandal. Besides, they were far from any other witches or wizards who might try to disagree with them.

That second bit does take him a bit by surprise, eyebrows going up as he draws. He's not even sure he's heard the Prophet call someone an 'undesirable' before. "It's quite the title," he answers. "I can understand the temptation to make it a point of pride."

[audax]

"Ron thought about putting it on a business card for me, along with the bounty." Harry's smile widens again, and he adjusts his posture. "It's undoubtedly black humour, but if I'm ever feeling low about myself, I can always remember that they had ten thousand galleons on my head before I finished at Hogwarts."

He's probably harmless, Albus. Just a misunderstanding. Surely.

[chambermusicandtenpins]

"I think I can understand your friend's impulse," he says, bemused. "It is not easy to fetch such a high price on one's head. Especially before one has had a chance to graduate."

He's curious, admittedly. One does not carry such a bounty lightly, not even with the Ministry at its most paranoid. But he also knows how tides shift, how public favor tended to shift like sand beneath one's feet in times of difficulty.