#because when alex is with miles he is a slightly different performance than with am

[13uswntimagines]

Better To Be Friends Than Competition (Lindsey x Reader)

Author’s Note: This Technically wasn’t requested, but @literaryhedgehog and i had a blast writing this. It’s the Harry Potter AU. Basically, reader is a muggleborn who really wants to be a chaser, but maybe there’s a better position for her on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. This is the beginning of what will be a multi-part series following the building romance between two amazing characters and how our golden octet help them out along the way. 

@sleep-deprived-athlete​

“Alright, you’ve all been told the rules and had the chance to warm up. So let’s start by dividing into groups. Anyone who wants to be a seeker follow Mia there to the far side of the field. Beaters to the left with Foudy. Keepers to the goalposts with Hope. And chasers with me up top,” Brandi said with a wave of her hand, kicking off of the ground and heading towards where her group was going to meet. 

You snuck a glance to either side of you as you also kick off and head to your position, trying to guess who out of the eight students around you is going to be your biggest competition. Surely you thought more people would have wanted a chance at a spot on one of the best teams at Hogwarts. Tryouts had been packed for the last two years. 

You wondered which drill Brandi was going to start with as you approached the group (said woman was idily tossing a quaffle lightly in her hands as she talked to another one of your competition). For the last 2 years it was always a set of passing drills, where would-be chasers played a very complicated game of catch up and down the pitch. 

Maybe those tryouts were supposed to be private, but how else could you prepare for them if you didn’t know what to expect? 

Quidditch was honestly a really weird sport. Well, American football made less sense, but you hadn’t exactly studied the rules as extensively as you had Quidditch. Like, the game literally would not end until someone caught the snitch. According to Quidditch through the Ages a game had literally lasted for months. You remembered watching a tennis game that lasted for four days before, but generally the muggle sports you grew up with were more consistent in how long each game took.  

“Oh yeah”, you thought, watching the beaters line up across the pitch, “and there is also a ball charmed to try and knock people off their broom. That’s not normal.” Though it was something your dad found hilarious. 

Sports were always something the two of you could talk about, even before you found out you had magic. He loved the fact that you loved football as much as he did, and was thrilled by the fact that you had enough talent to play it in your primary school. 

Though with your hand eye coordination you had done better with cricket, and baseball the few times you had a chance to play it in gym. So when you had joined the wizarding world you naturally had gotten into quidditch. Learned everything you could about the game so you could give him detailed play by plays about the games when you sent owls home. 

At this point you were dying to play. You were too short to be a beater or a keeper, but you knew you could be a chaser. You could catch like nobody’s business, and you had at least half of the tactics in The Beginner's Quidditch Playbook memorized. You were going to be the best damn chaser Hogwarts had ever seen. 

“Hey space captain, you ready for this?” 

“What?” You froze, heat flooding your cheeks at being caught not paying attention. You slowly turned to face the new presence. 

You knew the girl. Well. You knew of the girl (it was impossible not to know about the very pretty blond girl). She was in your house and year (and therefore in your dorm as well as all your classes) but the two of you had never really interacted before. She seemed to already know everyone and everything when she got to Hogwarts, so it didn’t really seem like she was looking for friends, and it was hard enough trying to figure out your new life without having people look at you strangely when you didn’t know a word they used. Not that Lindsey, you thought that’s her name anyway, had done that, but other purebloods did. It was easier figuring things out on your own to start, and by the time you did, you and Lindsey had already established yourselves in different friend groups. Was her name Lindsey? A Slytherin in your year was always calling her strange nicknames, so it was hard to tell. 

“The drill. Are you ready for the drill space captain?” The girl asked again. 

“Yeah, but I’m not a captain. I’m a second year, like you,” You said softly, your eyebrows furrowing. Maybe that was a wizard saying, but you had no idea what she was talking about. Your heart also dropped just a touch because if she thought you were a captain then she had absolutely no idea who you were. 

She shook her head with a giggle (showing off her dimples). “My dad says that’s what muggles call a person with their head in the clouds,” 

You cocked your head to the side, your brain running a million miles an hour to try and figure out what she meant. But then it clicked. “Oh you mean space cadet,” 

“I guess,” She shrugged, seemingly unbothered about the correct verbiage. 

The whistle blowing brought both of your attention back towards Brandi and the first set of would-be chasers beginning the crossing drill. You coughed to hide a scoff when Lynn Williams raced at breakneck speed up the pitch, and released the quaffle at least 30 feet off where the chasing captain had instructed. 

You shook your head at the play. It was too sloppy, too open and it would never connect well with JJ and Alex up top. 

“Not impressed by what you see?” Lindsey asked, her eyebrow quirking up (trying very hard to pretend she wasn’t interested in your answer. You were her competition after all). 

“Not after Alex basically destroyed the same course last year. She’s got an 85% accuracy rating on goal and nearly 60% of her shots come off of left crosses. Williams isn’t getting high enough on the pitch to provide an adequate pass,”  You mumbled out quickly, wincing when Lynn made the same mistake on the way back, nearly sending her partner (a girl in the year below you named Mal) into the stands to catch it (though you were slightly impressed that Mal managed to grab it before it landed in the seats). 

“Yeah, I see what you mean. Her throws tend to either go too short or too long. Even if it doesn’t go directly to her partner it at least needs to be consistent so during a game the person she’s throwing it to knows where to intercept it before the other team does,” Lindsey said, taking a hand off her broom to shield her eyes.

“She’s fast but it won’t help if she forces the other chaser off her line to provide service to Alex in front of the posts,” You huffed. Having her on that side would be a positioning nightmare. It left the team open and vulnerable to so many different attacking options. 

“I am not entirely sure what that means,” Lindsey said, smirking as she looked sideways at you, “but it sounds like you don’t think she’s competition, which is good news for us!’

You opened your mouth to respond, only to be cut off by Brandi’s whistle. “Alright next pair up,” 

You gulped and tightened your fingers on your broom “Guess it’s showtime,” You muttered, surging forward to the starting line. 

“Good luck space captain, you’re gonna need it,” Lindsey called back towards you with a wink, taking the ball from Brandi. 

You shook your head. You wouldn’t need luck. A fucking golden retriever could beat out the performance you had just whitnessed. As long as you didn’t fall off your brooms, you both would be fine. 

***

You raced towards the hoops, reaching your arm out to pluck the perfectly timed ball out of its arc towards the ground. Okay, Lindsey was good. Really good. She HAD to have known how bad Lynn’s throws were, because hers were positively perfect. Your throws were good, but Lindsey had this way of arching the ball up through the air if a perfect loop so it practically fell into your hands. There was no way she didn’t practice over the summer. 

You neared the posts, starting to make your u-turn to pass the ball back when a flash of gold caught your eyes. Before you really thought it through, the hand anchoring you to your broom had already lifted to snatch it out of the air on instinct. You had played cricket for most of your life- it was instinct to reach out and grab a ball that looked like it was about to fly into your face. 

The next few seconds happened almost in slow motion. As your fingers closed around the cool metal, you realized just how far to your side you had to lean to reach the object, and how far off balance it had put you. Your legs crossed tightly as you flipped completely upside down on your broom, entirely unwilling to let go of the object you had just caught or the large quaffle still tucked tightly under your arm. Before you really knew what was happening, you were staring straight at the ground, your legs the only thing keeping you in the air. 

“Holy shit, holy shit. Um, hey Lindsey?” You called, eyes on the ground below you. 

“What?” You heard her call. You idly wondered why one of the captains hadn’t put a stop to this yet and put you out of your misery. 

“Catch?” You threw the quaffle, well tossed it really, up into the air towards where you thought the other girl was. You knew it was going to be short, but also knew that she was going to catch it anyway. She really was that good. With your now free hand you reached up and grabbed the handle of your broom so you could pull yourself to it and rotate back to an upright position. 

Only then did you look down at the tiny ball fluttering in your hand. The tiny, almost leathery, wings flapped like it was waving hello. You stared at it in awe, your lips ticking up. You had just caught the golden snitch. You never thought you would get to touch the snitch, much less catch it. 

“Hey you” a voice called from the pitch behind you. You turned to look as Mia flew from where the seeker candidates were staring hopelessly at the sky around them to land on the pitch. “Get down here. Yeah, you on the drills.” She motioned down to the pitch, indicating where you should land, then turned her head to call over her shoulder, “Brandi I’m taking number 2.” 

You quickly flew towards where she had pointed, shakily dismounting from your broom. You weren’t sure if it was fear, adrenaline or nerves, but your legs felt like jelly. You clutched the little ball in your hand so tightly that you were sure there was going to be an imprint in your palm later. 

“What in Merlin’s name are you doing in the chaser section?” Mia said, tucking her broom under her arm and throwing her hand up towards the group of would be chasers throwing a ball around at varying distances. (You tried not to wince when Lynn nearly pegged Mal in the face again). 

“Um, trying to be a chaser? I was always a good forward so I thought it might fit?” You mumbled with a shrug, scratching the back of your neck with your free hand. a light shade of pink covered your cheeks. It was a little embarrassing how clueless you were with the magical world sometimes, and how even after being here for two full years, you still felt completely out of your depth. 

“That’d be like using a cauldron as a teacup because they’re both the same shape. It’d work but what a waste!” 

“I…- I have no idea what that means. I know I caught the wrong thing, and I’m sorry. I’ll leave now if that’s what you want,” You stuttered out, suddenly finding the way your shoe poked the pitch underneath you interesting. 

“No, kid you misunderstand me. Look, you, what’s your name again?” Mia stepped closer, tilting her head as she looked at you. 

“Y/n. Y/n Y/l/n,” 

“Right, Y/n, you could play chaser. You’d even be a decent one with a bit of work. But that’d be a damn waste of talent. You’re a natural seeker. I’m not upset with you for catching the wrong ball, I’m upset you weren’t over in my section trying to catch the snitch in the first place. Look at that lot over there, they still think it’s somewhere over the stands.” Mia stepped next to you and turned, gestured to the group of seeker hopefuls flying in circles near the Ravenclaw seats. 

“Oh,” You breathed out, following her hand to look at the large group. They were squinting towards the stands and swooping low at whatever they thought they had spotted, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the snitch had been caught on the other side of the pitch and that Mia wasn’t even paying attention to them anymore. 

“I’ve had a lot of practice spotting this ball,” Mia said, tapping the snitch trapped in your hand. “I was able to see it within about a minute of it being released, and have been watching it since. None of them saw it when it was on their side of the field, but you saw it instantly- even when you were focused on something else. That is a talent Y/n. Why didn’t you try out for seeker in the first place?”

“I didn’t know how to practice for it, and that-. It wasn’t like any of the other positions I have ever played,” You muttered, trying to cover your insecurity with a nonchalant shrug. It seemed like the position that required the most innate ability, and as a muggleborn you didn’t think you had any. 

Mia nodded slowly looking at you. “Right,” she said, turning and mounting her broom, “I wanna run you through some drills. Come on.”

You blinked at the woman as she hovered in front of you. Your eyes darting between Mia and the object still clutched tightly in your hand. Where were you supposed to put it? Were you supposed to let it go? 

You brought your palm up so it was level with your eyes and opened your hand, half expecting the snitch to fly away. It didn’t. It’s wings slowly unfurled and it waved docilely at you. Like an old friend. 

“What’re you waiting for?” Mia called down at you.

“It won’t fly away!” You called back, looking up at the woman, who rolled her eyes indulgently. 

“Of course not, it’s yours. You caught it, and you can watch it like some love-struck puppy later- stash it in your pocket and come on!”

***

You were having a fucking blast, even though you had no idea what you were in for when you joined the seeker group. Every year when you watched tryouts, you never payed attention to what they had to do, as you never thought you would have to do it. Even without the advantage, you were killing it. 

You had been separated into pairs, just like the chasers were, but Mia had enchanted clear balls (the size of tennis balls) to randomly fly through the air. The balls were given a 5 second head start before you and your partner were allowed to race to catch it. Now this was familiar, the jostling of arms while racing after a ball and trying to prevent someone else from getting to it before you. Only once out of five rounds did your opponent get to the ball before you, but really, that elbow to your ribs was a red card if you’d ever seen one. 

Then everyone took turns hovering in the air as Mia took ten of the enchanted balls and flicked them up haphazardly one by one every five seconds. The goal was to catch as many of them as you could before they hit the ground, even as they were sent up in different directions and some much higher in the air than others. You didn’t get all of them, but the seven you saved still seemed to impress the other seeker candidates who didn’t scowl. The second highest number saved was six, but that girl still congratulated you as you got off your broom, since “those last few of them went way further out than they did for me- and you were an inch away from that eighth one!” 

You nodded, smiling at her, though you were probably more embarrassed than she realized about that eighth one. That one had been sent towards the far side of the field, where you looked up to meet Lindsey’s eyes. You had been placed perfectly to catch the ball as it started falling from it’s apex, but in the moment your hand faltered, and it brushed by your hand instead. You cursed and considered going after it, but then you flew back to where Mia had already released one of the last two on the other side of the field. 

“Alright, for our last drill, we’re going to try to catch a real snitch again,” Mia said, pulling another golden ball out from inside her robes and holding it between her thumb and pointer finger. Its wings sprung out and flapped wildly, unlike the slow waving of the one in your pocket. 

Everything in you wanted to catch the little golden ball. To tame it like you had the other one. For it to sit calmly in your hand and wave hello like an old friend. 

“Isn’t the other one still out there?” The same girl asked, her head tilting to the side. 

“It’s been taken care of,” Mia smirked and shook her head, sending a little glance in your direction. The girl stared at her wide eyed, opening and closing her mouth as though she wanted to say more, but Mia again cut her off with a stern glare. ”As I was saying, the first of you to catch it gets to keep it and also gets a boost to the points on their scorecard. Now line up,” 

You all flew low on the pitch, forming a circle with Mia and the snitch at its center. Your eyes never left the frantically flapping little ball as you waited for her whistle to blow. There was no way it was going to escape you and if you got to show off for the would be chasers watching you near the posts, that was fine with you too. 

***

“Congratulations Y/n! There’s no way you won’t get picked to be seeker,” the girl said, after Mia released you, promising that the results of the tryouts would be posted next week. 

“Oh, um thanks-...” You said trailing off towards the end, awkwardly rubbing the back of your neck. You didn’t know her name. 

“Oh, sorry. You missed introductions at the beginning. I’m Savannah, from two years above you.” Savannah grinned at you, a bit ruefully. “You know, I thought this was going to be my year to nail the seeker position. But with you on the team, there’s no WAY we’re gonna lose to Slytherin. And Lloyd can stop looking so smug about the cup win last year.”

“The only reason they were better is because they had Amy and Sydney scoring.  They won despite her and her stupid tactics. If Slytherin actually got a decent seeker then we’d be in trouble,” Lindsey said, throwing her arm over your shoulder and stepping to walk between you and Savannah. 

“Carli’s decent, just distracted I think. She had NEWTS along with scouters and stuff,” you muttered, a bit defensively. You know you weren’t supposed to like the Slytherins- house competition and all that- but Carli’s strategy was pretty impressive. The recruiters certainly seemed to think so, you heard rumors that the recruiters from the Wasps and Arrows had a bidding war before the Harpies showed interest. 

“Pshh it was just the Harpies recruiter. Even if they have Potter, she’d still probably tank their win streak. At least that’d help my team,” Lindsey snorted, shaking her head. 

Your eyebrows furrowed. The Harpies were the second oldest team in the league, and since they recruited Ginny they had been on a tear taking down the Cannons and the Magpies in the final games of the European cup three years running. You thought Carli’s strategy would fit nicely in their ranks. 

“I’m pretty sure there were Wasps recruiters and Magpies guys here too,” Savannah said to Lindsey. You noticed her eyes glanced towards Lindsey’s arm around your shoulder as she smiled widely. Lindsey dramatically rolled her eyes. 

“Which team is yours?” You asked softly, leaning your head on Lindsey's shoulder as you trudged towards the locker room, ignoring Savannah. 

“The cannons of course,” Lindsey said confidently. Savannah seemed to be hiding a smirk, and waved goodbye at you as she headed into the locker room. 

“They’re pretty alright, but Ronaldo is a little too cocky for me. Sinclare and Potter together are a lethal combo for the Harpies and with Angerer in goal they’re like unstoppable,” You hummed thoughtfully. You also liked that the Harpies were an all female team. 

“Ugh, you sound like Emily,” Lindsey said, rolling her eyes. “She and Sam are giant Magpies supporters.” 

“I mean the Magpies have a 75% score rate while the Cannons are only at a 60. And Messi catches the snitch within the first hour 80% of the time, while Ronaldo’s catches take about 85 minutes on average,” you rattled off. So maybe you were a little too into statistics. At least your dad never had to worry about your math skills. 

“No way, they’re super into team stats too! Maybe you can help me convince Emily and Sam that the Cannons are the best team!”

“But Emily and Sam, whoever they are, are right. The stats don’t lie,” You said with furrowed eyebrows. 

“Oh, Emily is my friend in Slytherin and Sam‘s in Hufflepuff. I’ll introduce you later.” Lindsey said waving a hand in the air. “Anyway, the Magpies may have Messi, but the Cannons have heart! And isn’t that what really matters to make a good team great?”

You paused, pulling Lindsey to a stop beside you. “I know they don’t teach math here, but Statistics beat heart any day.” 

Lindsey laughed and shoved you playfully to the side. “You haven’t even met them and already you’re ganging up on me.” 

“I’m just stating facts. The hat almost put me in Ravenclaw cause I just love random factoids so much,” you smirked, tucking yourself back under her outstretched arm (it was just so warm and it made you feel… safe). 

“Well, I’m glad you’re in Gryffindor. It's way better to have you as a teammate than competition Space captain. Now let’s go- if we hurry we can probably get to the library to work on that potions essay before curfew.” 

[jamesginortonblog]

No one could accuse James Norton of allowing himself to be typecast. The 34-year-old has played a vicar-turned-sleuth in Grantchester, a violent rapist in Happy Valley, and the aristocratic hero of War & Peace. He’s also number three in the betting to be the new James Bond. And he’s just about to add to his library of opposites with two new roles: the staid tutor John Brooke, who marries Emma Watson’s Meg March, in the star-studded new film adaptation of Little Women; and the flamboyant real-life figure at the centre of the Profumo scandal – Stephen Ward – in BBC One’s The Trial of Christine Keeler.

“Ward was 100 per cent the fall guy,” says Norton, sporting a dark-blue crushed velvet jacket and settling in on a chaise longue in an upmarket London hotel. The actor looks every bit as debonair as you’d expect for a man playing the high-society osteopath with connections that ran from Soho to the aristocracy. “The government needed to clear their own name by tarnishing someone else’s.”

It was Ward who introduced the 46-year-old Secretary of State for War John Profumo (Ben Miles) to 19-year-old model and showgirl Christine Keeler (Sophie Cookson) at a party at Lord Astor’s country house estate of Cliveden in 1961. It led to an affair that exposed Profumo as a security threat – thanks to Keeler’s simultaneous relationship with a Russian naval attaché.

Keeler and her friend Mandy Rice-Davies (Ellie Bamber) often stayed at Ward’s London mews flat, and the 50-year-old former public schoolboy would later be prosecuted for living off immoral earnings in a dubious case of establishment revenge. The two had contributed small amounts to household expenses. Ward committed suicide after the judge’s summing up amounted to a direction to the jury to find him guilty.

Amanda Coe’s stylish, evocative drama establishes Keeler and Rice-Davies as sexually liberated young women for their time. Does Norton think they were victims? “Ward definitely used certain relationships he had with young, beautiful women to ingratiate himself with the wealthy elite,” he says. “He also groomed them to a point… but it’s too simplistic to say he was a man who groomed young women. His relationship with these young girls was often a very positive one, he would enable them, take them out of poverty.” Keeler was from a disadvantaged background and fitted the mould of the “alley cats” Ward liked to befriend. Norton gives a terrific performance as the sleazy Pygmalion.

“I really warmed to him… you fall in love with these characters, and Stephen Ward was way ahead of his time, so brave in how he lived his life and expressed himself, his sexual tastes, his flirting with cross-dressing, in a world that was still incredibly repressed.

“And the final reckoning was that Stephen Ward had somehow corrupted these Tory ministers and it was all his fault, which is absurd.”

I wonder if Norton, the son of a retired college lecturer and a mother who taught medical ethics, is as dazzled by the truly posh as Ward was.

“Wealth or class are not things that I’m particularly dazzled by,” he says. “I am by talent.” He cites Little Women director Greta Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach, who made Netflix’s Marriage Story, as an example.

Norton himself is part of a powerhouse acting couple, with British star Imogen Poots, whom he became close to when they starred together in a play in 2017. They seem very happy. “It’s good,” he says, but adds, “my personal life is very normal, I have a house in Peckham, my [parents] live in Yorkshire. There's very little glamour and scandal.”

There was a little bit of the latter when his previous girlfriend, actress Jessie Buckley, said their break-up had been “acrimonious”, but Norton is far too canny to add fuel to that particular fire.

Similarly, he won’t comment on the rumours linking him to James Bond, insisting they are “based on nothing”. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have strong opinions on the series in general.

“We all know that with James Bond, large parts of it, and all the versions of it in the past, are now antiquated and it needs to be updated,” he says. “And I think that Barbara Broccoli and the producers are very aware of that. Bringing in people like Phoebe Waller-Bridge can only help.”

Might the spy be a little too one-dimensional for someone who has taken on so many interesting parts? Daniel Craig, who is stepping aside after the latest film No Time To Die comes out in April, has often seemed unhappy with the role.

“If I was to take on a franchise,” Norton says, “I would always want to complement it with something completely different.”

He has just taken on a big HBO sci-fi series, The Nevers, he says, and is in negotiations with the BBC about doing a second series of McMafia. We chat about the fact that the first series attracted a measure of criticism, including some for his own performance as Alex Godman, the scion of a Russian mafia family drawn reluctantly into the underworld. “There was an article about the three wooden faces of James Norton,” he says with a laugh.

How did he take it?

“It’s a rite of passage that you have [bad reviews],” he replies. “Ultimately, it’s an art form which is deeply subjective and you’re never going to please everyone.” The character was intended to be “inscrutable and calcified”, he adds. Nevertheless, he admits he might play it slightly differently second time around.

“Yeah, possibly,” he says. “But, then again, you don’t want to pander to the people who didn’t like it. There's so much content out there that people who don't like it can go and find something else.”

One of the factors that Norton and director James Watkins agreed upon when sketching out Godman’s background was his public school education. Norton is a public school boy too; a former pupil of Ampleforth, the leading Catholic boarding school which was found to have covered up the sexual abuse of scores of children in a devastating report in 2018.

Norton never saw any wrongdoing during his time there, but does admit to being “quite badly bullied” and credits one of the monks - a Father Peter - with helping him get through it. “I was able to go and just talk to him and he basically became my therapist,” says Norton. “I just sort of sobbed my eyes out.”

Has it left a mark? “It probably has a bit,” he says. “It’s not defined me, but it has informed who I am. I’m hyper aware if someone is being in any way ostracised on a film set, for example.”

On Little Women, he found himself on set with some of the industry’s biggest names, including Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep and Laura Dern. The film’s a deliriously romantic and sentimental take on the novel’s sibling rivalries, but it takes its duty to Louisa May Alcott’s study of the economic subjection of women seriously. “It's important for us to go back to those punctuation marks in the struggle towards equality and recognise how far we've come, but also how we're not quite there yet,” Norton says.

He and Watson were given the task of writing their own marriage vows for the film, which he says he laboured over but arrived with them unfinished to discover that Watson had already written hers and they were beautiful. He was just young enough to read the early Harry Potter books, he notes, but has only seen a couple of the films – “Don’t tell Emma.”

He plays Chalamet’s tutor – did he fancy the 23-year-old as everyone else seems to right now? He smiles. “He’s a beguiling and bizarre, unique force of nature,” he says. Norton had been wondering about wearing a suit to today’s photoshoot, but is glad he didn’t as he’s just bumped into the younger man in a Gorillaz tee-shirt and sunglasses. “Whenever he’s around, I feel about 10 years older than I am.”

Among all its bold women, I wonder if his own character – John Brooke – is just a teeny bit dull. He laughs. “He’s a little quieter than some of the other characters, but that allowed me to just witness all these great women actors. It was incredible.”

There’s certainly nothing dull or quiet about the character he plays in the film Mr Jones, which is released in February. It’s the surprisingly little-known story of Gareth Jones, the journalist who uncovered the Holodomor – the man-made famine genocide inflicted by the Soviet Union upon Ukraine in 1932-33, which is estimated to have killed up to 7.5 million people. “He blew the whistle on the Soviet Union,” says Norton. “He was the first person to go [to Ukraine], and come back and tell the world.”

In the West, the economic crash of 1929 had led to the Great Depression. “Everyone was looking at the Soviet experiment thinking, ‘Oh, it's working’,” Norton says. “They were getting into bed with Stalin and trade deals were being made. And no one was calling them out. Until this one serious, bespectacled, earnest Welsh journalist got on a train and risked his life to blow the whistle.”

I wonder if those types of films can command a big enough audience to keep getting made? He accepts that independent cinema is in a period of shrinkage, but says, “while the audience for this type of film might not be as big as a Marvel movie, we have to protect those stories because film isn't just about escapism. It's also about education.”

[hippychick006]

15.01 Back and to the Future - Episode Recap/Review

Finally managed to find time to watch the episode all the way through.  I miss the old days where nothing would have stopped me watching it as soon as it aired, but those days are long gone. 

I’ve put the review under a cut to avoid triggering those that don’t like criticism of the show and think everyone who watches should only see the same rainbows, puppies and sunshine they appear to view when they watch it.  If this is you, it’s easy to just scroll on by or block “spn critical”, but I personally won’t stop making posts that cover both things I love about the show and things that lead to eye twitching.

We open on the last ever road so far of the series (sniffles).  As I’m useless as always with identifying music, Shazam advises me the montage was done to the music of Bob Segar and The Silver Bullet Band.  “The Famous Final Scene”. Lyrics are worth noting here:

Think in terms of bridges burned Think of seasons that must end See the rivers rise and fall They will rise and fall again Everything must have an end Like an ocean to a shore Like a river to a stream Like a river to a stream It's the famous final scene

And how you tried to make it work Did you really think it could How you tried to make it last Did you really think it would Like a guest who stayed too long Now it's finally time to leave Yes, it's finally time to leave Take it calmly and serene It's the famous final scene

It's been coming on so long You were just the last to know It's been a long time since you've smiled Seems like oh so long ago Now the stage has all been set And the nights are growing cold Soon the winter will be here And there's no one warm to hold Now the lines have all been read And you knew them all by heart Now you move toward the door Here it comes the hardest part Try the handle of the road Feeling different feeling strange This can never be arranged As the light fades from the screen From the famous final scene

 How dare they!  I’m feeling feelings!

Kudos to shazam by the way for identifying the music, even over the dialogue. Impressive.

I like that we open through Jack’s burned out eyes to the fighting taking place and the final verse of the song continues during this scene. The boys are doing well, and Badass!Castiel has made an appearance. Hello and welcome to the only version of Castiel I can watch these days.

Great scene of the brothers fighting side by side as they escape through the graveyard, flying Sam and ninja kicking Dean, great to watch and what I’m here for.  

I like the titles for this season, someone else did a great post on this (as long as you ignore the bi purple reference in their otherwise great analysis!).  I personally associate pink/purple with endings and beginnings and I would suggest this is much more likely what the season is about than Dean wanting to get it on with a 2000 year old beam of light in a corpse, but you know, what do Jensen and I know about Dean’s sexuality, am I right?

As always, I like the scenery and lighting so far, the show always does a superb job with both of these and another reason I continue to watch.

However, I am gravely disappointed we didn’t get the demon/ghosts/zombies/what the fuck ever dancing to Thriller, possibly that will come on the gag reel. We can live in hope, because otherwise it’s a missed opportunity.

Sam and Dean standing in front of the door together. Love it.  Any little brother moment makes me happy these days.

Poor Sam, he’s asked Castiel if he can heal Jack. ☹ Of course not, Sam, it’s only episode 15.01. Sheesh.  We have 19 episodes to go.  Pace yourself.

I think some of the dialogue in the mausoleum scene is the weakest in the episode and some of the delivery wasn’t great.  I can’t think of a more boring storyline than manufactured drama between Castiel and  Dean - yawn!  I’m also long past Castiel’s not understanding references stick. “I wouldn’t starve” That would have been funny season 4/5.   Now… not so much.  Also, thanks to Dabb, I don’t have any characters that I’m worried about dying. I know Jack will be back and I have the opposite problem with Castiel.  I didn’t feel any urgency in the whole opening scene.  Just, meh.

I do like however that during Dean getting worked up over Chuck, we see Sam getting distracted in the background and he sneaks off and we know he’s looking for a solution to their current predicament.

Dean eventually notices his brother has wandered off and asks what Sam’s got. Sam suggests there might be a drainage pipe or something.  Dean thinks they’re not that lucky and suggests sewer line.  Oh boys.

Brothers working together to break through the brickwork is what I think most of us are here for.  

RME at Sam and Dean stepping back from the zombie coming through the brickwork they’ve just opened up as if they’ve never hunted anything in their life. Either one (or both because that would have been cool) could have stuck the iron bars they were holding into the zombies head, but no, they needed the side character to rescue them.  So Dabb’s still not averse to making his leads look dumb in order for his side characters to have a purpose. Awesome writing, said no critic of Dabb ever.

Having said that, I have a weakness for people protecting Sam “fucking” Winchester and we get that in the very next scene where Castiel and Dean are slightly in front of Sam when Jack makes an appearance.  

Sam thinks Jack is alive. ☹

Immediately loving Demon B (can’t spell whatever his actual name is), love that Alex is getting the chance to do another character, and he’s killing it so far.  

Dean and Castiel have an argument about whether to listen to the demon, which is settled by Sam saying quietly, “Cass… Dean’s right.” Castiel stops.  Sastiel for the win y’all!

Lucky that spell was so easy, huh?  Hmm, graveyard dirt and angel blood might come in handy this season.   And if you were lucky enough to miss the Heller “Destiel is end game” meta on this spell, consider yourselves incredibly lucky and do not under any circumstances go looking for it.  

Two teenage girls we don’t know are doing what I presume is teenage girl stuff (which I never did by the way, but I might be unusual in that respect). I fear they are the red shirts of this episode so are not long for this world.  Those fears are confirmed when we see Bloody Mary in the mirror.  I’m more than a little confused since nobody said, “Bloody Mary”, let alone 3 times, so how on earth is she doing her mojo?  Anyway, spoiler alert, two girls we don’t care about die.  

Meanwhile, back in the Impala, which has 2 humans, a moody angel and a demon in Jack’s body, we find out 2-3 billion souls might be able to get out of hell through the rift that opened up in the graveyard.   Demon B says he knows a spell that will contain the current ones within a mile of the cemetery which might buy them some time.  Castiel says there’s a town that’s within that distance which would be in danger, so they decide they need to evacuate it and then perform the spell.  As they are talking about all of this, they come across an abandoned car.  Another great brother scene here where Dean and Sam investigate the car together.  Sam seems to flashback to the woman in white from the pilot.  

Sam: This could be our woman in white”.  

Dean: Dude, we sent her to hell years ago.  

Sam: Yeah, she could be back.  

Dean: Well, if she’s back, then they’re all back.  Every last one that we ever killed.

The next scene shows a woman with a child running through a house and there’s blood everywhere.  Again, I’ve got no emotional connection to them so this entire scene is meh for me, even with the child. Sorry.  If I’m going to be perfectly honest, the mom is kind of annoying for me.  Is it bad that I’m currently rooting for the ghosts?

Fast forward this scene, and it’s now daylight. How far did they drive?  Like Jack was killed in daylight, then it got dark – but I think that was Chuck’s doing, and now it’s light again.  I’m going to presume all of the graveyard stuff was 1 hour before dawn, otherwise the timing doesn’t make sense to me.  Anyway, Sam gets out of the car, he’s posing as an FBI agent which gets the suspicion of the local sheriff because that is not regulation FBI hair Sam!  

Meanwhile, Dean suggests Castiel go with “Crowley Junior” to get everything he needs for his spell.  Castiel refuses, he can’t even look at the demon wearing Jack’s body.  Suck it Castiel.  You’re a few millennials old angel, just get the job done ffs and stop being a wuss. Sam and Dean lost Jack too and you don’t see either of them crying into their coco pops!  Grrrr.  

Due to Cass being a weenie, we get brother separation from about half-way through the episode.  Sam with Castiel (Sastiel fans rejoice) and Dean with Demon B.

Castiel leaves the car and joins Sam who is still trying to convince the local sheriff to evacuate the town due to “the pipeline outside of town.” which Sam says has sprung a leak. Sheriff: What pipeline? Oh Sam.  Sam handles it well though, he goes into annoyed mode, which seems to work as the sheriff agrees he can move the towns people up to the high school which he says is 5 miles away.  I like Sam looking silently at Castiel here to check if that’s far enough, which Castiel confirms.

Meanwhile back at the car, Supernatural is as unsubtle as ever, we have a shot of Dean putting the god kiling gun/colt (not sure which) in the glove compartment. Hmm, idly wonders if Demon B is going to steal it at some point.

Demon B thinks Dean is gorgeous.  Calm tf down hellers, Dean is uncomfortable because he considers the meat suit the demon is wearing to be “our son, kind of” (his words, not mine).  Dean asks what Demon B needs to perform the spell and luckily it only requires a bag of salt… and a human heart.

Sam and Castiel are going house to house.  I like the difference between the two, Sam is wandering through the house, gun aimed and ready. Castiel holds the gun loosely at his side. Oh Castiel.  Castiel finds the two girls that were killed by bloody Mary.  Sam finds the little girl and her mom from the earlier scene. Sam is so good with the little girl, but putting his weapon down is a great big anvil to what’s coming next, particularly when Sam says “Everything’s going to be fine”.  

Hurt!Sam alert, but it comes with lame!ghost alert.  I mean that ghost clown is bad. I’m not sure how I feel about Sam still being afraid of this loser, plus he got over clowns several seasons ago, so why have him acting afraid.  Luckily, side character Castiel is here once again to be the hero of the show. Wait, what?

Back with Demon B and we find out he is a fanboy of torturer!Dean.  We also learn that the cage door is open, which means our dimension Michael (and likely brother Adam) is loose.

Castiel heals Sam (and repairs his clothing – have we seen this skill before or is this another continuity error?).  The mom is shocked and Castiel explains he’s an angel.  She asks about the clown, which Sam says was a ghost.  The woman asks about Sam and he says, he’s “just a guy” which is completely inaccurate, especially when his next sentence is “When I shot god…”

Castiel remembers that Sam’s injured and insists on seeing Sam’s shoulder wound and he’s not taking Sam’s bull “it’s nothing, it’s fine…”   So much Sastiel, and I really wish I could get behind this ship, but I won’t ever forgive the panic room, blaming Sam for the apocalpyse, or the bringing down of Sam’s hell wall amongst many other betrayals.  Love Sastiel shippers though and glad they are getting all the cookies.

Ok the vision scene, I’ve seen people thinking it’s Castiel that sees the vision, but it looks like it was Sam to me by the way he reacts, but it’s not 100% clear so it’ll be interesting how this progresses, particularly since the wound has an energy that Castiel’s never felt before.  I also don’t think it’s a vision, but a glimpse of one of the alternate realities. Sam goes back to insisting he’s fine and luckily he gets a call from the sheriff so Castiel can’t call him out on it.

Guys, I’m getting a bad feeling that the sheriff isn’t going to be around much longer.   A feeling that just grows when he comes across a lady wearing white and…

…what the hell?  That isn’t our Constance!  Great cheek bones though.  I have chipmunk cheeks like Paul McCartney so always jealous of great cheekbones.

Demon B and Dean are struggling with the heart ingredient. Dean’s thinking morgue, Demon B is a little fussy and would prefer fresh…

…  Wait a minute… was that a scream?  How fortuitous that I think Demon B’s about to get his spell ingredient.  Poor sheriff.  Damn you show!

Uh, Castiel and Sam, I don’t want to teach you how to do your job, but one in front, one behind the survivors would have been the way I’d have done it.  Horror movie survival 101. Just fyi. Plus your walk is not in sync.

See, I told you one of you should have walked behind! One of your survivors just wandered off and is now in danger and neither of you even noticed.

I’m getting whiplash again from the frequent scene changes during this entire segment, I hate when they do this.  Back with Demon B and Dean who realises the air is cold.  

Uh no Constance bitch, Dean did not take you home.  Sam did, but what is canon on this show any longer? Anyway, Dean gets thrown and knocked out.

Back with Castiel and Sam, clown ghost appears.  Castiel: “It’s just one ghost.”  

They walk closer and two more ghosts appear, Castiel, “…just three…”  Oh dear.

Sam and Castiel start shooting the ghosts.  Sam accidentally shoots Castiel instead of Lizzie Borden (I think it’s her), but given it’s rock salt, Castiel is okay.  While they have a “you shot me moment”, they take their eyes off the third ghost. I am not shocked at all that the third ghost takes advantage of their stupidity and tackles Sam to the ground.

Back with Demon B who is telling Constance she is a “Bad ghost.  Bad!”

Sam is getting whaled on.  Let’s put this down to his shoulder injury because otherwise Sam “fucking” Winchester has completely forgotten how to fight this episode.

Back with Demon B and Dean rescues him using iron to dispel Constance.  Great job Dean!  A+

Which gets reduced to a B- since the very next scene Dean throws his only weapon away.  Dean come on! This is horror movie survival 101.  I’m questioning your 30+ years of training at this point.  

Back with Sam, little girl survivor is entranced by a pond, which suddenly has a woman appear in it.  Sneak attack from Bloody Mary.  If that face had appeared at night and the pond water had not had an anvil dropped on it several times over the last few minutes, I might have been a little scared, but nope.

Back with Dean and Demon B who start the spell. Going back and forth between this and Castiel and Sam who are still getting whaled on.  Well actually, Sam is getting whaled on, Castiel is doing okay. Ooh, kick to the face shot on Sam. Hurry up Demon B.  The pretty is getting hurt!

Lovely, Sam “fucking” Winchester gets rescued for the third time in a single episode.   We may have to remove the middle name until Sam’s allowed to be a competent hunter again!

Demon B finishes the spell and it’s quite impressive, we see a light zoom towards Castiel and Sam that comes to an end a few hundred yards down the road -  which means they are still in the same zone as the ghosts, which all appear again. This spell looks like a firewall and I’m wondering if my firewall theory might ye be a possibility.

Sam tells Castiel to get the others across the line. Castiel doesn’t want to agree but Sam insists.  Sam stays behind to hold off the ghosts saying “bring it” and… his gun clicks empty. Oh Sam, this is a really bad day for you.

Sam gives his “look how cute I am smile” and starts running.  I have absolutely no idea why the ghosts are running.  They were able to appear a few seconds ago, I would think this would be faster.  

We do really need someone to edit the Benny Hill Yackety Sax music into this chase scene because it isn’t the least bit scary.  I’m sorry.

I like Sam protecting the little girl as he thinks he’s about to get stabbed, but in the first lucky moment of Sam’s really, terrible bad day, they made it just across the invisible barrier.

Lame Ghost!clown is a tad upset and whines.  Sam tells him to “Shut up!” Yeah Sammy!   With a final glare at the ghosts, Sam follows Castiel and the 2 survivors as they walk away.

They get back to Dean who drives them to the school. The impala is now even more full with 2 Winchesters, a still moody angel, demon B and 2 survivors.

Sam walks the survivors over to the school building and he’s just… sigh.  

However, I quickly realise this means we’re going to get a Dean and Castiel scene and prepare to cringe.  Dean asks Castiel: “You ok?”  Castiel: “Yes, but…”  Dean: “Good” and he walks away.  

Okaaaay, that went better than I was anticipating.  I do think Castiel was about to tell Dean about Sam’s shoulder injury though (because let’s face it, those two only talk about Sam or on rare occasions, Jack) so Dean not knowing about the “energy” Castiel felt might come back to bite later because Sam’s definitely not going to tell him about it.

Demon B thinks it was awkward, and I agree.

Okay, everyone shhhh!  It’s the 20th last ever broment!  Dean wants to take care of Sam’s injury. Sam’s “fine”. Dean’s not having any of it and insists.   Dean distracts Sam with a story from their childhood and these are the moments I continue to watch the show for!  

They talk about Chuck, Dean thinks they’ve had no free will, that they are just rats in a maze and he’s questioning what any of it ever meant. Sam ever the optimist believes they made a difference, that they saved people.  He thinks Chuck’s gone and that means it’s just them.  

Dean: and about 3 billion ghosts

Sam:  Yeah, well, what’s one more apocalypse, right?...   But seriously, if we win, when we win this, god’s gone. There’s no one to screw with us. There’s no more rats in a maze, it’s just us.  And we’re free.

Dean: “So, you and me, verse every soul in hell…. I like those odds.”

Sam smiles: “Yeah, me too.”

Dean: “Well, you know what that means?”                                               

Sam: “We’ve got work to do.” Sam closes the trunk and we flashback to pilot!Sam doing the same thing.

How dare you show.  Now I obviously need to go do some dusting… as my house has suddenly become dusty or my spring allergies are playing up a couple of seasons early...  

Other than some lame, eye rolling moments that I’ve covered throughout, I didn’t mind this episode, and I didn’t mind the separation. I’ve said before I don’t mind some brother separation, I like the different dynamics we get to see, but if we get a lot of brother separation again, I will not be such a happy bunny.  Don't care about other people’s views on this, but that’s mine.  I’m primarily watching for J2′s chemistry and you can’t get that if they aren’t on screen together.

I’m interested so far in where we’re headed which is good.  The only thing I’m not interested in which I commented on earlier is the 😴 fest (imo) that appears to be the Dean and Cass falling out that’s still hovering since last season. My main concern right now is that Dean will be made to apologise at some point and placate the wooby angel’s hurt feelings with a soap opera esque dramatic scene (which Dabb will cry while he writes it and' I’ll cry for entirely different reasons while I endure it) . Dean will no doubt declare yet again that Castiel is “brother/family” which will be as meaningless as the other times he’s said it.  

I’ve never been here for a storyline less than this one. And that includes Amelia that at least gave us great hair Sam, soft focus Sam, Sam with a dog and jealous!Dean.

I really hope I’m completely wrong and that Dabb won’t throw one of his lead characters under the bus in favour of a side character, but... then I remember it’s Dabb and he has thrown his lead characters under a bus for the sake of side characters.

All this is just my speculation.  It may or may not come to pass, but I like to get my concerns down so I can work through them.  

[tommybaholland]

GRIND Part 7 | tom holland x reader

(these boys,,,,pic not mine)

Pairing: stripper!Tom x fem!Reader

Summary: the two stripper friends almost jeopardize the club....but you don’t get off so easy either

Word Count: 4.5K+

warning: this story will contain mature content such as language, drugs and sexy, smutty scenes. nsfw 18+ pls!!

Waking up the next morning, you felt horrible. Last night marked the worst argument you’ve ever had with your best friend.

You didn’t know if she still had that title after that fight. She’d just be your roommate, for now.

You couldn’t deny that she was way out of line when the conversation shifted to you and Tom, her viewed somewhat embellished.

It was just a platonic love.

You and Tom might have acted like more than friends that one night, but that was before you knew him. You were under the impression that it you would never see him again, and it would all be easily forgotten.

But the coincidence of Harrison meeting Tom the very next day….it hit you very hard just then. You would’ve never met Tom if Harrison hadn’t met him…

How would things have been different?

Still be dating Ryan, become closer with Haz, still be best friends with Viv?

But the stupid thing was….somehow you didn’t regret any of it.

Tom was a great friend...Harrison’s friend. But you needed to make amends with Harrison for you and Tom to continue being friends.

Right?

Finally getting out of bed, you sauntered out into the kitchen, hoping to actually get some food this time. Pouring yourself a bowl of milk and cereal, Harrison had emerged from his room, looking like he was ready to go to the beach. You kept your head down, unsure if you should start the conversation.

Luckily, you didn’t have to.

“For what it’s worth now….I’m sorry. I really didn’t want you to be upset, honestly.”

“Thanks, Haz. I really appreciate that. And I’m sorry, too,” you admitted.

He gave you a small smile before asking his question.

“How’re you and Viv?”

You shook your head. “Not good. At all.”

“What? How could it have possibly gotten any worse?” Harrison posed, chuckling slightly.

“It got...kinda personal last night. Stuff was said that you should never say to your best friend,” you explained vaguely.

“If she could just admit that she was wrong, I’d be fine with her. But she keeps trying to justify it and starting fights again.”

Harrison knew very well that girls can be nasty when they’re mad at their friends, especially their closest girlfriends.

“Maybe you should just, give it another day? But promise me you’ll try to talk to her later,” Harrison asked.

“I’ll be honest...I cannot live here if you two are trying to kill each other,” he joked.

“Ughh, okaaay,” you agreed.

Then Tom appeared out of nowhere, casually walking into the apartment, making you jump slightly.

“Ohmygod! How did you get in here?”

“Just walked in,” he shrugged. “Am I no longer welcome here?”

“No...but walk in that super quiet like that again and you might not be,” you teased.

“I’ll try my best, love,” he replied, chuckling slightly at your agitation.

“Where’re you two headed off to?”

“The beach,” Harrison answered. “Just to hang out, maybe walk the boardwalk. Do you wanna join?”

You hesitated, having just gotten out of bed and were planning on sulking the rest of the day.

“Aw, c’mon, y/n. It’ll take your mind off things!” Harrison encouraged.

You looked over to Tom, who was already looking at you, with his sunglasses tucked perfectly into those stupid curls of his.

“You do look a little pale,” he teased.

You sighed dramatically. “Lemme go change.”

The boys both cheered.

“Yay, this is going to be fun!”

You expected it to be a chill, carefree day with no stress….until Tom convinced you to go surfing with him.

After countless practicing sessions of standing up on the board, you were now in the water, your arms already growing tired from paddling out. You finally caught up to Tom, floating next to him as you straddled your board, waiting for anxiously for a wave to come in.

You pulled at the collar of the rash guard, feeling uncomfortable with the sun beating down onto the tight fabric.

“Do we have to be out so far?” you asked, looking back to the shore, which seemed like miles away.

“This is where all the waves are!” he replied, looking over to you, eyes squinting in the sun. “Are you nervous?”

“Little bit.”

Drowning seemed like an unfortunate way to go.

“You’re going to love it, don’t worry,” he reassured. The motion of the water picked up, cuing Tom to start swimming towards it.

“Here we go!”

You began to follow after him, trying to copy him as he dove under the wave to get to the next one. You popped back up to the surface, gasping as the saltwater stung on your cheeks.

Seeing something out of the corner of your eye, you turned to see Tom riding the top of the next wave, flipping off of his board into the water as he approached the end. You shook your head while smiling at his need to grab everyone’s attention.

“Okay, y/n. You get the next one!” he yelled over to you.

The movement of the water rose again, making a whooshing sound as another wave was beginning to form. It looked bigger from where your were sitting on top of your board, but you quickly turned around and began paddling away from it.

As you felt the wave began to pick you up, you stood up carefully, staying in a low position to keep your balance. The wave wasn’t that big at all once you were riding it.

You smiled as you stood on the board for a total of about five seconds before losing your balance from listening to Tom’s cheering, and the sloshing of water filled your ears.

You breached above the water again, rubbing your eyes as your elbows held onto your board. Tom’s voice rang into your ears again.

“That was pretty good, yeah?”

You nodded, baffled that you actually stood up. “That was fun.”

You smiled as he laughed, looking as cute as always with his wet hair covering part of his face. Ryan would’ve never tried this, even if he was being paid to do it.

But it was always a new experience with Tom.

You two decided to paddle back to shore, your head spinning from being in the water so long. You all relaxed on the beach, basking in the sun. You and Tom sat looking at ocean, while Harrison seemed to drift off, snoozing in the sand.

You took note of how close in proximity Tom’s towel was to yours.

“Feel like I haven’t seen you in a while, Tom,” you noted as you sat in the sand.

“It has been some time, hasn’t it?” He agreed. “Well, I’m glad to be spending time with you now, darling.”

He swung his around your shoulders, pulling you closer to his side.

“Yeah, me too.”

“So how’re things with Ryan?” He asked.

“It’s good, actually,” you responded. “He’s been...doing better. I think you actually got through to him.”

Tom shrugged, removing his arm from around you. “Someone had to say it.”

You chuckled at his nonchalant response. “Well, I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. Nice to see that you’re happier with him.”

Liar.

“I wanna keep hanging out with you, though.”

Did that really come out of your mouth? But then again, you really hadn’t spent much time with him since after Harrison’s birthday party.

“Don’t worry, love. I’ll still be around.”

You bit your lower lip, feeling the need to clarify.

“You don’t have to be friends with Ryan but….”

He turned his head towards you, sparkling brown eyes waiting for you to finish your sentence.

“I still wanna be friends with you.”

“And what does he say about that?” Tom asked, genuinely curious.

“Nothing,” you replied, your voice firm. “He doesn’t get a say anymore.”

Tom returned a small smile, you only hoped what you were saying would be true.

You spent the rest of the day on the boardwalk, walking around. You ate dinner at one of the restaurants along the strip. You enjoyed the best meal you’d had in a day or so, with good company by your side.

“I told you guys to wake me up!” Harrison exclaimed after complaining about having the worst sunburn on his back.

“We’ll get you some aloe, mate. You’ll be alright,” Tom reassured him. “Might hurt while you’re doing work at that sorority tonight.”

“Oh, fuck,” Haz swore. “Forgot about that.”

“Sounds like fun,” you chimed in, sipping the last of your beer.

“Oh, it’s loads of fun, love,” Tom replied sarcastically, before checking his watch. “We better get going if we’re gonna get there in time.”

The boys dropped you back off at the apartment, your first move being to take a shower. You took your time washing the sand and saltwater out of your hair, feeling good after spending the day with the guys.

Once you were showered and dressed in your comfiest lounge pants, you decided to watch something on TV. As you exited your room, you noticed that Viv’s door was shut and the light was one, meaning that she was home.

You let out a big sigh, knowing in the back of your mind that your promised Harrison you’d talk to her.

Exhaling through your nose, you slowly walked over to her door, and knocked.

-

The boys arrived at the sorority house, dressed in cop costumes and ready to entertain.

Well, Tom was ready. This job seemed to make Harrison more nervous than his first night performing.

“You’re gonna kill it, dude. Just…. do whatever you did to Viv,” Tom joked.

“Fuck off, Tom,” Harrison pushed his shoulder but laughed anyway.

Tom loved doing these types of jobs because it was the easiest way to make a ton of money in one night. Plus, it never hurt him to entertain young women and see them….praise him.

In the past, every time he was asked to do them, he was always paired with Alex, who has a very aggressive and obnoxious style of seducing the clients.

So he was glad that Harrison agreed to come along.

“We got a complaint of some under age drinking. Is everyone 21 here?” Tom questioned, in character as he walked into the house holding a flashlight.

The girls stood back as he walked into the living room, Harrison trailing behind.

Tom walked up to the closest girl who was standing in the middle of the room.

“Can you turn around for me, hands up?”

The girl smirked at his request and turned to face the mantle of the fireplace as Tom continued the act.

“You don’t have anything I can stick myself with do you?”

“No…”

Tom ripped off his tear-away pants as Harrison began to do the same, revealing their bare legs and thongs.

The girls collectively shrieked as they began to interact with their new house guests. Their boyfriends and male counterparts stood in the dining room, quietly fuming at the shift of attention to the male strippers. Seems they weren’t aware that there would be other entertainment at the party tonight.

Or maybe they did know, and didn’t have any say of objecting to it.

Tom and Harrison did their thing, stripping off the little remaining clothes before beginning their main specialty. They both picked some girls to start dancing and grinding on, while the others cheered and fawned over the treatment their friends were getting from the hot strippers.

Tom worked on his girl, dancing over her and letting her feel over his torso, running her hands up and down his abs. She tried to reach up to touch his face, but he took hold of her hands, opening one to place a pill in her palm.

He really didn’t want to do it, but he also didn’t want Alex up his ass anymore. Normally he wouldn’t care and would let Alex tell Ryan about everything, but seeing as you seemed happier with him, Tom didn’t want to be the one to screw that up.

Or at least, he didn’t want you to hate him forever.

He promised you he would forget, so this was what he felt he had to do to consider your best interest.

She put the pill in her mouth, no questions asked, and that was that.

The guys in the house continued to stay away from what was happening in the living room. Tom figured he was doing them a favor….or maybe not?

The party continued on and they tried to give every girl there a piece of the show, Tom giving a few more pills to various girls. One of the guys seemed to notice what Tom had been doing, and eventually decided to confront him.

“Hey, did you give my girl ecstasy?” He demanded, pulling on Tom’s shoulder.

Irritated by the entire situation of even having to deal the pills, he muttered back curtly,

“No,” before turning back to the girl he was currently with.  

What he didn’t know, was that this guy was looking to fight. Seconds later he felt glass smash over his head, and a crash sound followed shortly after as Harrison tackled him into the wall. The other guys from the group joined in, trying to pull Harrison off the first guy but Tom unloaded a few punches on them.

The girls screamed and moved out of the way, except for the few that were high off the pills Tom gave them, and sat on the couch, looking mesmerized by the whole thing.

Once Tom felt they had fought enough of them off, he knew they had to get out of there. He grabbed Harrison as quick as he could, pulling him away from the fight.

“Dude, c’mon let’s go!”

He raced towards the back of the house, grabbing what he could of his belongings along the way. Harrison dragged behind him, and they escaped out the back door in the kitchen. They kept up their pace as they ran back to the car, barely clothed and hoping not to run into the real police on the drive out.

Once in the car, Tom sped away from the house, his heart racing and adrenaline pumping. He could hear Harrison panting beside him, spitting out his question in between breaths.

“What the fuck was that?!”

Tom clenched his jaw, seething that he couldn’t tell him the truth.

“They were just being dickheads.”

“Well, they shouldn’t have come if they knew we were gonna be there,” Harrison commented.

“Jesus…. what idiots,” Tom chuckled.

“At least we got out of there—” Tom’s eyes widened as he realized something.

“—fuck, I forgot my bag—”

“—Don’t worry, dude. Got it here,” Harrison replied, holding it up as Tom exhaled, relieved.

“You got any extra clothes in here?” Harrison asked, beginning to search through Tom’s stuff.

“You didn’t bring any? What, did you think you were going to put the costume back on?” Tom teased, laughing at Harrison’s naiveté with private strip shows.

“No, I—uh...Tom….what are these?”

Tom looked over quickly to see the the bag of pills that Harrison was holding with a puzzled look on his face.

“Uhh...drugs.”

“Well, no shit! I mean, why do you have them? You’re not—”

“No, I’m not using them,” Tom clarified. “I can’t really talk about it right now.”

“You might as well just tell me, I’ve already seen them so,” Harrison pressed.

Tom hesitated, considering the consequences of letting Harrison know what he was up to.

“Fuck,” he swore. “Okay... but you can’t say anything to anyone, yeah?”

“Yeah, I promise.”

Tom took a deep breath before starting at the very beginning.

“I’ve never told you this but...I kinda knew y/n before you and I met,” Tom paused but Harrison stayed quiet, silently urging him to continue.

“She and Viv came to the club one night, the day before I met you. And while I was performing, I…. kissed her. I just...couldn’t help it and she didn’t seem to want me to stop and then when you ended up being her roommate…”

Tom trailed off, chuckling at the memory of officially meeting you.

“Dunno, man. It was like...a sign.”

“Okay sooo what does this have to do with the drugs in your bag?” Harrison chimed in, getting Tom back on track.

“Right, so anyway, she never told Ryan about it and I promised her that I would just forget about it all together—”

“—Seems like you’ve done a real good job of that.”

“—Do you want me to fucking tell you or not?” Tom chastised, wanting to get through his explanation without unhelpful comments from his friend.

“So Alex knows about all of it and decided to rope me into this scheme which involves him threatening to tell Ryan about everything unless I sell these pills for him.”

“Wow…” Harrison reacted. “That’s some shit. So have you been doing it or are you gonna call his bluff?”

“I mean, I fucking said no and could give two shits about his little attempt to blackmail me but....she’s back with him, dude,” Tom elaborated.

Harrison nodded, understanding that no one likes Ryan, but no one wants ruin your bliss either.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What, about this?” Tom asked, referring to his current situation.

“No, no. About you and y/n,” Harrison clarified.

Tom pondered his question for a moment, trying not to make it sound like he had seriously violated guy code or whatever.

“When I met you, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. I thought I was never gonna see her again but then...you happened to be her new roommate and she has this twat boyfriend…” He trailed off, trying to summarize his thoughts.

“It just wasn’t my secret to tell, really,” he concluded.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Harrison nodded. “I had a feeling you had a soft spot for her, though.”

“....Dunno what you’re talking about mate,” Tom deflected, unable to hold back a smile.

“Oh, c’mon! You’ve been flirting with her the second you met — er, at least, when I introduced you,” Harrison explained.

“Okay, okay...I confess! But you can’t say anything to her,” Tom warned.

“I won’t. Pretty sure Viv knows, though.”

Tom smiles. “Yeah and to think that would’ve never happened if Viv hadn’t brought her there. Really have to thank her for that one”

Harrison scrunches up his face as he chuckled, confused by Tom’s connotation. “So...is that good or bad?”

Tom allows a soft chuckle to pass his lips. “Is it too self-indulging and wrong to say I don’t regret it?”

“No, it was definitely a horrible risk,” Harrison joked. “But at least we can cover it easily.”

“Have to say though, don’t think Viv will be frequenting that place anymore,” Harrison admitted while laughing.

Tom laughed along with him, enjoying the moment.

“M glad I met you, Haz. You’ve been good company through all this bullshit….and also I would’ve never officially met y/n if you weren’t friends with her first so thank for that,” Tom rambled out as Harrison kept laughing, letting him have that satisfaction.

“Aww, I’m glad I met you, too,” Harrison agreed,

After stopping by Tom’s place to change out of their thongs and into real clothes, they arrived back at the club. Tom would rather hear it from Dan now than later.

“You guys didn’t collect, at all?” Dan questioned the two.

“I’m sorry, did you not just hear what I just said?” Tom quipped.

“What I heard was, you guys didn’t do the job.”

“Well, we were a little busy fighting off frat boys who wouldn’t let us do the job. We could’ve gotten seriously hurt, dude!” Tom emphasized.

Harrison stood behind Tom, staying quiet as his brunette friend continued arguing with Dan.

“When are we gonna get some protection for doing this shit, man?”

“Do I look like a fucking psychic to you, Tom? How am I supposed to know if there’s going to be a potential threat?” Dan was beginning to become more hostile.

“I dunno, do like a background check or something! We can’t keep doing this if there’s a chance we’re killed or arrested—”

“Listen,” Dan threatened. “I’m not gonna let you jeopardize this club or my name. You’re never going to get what you want playing with fire...especially with me. You’re not gonna take away what I’ve built but you can be damn sure you’ll be the one to suffer.”

What else is new?

“Now, you can make it up to me by coming up with some fresher shit, or you can forget about equity,” Dan shrugged, finally done his rant.

Tom clenched his jaw, thinking about how necessary it was to get personal in this conversation. He turned and gestured for Harrison to follow, storming out of the club. He wanted to get the fuck out of there; this didn’t seem worth it to him anymore.

They got back into the car but Tom just sat there, staring blankly ahead of him before Harrison finally spoke up.

“I’m sorry, dude. I didn’t really know what to say back there,” he apologized, feeling guilty for not sticking up for his friend.

“Nah, s’okay, mate. Didn’t expect you to get involved anyway.”

“...Tom?”

He was met by those piercing blue eyes, which looked as if they glowed under the dim lighting.  

“I want you to know that... whatever he’s planning, I wanna stick by you. If you leave, I’ll go too,” Harrison announced.

“You don’t have to do that—”

“No, I want to. I came in with you….so I wanna leave with you, too.”

Just when Tom thought everyone was against him, Harrison seemed to always come through to stand by him. In the end, only Harrison would truly understand all the shit that goes on in Tom’s life.

And that was good enough for Tom.

“Thanks, H.”

-

The boys drove back to the apartment, Harrison convincing Tom to come in with him, in an attempt to get his mind off of Daniel.

You were sitting on the couch as the entered watching something on TV, which was odd as you were normally in bed by now. Harrison took note that you were sitting by yourself, Viv nowhere to be seen.

“You’re up late,” Harrison commented.

“Waiting for Ryan to get here,” you explained.

“Is Viv home?”

You attention shifted to Harrison. “She’s in her room.”

“Have you talked to her since you’ve been home?”

“She won’t open the door,” you answered, keeping your replies short and down to a few words.

Tom sat down in the armchair near the couch as Harrison went down the hall, presumably to go talk to Viv. You glanced over to see his long face, cheek propped up against his fist. He looked exhausted and worn out, contrasting with how you’d seen him earlier that day at the beach.

You vaguely remember seeing him like this before, all slumped over and tired eyes. You knew quite a bit about Tom, but you could only guess what was bothering him.

“Rough night?” you spoke, your voice quiet.

His ears perked up at the sound of your voice, his head turning to look over to you.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Seem to have a streak going.”

“Makes two of us, then,” you sympathized. “What’s been going on?”

You wanted to be there for him, you couldn’t count on your fingers how many times he’s done it for you at this point.

Tom hesitated, trying to figure out what to say. He knew he couldn’t say everything; most of it had to do with you and if it didn’t have to do with you, it involved you.

He opened his mouth to speak—

“She said she’ll come out soon,” Harrison announced, coming back into the living room. “You guys are gonna resolve this so we can all be happy friends again,” he proclaimed in a sing-song voice.

“Do we have to do it in front of you guys? Tom looks like he’s had a rough night and Ryan’s going to be here soon and I’m going to bed when he shows up,” you defended, making up several excuses.

“You said you would, y/n,” Harrison reminded you.

You sighed, knowing he was right.

“....okay,” you finally agreed.

Truth be told, you were done fighting with her. You missed having her around and you couldn’t be hanging out with males all the time. You needed a girlfriend to survive.

With those thoughts in mind, you were prepared to be the one to apologize.

“Can we watch something while we wait?” You offered.

“Yeah, sure. Not The Office, though. Kinda sick of that right now,” Haz admitted.

“What? You haven’t even seen all of it!”

“I know but, let’s take a break from that. We could watch that new thing you’ve been talking about? Bander-something?”

“Bandersnatch?” You corrected. “Yes! That’ll be so fun, you guys are gonna love it!”

“You’ve already seen it though?” Tom chimed in.

“I don’t mind watching it again. I wanna watch you guys play, also Fionn Whitehead is super cute, alsoooo I don’t think I’ve gotten to all the endings,” you rambled out all your reasons.

“Jesus, how many are there?” Harrison asked.

“Not sure. Maybe infinite…” you trailed off dramatically.

The boys laughed, intrigued enough to finally agree. You clicked on the movie, the Netflix logo appearing on the screen.

As you got up off the couch to get some drinks, the front door opened, revealing Ryan.

“Hey, babe,” you greeted him, going over to give him a quick kiss and locking the front door so people (including Tom) couldn’t get in.

You continued to make your way into the kitchen to grab two beers for the boys and some water for yourself. Ryan trailed behind you, not stopping to acknowledge Tom or Harrison at all.

You realized this was the first time Tom and Ryan have been in the same room together since….a while ago. You weren’t sure how this was gonna pan out, as there was already a lot of unsolved tension in house with you and Viv.

“Do you want something to drink?” You offered him while moving about the kitchen.

“Thought we were going to bed.”

“Uhm, you can, if you want. We’re just starting watching Bandersnatch—”

“What cereal do we choose, y/n?” Tom hollered from the living room.

“I’m not telling, you guys have to decide!” You replied.

You smirked as you heard them talk amongst themselves, listening to them obsess over the first choice they had to make.

“Why does it matter what cereal he eats?” Tom questioned.

“This is so stressful already,” Harrison noted.

“Just pick one dude—”

You turned back to Ryan, who got in front of your view of the living room, hopping up onto the counter.

“You should watch with us,” You pressed, wanting him to get used to spending time with the guys.

He looked at you, his expression unreadable, before holding his arms out to you.

“C’mere.”

You stopped what you were doing and sauntered over to where he sat on the counter, standing in between his legs.

“What?” You looked at at him, placing your hands on his knees.

He brought his hands up to cup your face, brushing his thumbs over your cheeks.

“Can we please go to bed?” He asked again, his voice softer this time.

You lowered your voice to match his volume as you answered. “You don’t….wanna watch the movie with us?”

He leaned closer, placing his lips over yours, bringing them into a sweet kiss. You moaned lowly at the gesture. Ryan was never the affectionate, calculated type. He could be overbearing and assertive with you sometimes, but this was gentle and sweet.

You pulled away from him slowly, breathing out as you spoke.

“Mmm, where’d you learn that one?”

He kept his face close to yours and his voice low. “You know this one, babe.”

“What? You’ve never done this to me before…..but I like it,” you purred.

Ryan chuckled, but it came out as more of a scoff.

“I’m just….taking after Tom and….

...doing what he did to you on your birthday.”

Your eyes widened upon hearing his words as fear struck your heart, and before you knew it, you were pressed up against the wall with a hand over your mouth.

-

A/N: thanks for coming to my shameless plug of Bandersnatch and projection of my new found hyper-fixation for fionn lol anyway wow...lotta shit going down....first of all... how tf did Ryan find out?? what’s gonna happen to the reader and how is it going to affect her current relationships with tom, haz, and viv?? really interested to know what you guys think about this part!!

also!! the ffh trailer?? what did you guys think ??

all the love and drink your respect tom holland juice 🍹

part 8...will it great?? (feedback much appreciated)

masterlist 🌺

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[torestoreamends]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Recap: 04/02/17

I was going to make this a short one but I think I failed... There was just too much to talk about! So without further ado, let's do this. 

(Apologies for this recap being almost entirely about James Le Lacheur, Nicola Alexis, and Tom Mackley... I don't know what to tell you. I love the covers and the ensemble.) 

*

Part One

The first piece of Mackley gold came in the Platform 9 3/4 scene. He was trying to gawp at Harry and co, but the person with him wanted to go, so they ended up shoving him across the stage, while he strained against them to keep staring.

Our first glimpse of James as Scorpius was in the carriage scene. It should be noted that James's Scorpius voice is considerably higher than Anthony's. It's slightly falsetto, with lots of high-pitched squeaky moments of excitement, and it's very smooth and gentle. There's no coarseness to it. Also, the pronunciation of every word is very precise, which not only makes her easier to understand, but also highlights Scorpius's posh Malfoy up bringing. It's a voice that is certainly more practiced and consistent than last time I heard it (I saw James's very first show as Scorpius back in October), which I'm really glad about. It was promising then, and has finally blossomed into a brilliant interpretation of the character. The perfect blend of posh and flaily nerd. 

Another of the things I love about James's Scorpius is that it's always so clear what Scorpius is thinking and feeling. James does a great job of guiding you as an audience member, and I'm never in any doubt about where Scorpius's head is at, or why a particular character choice was made. The perfect example is the sorting scene, where we got a by-the-book 'I expected this and am okay with it' nod and smile. 

Another Mackley note (I did warn you). Although we were deprived of many of his greatest scenes today (for reasons I'll discuss later), he and Josh did lounge side by side against a pillar during the flying lesson scene. They had their arms round each other and were generally heckling. I may or may not ship Tom The Hogwarts Student with whoever Josh happens to be playing at the time. In this case it was Yann.

Further on through the transition scene, I noticed that the Incendio was particularly excitable today. The sparks flew miles across the stage, almost into the audience.

The third year train ride was a pretty good one. Normally Anthony's Scorpius curls himself up into a little ball and makes himself as small as possible, but James's was sat bolt upright, arms crossed, staring off into space, like he was still in shock. @ohscorbus speculated that Scorpius was staring out of the window in an attempt to avoid having to look at Albus. And of course, in a way that was utterly predictable but still hit me right in the feels, Scorpius only looked at Albus when he asked him to 'be my good friend'. 

Nicola nailed the scene in Harry's office. The first time I saw her she warmed up by the DADA scene in Act Two, and that was where she really started to shine, but this time she hit the ground running, and this might have been one of my favourite versions of this scene ever. She's a very clear, fierce Hermione, and I love that. She's completely calm about Harry yelling at her, because this has been happening for years. Also, an entirely random observation, but I love how the covers actually deliver the lines which are in the script. Sometimes the principles have their own (incorrect) versions of the lines, which they deliver with supreme confidence every night, so it's only when a cover comes along that you realise a line isn't written that way in the script. In this scene that was 'Go home to your family, Harry,' which Noma always says as 'Go home, Harry'. I don't prefer either version, I just think it's interesting that the different versions exist!

Jamie in this performance was especially angry and broken. Sometimes he just ramps it up a notch, and this was one of those. I felt like a lot of the anger was found in the moments were he was especially quiet, trying to restrain himself, but ultimately failing. There were also the most awful explosions. It was a brilliantly painful performance all round.

The most interesting moment in the blanket scene actually came right at the end, after the awful words have been exchanged, when both Harry and Albus are still reeling. Harry reached up and rubbed his scar, which is such an iconic movement that I refuse to believe Jamie did it accidentally. He knows Harry far too well for that. It makes me wonder if that's him connecting the fight back to the meeting with Delphi in some way, and if he's making it about more than just Harry's relationship with Albus? I'd love to know what he's thinking there. It's certainly one to speculate about, and I hope it's something he'll develop to give us a better chance to figure it out. 

A cute Ginny and Harry thing from the post-nightmare chat. At one point when Harry was trying to convince Ginny he was alright, he reached over and squeezed her knee. I love those little moments of intimacy. Poppy and Jamie play such a believable and rich relationship, and you really believe at times like those that they're a couple who've been together for over twenty years and are still very much in love. 

Another thing, I saw someone asking how the transition at the beginning of this scene is done. For those who haven't seen the play, an empty bed is wheeled on into centre stage, Hagrid drapes a blanket over it, and then Harry and Ginny appear in it, coming from beneath the blanket. 

I have seen this trick completely not work (Hagrid completely failed to get the blanket to cover the bed), and it wasn't the best this time either, so I have figured this one out. Basically I think Harry and Ginny are inside the bed when it's wheeled on, and then there's a split in the middle of the bed, which they roll out of beneath the blanket. There's certainly no trapdoor which opens beneath the bed, because lots of the stalls has a side view, and I've never seen them come up from underneath. 

One thing I noticed about Act One, Scene Ten, is that Lily isn't on the train, which is a shame. I'd have liked to see her sitting with James and Rose in the cousins carriage. But alas, that doesn't happen.

I'd like to take this moment to say that James absolutely knocked these two scenes out of the park. The hug was so cute @platinasi and I squealed. It was an extended hug, and Scorpius patted his hands on Albus's back while they were hugging. It might be the best first hug I've seen. 

Scorpius's 'I thank you' (which replaces the 'ya-huh' in the script when Albus says Scorpius is an enormous geek) was a high-pitched, proud little squeak, and he spread his hands and inclined his head. It was a perfect Scorpius moment to rival any of Anthony's. The other banter and physicality in this scene was so lovely, and it continued onto the top of the train.

One of the things I've noticed about this scene is that Sam is energy to the max on top of the train. It's not just a character thing, it's to do with the energy he brings to the movement. Anthony has never managed to match that energy for me, but James did, and I finally believed that Scorpius was on top of that train, which I was really happy about. 

There were more lovely Scorpius moments here, my favourite of which was, as the Trolley Witch approached, Scorpius was flailing desperately in her direction. Then, when Albus finally turned and saw her, Scorpius was pointing with both hands over his head, and he ended up framing Albus's shocked little face. It was a perfect double act moment for them. 

Also, for those who are interested, Sam didn't shout 'what is your name?' this time, not the way he normally does. It was more curious and casual. And I've realised recently that this line is really important to me. It's one of Albus's moments of curiosity and compassion. He cares about people, and he wants to know more about them. It's one of those moments you see his big, nerdy heart, and I love it.

One final thing from this scene, I can confirm that Albus and Scorpius's wands are indeed the same as in the Cursed Child display at the HP Celebration. I got a flash of the pale and dark wood combination when Scorpius drew his wand in this scene, and I noticed Albus's one during the transition scene at the start. 

Onto the next scene, and Alex completely stole it. Alex smashed the entire first act really. He was utterly incredible. This scene in particular was amazing from Draco. He was completely broken, to the point where he barely had energy to raise his voice and shout. I hardly realised he'd said 'Voldemort is dead, Voldemort is gone' it was done in such a quiet, casual way, without him moving an inch. And 'back to being prejudiced against those with a Dark Mark' was equally quiet. He didn't want to fight, could hardly bring himself to do it, and was utterly done with the whole situation right from the start of the meeting. 

However, his mocking of Harry when he said 'my scar is hurting, my scar is hurting' was more high pitched and ridiculous than ever before. I've said it before, although it's usually James Howard I get it from, but it's so obvious sometimes how Draco is driven by Scorpius in this scene. It's not about arguing with Harry, he's just there for his son, and he wouldn't be participating at all if he didn't have to be. 

Two brief notes from the Polyjuice transformation scene. One, Sam, please chill. I actually have to hide in my scarf now because the second hand embarrassment is so strong. Like it's hilarious, but I just cannot watch these two idiots anymore. Two, I noticed the clock in this scene begins at 11pm (the clock is striking as they arrive at the ministry), and by the end of the scene it's 11:02, so I guess the clock is set to run at real time in the background! I wish I could focus on the clock more tbh because it really interests me.

Oh, and speaking of the clock, some people were criticising Scorpius's wand design for having the roman numeral for IV be written as IIII, however, I noticed that the clock uses the same numeral, so clearly this is a thing the designers chose to use deliberately! Fun clock facts with Philippa. 

Either Nicola is a goddess or they've changed the script, because I'm Act One, Scene Seventeen, the line 'I have made the Muggle Prime Minister aware and he is filing what is known as a misper,' today referred to the Prime Minister as a she. I may or may not have freaked out... I'd be interested to see if anyone else has heard this version of the line, because I've certainly never heard it before (even as recently as two weeks ago). Is it a Nicola thing? Was it an on the night improvisation? Let me know!

Also in this scene, Alex once again decided my heart needed to be shattered. Draco was quiet again, with an undercurrent of anger, and he was ready to walk out the whole time. The urge to go off and search for Scorpius himself seems to be something he can barely suppress. He doesn't trust Harry, or really anyone else, with Scorpius. He only trusts himself. 

And then of course Jamie joined in the fun. Harry's revelation was murmured. He didn't look up. It felt as though he was being forced to say the words, that he was utterly ashamed of them, and didn't want to be admitting this to anyone, least of all Draco. 

Draco's 'he's my sole heir... He's my only family' was choked and halting, a real cut off in the middle, a real struggle to say those last words. And his parting blow was low and dangerous as he stalked out, presumably to go and try to compose himself.

Jamie during the baby or a holiday exchange is amazing. I mean everyone is amazing in that bit, but Harry just looks so delightfully uncomfortable. He wants to be anywhere but there. He wants the ground to swallow him up. And as soon as Hermione gives him permission, he sprints for the exit, because Merlin he needs to get out of there yesterday. 

James did a super cool thing during the bookcase scene. I said earlier that I can really sense her Scorpius's thought process the whole time, and that's what happened here. When he was figuring out the shadow riddle he sort of gestured in front of and behind himself, working it through in a really visible way. As someone who knows these riddles very well, I can't tell if something like that helps the regular audience member keep up with the (very fast and complex) riddles, but it certainly helped me visualise it. 

Moving onto the second act, I'd like to give a big shoutout to our young Harry for the day, Harrison Noble. He was phenomenal, and shoots right to the top of my list of favourite young Harrys. Spot on acting, perfect look, ten out of ten. 

Am I allowed to mention something that happened in a different show? I didn't write a recap last time I went, but the most amazing thing happened in the Expelliarmus scene, which I desperately need to share. When Scorpius went in for a cheek kiss from Delphi she went 'NO' really loudly, so the entire theatre heard and burst out laughing. I've never seen someone so thoroughly rejected in my life. And then I'm almost certain Sam and Anthony were both losing it, because Albus was facing the back of the stage, and Scorpius gave him a little shoulder nudge when he said 'did you notice?' Then Albus's 'let's do this' wasn't at all determined like it normally is. He threw it out as he and Scorpius sprinted away side by side, rather than with Albus leading as would usually happen. I have no doubt that Sam and Anthony were quietly losing it backstage after that one. 

I was deeply upset that during the first task scene Mackley was on Slytherin banner duty (Stuart used to hold it but he's started disappearing during this scene now, for some reason), and Josh was on the other side of the stage being Yann. Or rather Ron in this scene. Someone once speculated that it's Ron standing behind Hermione during this scene, which makes sense, because normally Josh would find Mackley in that crowd whatever track either of them were in, but apparently whoever is in Yann's track is instructed to stand directly behind Hermione and not move! 

At the end of this scene, I'm not entirely sure why, but Albus collapsing was especially dramatic, and all the others panicked. It was a way more intense moment than it usually is. I think Albus may have fallen earlier than he usually does, so they were all scrambling to catch him, but I remember the helping him off the stage part being particularly panicky too. 

A random tiny thing I liked from the hospital wing argument was that, at the end, Harry positioned himself behind his chair, with his arms crossed and his jacket done up. It felt really final, and it felt like he didn't want to be near Albus. Normally he'll lean both hands on the chair and tower over Albus, but I actually preferred the standoffish folded arms. Harry was particularly sassy and irritable at this performance, and this was one of the moments where that really stood out.

When Albus told Scorpius they'd be better off without each other, Scorpius reeled back like he'd been hit. He always looks so small and miserable sitting alone on the staircase after that. I want to hug him.

The bit in McGonagall's office was another example of quiet, dangerous Harry. He didn't shout much, everything was said in a really low voice. It was like he didn't have the energy to argue or explain himself. He just knew he was right and his decisions needed to be respected. There was an undercurrent of pure anger and pain running beneath it, just waiting to explode out, while Harry tried to keep it contained. It was like he didn't have time for these people of their arguments, he had other things to do, probably things like investigating Scorpius's background, and coming up with more misguided ways to keep Albus safe. 

Nicola is so brutal in the Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson scene. She ignites through the second timeline and into the Voldemort timeline, and it's really quite incredible (she's expanded my list of 'covers I want to see take over when the principles leave' to four). She holds her wand like a knife the whole time, like she's weaponising herself against the world, like her life is a constant fight and she has no choice but to arm herself. After she knocked Albus to the floor she advanced on him and sort of brandished her wand over him. It was pretty intimidating, and very impressive. You never want to fuck with Hermione, and especially not in this timeline.

During this performance, Scorpius was particularly bitter about the fight with Hector over the correct rules of Gobstones. I think it still bothers him. Poor strange kid. I hope Albus knows how seriously Scorpius takes his Gobstones, or they could run into trouble one day. 

I also loved how James played the end of that scene. Scorpius stared after Delphi for several seconds, processing what she'd said, then he turned tail and sprinted off up the stairs to go and find Albus. 

More favourite things about Alex! Draco's little smirk when he finds out Harry does the cooking is the greatest thing ever and makes my life complete. It's a half smirk, half grin, and you just know that sometimes he thinks about that information and chuckles to himself. Also, that is totally coming back to haunt Harry some day. It's been stored away in the 'info for blackmailing and mocking Potter' folder in Draco's brain. 

Library scene feels incoming. After watching James's version of the speech @ohscorbus wondered whether, when the boys go back to the first task, Scorpius ever looks for his mum and dad in the crowd. They must both be there. Just imagine him trying to get a glimpse of his mum, maybe spotting her talking to one of her friends (probably wearing a Potter Stinks badge), and his whole world just lighting up for a second because she's here, and she's alive. Also, I was wondering whether, when Scorpius sees the Time-Turner for the first time when they get it out of the book, he thinks about the possibility of using it to get his mum back. There's no way it doesn't occur to him at some point. It's canon that he's thought about her in the context of the Time-Turner, so there are all these painful possibilities. 

Anyway, James was wonderful in this scene. My favourite moment was (same as last time I saw her version actually) right at the end. 'Because you're a terrible - the most terrible - friend'. Scorpius said the first part, then turned away like he needed to compose himself for a moment before shouting the last words, and it was such a violent, impassioned movement that I think James accidentally caught her mic, which made it sound more violent too. Then Scorpius turned back and exploded the last few words, ripping my heart out in the process. 

During the apology section, Scorpius's 'thanks' was really high-pitched and flustered and adorable. It was like he was so amazed by Albus's apology that he couldn't help watching him for the rest of it after that. Normally Anthony stays huddled up, but James didn't. Scorpius sat up and watched Albus properly, and the 'as apologies go this is wonderfully fulsome' line got a really cute little giggle from the audience. 

This is another scene where I love how well you can follow James's Scorpius's thought process. There's so much purpose and drive through the scene. It's not a pure emotional explosion like with Anthony. It's more deliberate than that. Scorpius is there to get Albus back, no matter the cost. The speech is part of that. It's necessary. It's an emotional outpouring, but it's also part of the plan, a plan which is carried out more effectively than I think Scorpius planned it to be. And I love being able to see that running across Scorpius's face and through his body the whole time. Brilliant acting. 

I love the scene between Hermione and Ron so much, and I especially love Nicola's version of it. I love how when she says 'I know' she brushes a single little finger against Ron's hand. I love how she seems so confident, and holds her own against Ron. That strength and fight from the DADA scene continues, even though she's being tested and is on the edge of breaking. 

My favourite thing about the Moaning Myrtle scene (apart from Annabel Baldwin who is one of my favourite things about the whole play) is how pleased Albus is with himself to start with. When Myrtle arrives he grins and spreads his arms like 'look how much of a genius I am', but then Myrtle slowly derails his big reveal, taking them off track, wailing and distracting and taking all of Scorpius's attention. And Albus gets slowly more and more done and frustrated with her, until he's full on glaring at her. At one point she sometimes gets his hand wet, and this time he started drying it on his robes with the most disgruntled look on his face. The poor kid had a brilliant plan and wanted Scorpius to be so proud of him, but Myrtle ruined his big reveal. Bless him. 

Also I love the Scorpius and Albus double act moment when Albus goes 'we can travel in time', and Scorpius reveals the Time-Turned with a big flourish and a ta-da. It's so very cute. 

It's time for another instalment of Mackley watch! *insert theme tune here* So I was super excited to see who would be on as the double for Scorpius in the second task scene. Obviously it's normally James, but since she was on as proper Scorpius today I had no idea who it would be. However, when the scene started, a teeny tiny person in a blond wig descended from the rafters, I caught a glimpse of their face and I, because I apparently have a problem, immediately recognised it as Tom Mackley. 

My current working theory about this is that because all the Albus's have to be able to fly, and all the cover Scorpius's have significant other roles (I wonder if Jack North is one of the Dementors, since he's one of the movement captains?) they'll switch them in first, especially since Mackley is a swing and has tons of time to get up there. 

Whatever the reason for using Mackley, I am delighted to know he has a blond wig floating around somewhere, and would like to know when he will be allowed to play the tiniest and fluffiest Scorpius ever to exist. Someone make it happen. (No but he would be ridiculous as Scorpius. He's just far too small, as I will discuss later.) 

Coming out of the lake, James's Scorpius was so enthusiastic. Anthony's is often a little restrained these days, but James's exploded out of the lake with the loudest and most excitable 'woohoo!' I've ever heard. It would have been adorable if awful things weren't about to happen...

*

Part Two 

I read somewhere that someone didn't like Helen Aluko as Polly Chapman and I would just like to ask that person (I don't remember who it was), very respectfully, whether they were actually paying attention during Act Three, Scene Two, or even if maybe they got the name of the actress mixed up? Because she was and is phenomenal. Strong and confident, just the right amount of unhinged, actually makes the 'oh potter, I've got blood on my shoes again' line make sense. 

At the end she seems so uncertain about making a future with Scorpius, or maybe uncertain is the wrong word. She knows it's what she's meant to do, but she's terrified of it. I imagine that making a future in that uncertain world she lives in is exceptionally difficult, but the Scorpion King is the perfect way to ensure that future. 

Let's pretend Saturday's scene in Draco's office didn't happen and instead talk about the amazing job Alex and Anthony did the previous time I saw the show! It was one of the best Draco's office scenes I've ever witnessed. Scorpius was practically crying when Draco threw him away across the room, whereas up until that point he'd been sarcastic and joking, playing around with his dad, apparently thinking the whole thing is a bit of a stupid game. It's only later that he realises how serious it all is. 

The really brilliant moment, however, came when Scorpius said his bitter little 'the Malfoys, the family you can always rely on to make the world a murkier place', and Draco stormed at him. Out from behind his desk, across the whole stage, until he was towering over Scorpius, so tall and intimidating and downright terrifying. It looked as though Draco was going to hit Scorpius, and I'm sure Scorpius thought so too because he cowered.

But then Draco stepped away. He stood at right angles to Scorpius for the next exchange, Draco facing the audience, Scorpius the desk. Draco didn't look at Scorpius, but gestured in his direction during 'and what's brought that on?' It was as though Draco wanted to understand but knew there was limited time to do so. 

The moment when they finally looked at each other was when Scorpius said 'Did she?' And Draco replied 'There's more of her in there than I thought.' He then walked briskly back behind his desk, but Scorpius followed him, almost attached by a string now, unable to stay away from his dad. He said 'for Voldemort and valour' as he was walking, and he finished the scene at his dad's desk, just as his dad had swept from the room. It was like the exchange made him want more from his dad, need more, but Draco could only give so much, so Scorpius was left empty and desperate for further reassurance and strength. It was quite incredible.

Jumping back to Saturday as if nothing ever happened, I don't have many notes from the Snape scene, but I can tell you there was a Death Eater mishap in the background. A bunch of Death Eaters/students march behind Snape's blackboard at the start of the scene, and at one point one of them tripped, but they were so bunched up that the others behind walked into the one who had tripped, and they all ended up giggling as they disappeared behind the blackboard. Least intimidating Death Eaters ever. 

Nicola as Voldy timeline Hermione just blazes. She's fierce and fiery and passionate and she just shines. She's incredible. She looks like a renegade, with her hair visibly messed up, and she's so confident and authoritative. I've noticed recently that Noma has stopped putting her foot on Anthony's chest to pin him to the ground, but Nicola held no such qualms with James. She didn't let him up for a while actually, kept him trapped down there even once she'd established Scorpius was safe. 

In Act Three, Scene Seven, there's one line that Anthony always delivers the same way, and it's always a throwaway line (usually while Scorpius is chewing his fingernails or something): 'That's the thing - this Time-Turner, you only get five minutes in the past'. James did not throw the line away at all. Scorpius sounded thoroughly engaged in the whole conversation, engaged and invested, and every word was important (because actually, the fact you only get five minutes in the past is sort of significant). 

More from Mackley watch... He is entirely too tiny to be Scorpius. I think (if it weren't for the hair) he'd be even shorter than Sam, and he's certainly a little smaller in terms of build. Although, when the two of them were standing next to each other I realised how very similar they are in terms of build and stature (both teeny tiny small fluffy beans). It was also clear that both Tom and Sam have learned the exact same movements for when the crowd are reacting to Bagman's commentary. It was like a little Albus dance party going on in that corner of the stage. They were perfectly in synch, moving the precise same way at the precise same moment. It was actually pretty funny to watch. And it was a bit weird, because normally Tom and Sam don't exist in the same space, and it felt a bit like they shouldn't be allowed to stand next to each other, like the world might implode from the Albus-ness of it all. Anyway, we survived, I had a good laugh, and the show moved on.

I talked about this last time I saw Nicola but good god is she fast at getting clipped into her Dementor harness. I was specifically watching for it this time, and I was still amazed. She made Paul look sluggish (which is a feat because I'd say he probably does it at a fairly average speed). The woman has some real skills. I hope she knows they're appreciated. 

I really want to say, James does a wonderful job with Scorpius's interaction with the Dementor by the lake. Anthony always delivers those lines in a very specific way that I've never been entirely convinced by, but James's Scorpius's final 'help' was kind of a whimpering squeak, appealing to Snape, which I loved. 

One lighting thing I enjoy (apart from all of it because the lighting in this show, the way they replicate natural light, is utterly stunning. If you want an essay about lighting, including the way Scorbus as a pairing is lit, hit up my ask box and I will be happy to oblige) is when Scorpius emerges from the lake. You know things have changed because suddenly the light is golden and warm. When I look at it I can practically feel how warm it must be, compared to that frigid, Dementor infested other world. It's just pure relief. 

Anyway, Anthony removes his shoes at some point under the water, whereas James removed hers when she'd hopped up onto dry land. Actually Scorpius's stripping of the Voldy timeline clothes during this performance was great. It was used to dramatic and celebratory effect. The throwing away of the tie in particular was just Scorpius being so joyful to be free. 

When the adults find the kids, Harry and Ginny totally hug. It's quite cute. They're both so relieved bless them. Then of course Harry gets all angry... 

Can we please talk about James's left arm again? I mentioned this last time, but I thought it was just a random coincidental thing. It's not. In McGonagall's office, towards the end of the scene when they're talking about the Voldemort world being a horrific world, James's Scorpius starts rubbing his left arm under his dressing gown, right where a Dark Mark would be. Everything James does is so well considered and driven by clear thought processes that I can't believe it's an unintentional gesture. Also she's a fan of this story. She knows what she's doing. Also, that's not a mannerism Scorpius has the rest of the time, so I'm pretty curious to know what James is thinking there, what the significance of that gesture is. I sort of wish I'd asked at stage door... Someone remind me next time. 

At risk of getting repetitive, Jamie's quiet anger is even worse than his shouting. I can't handle the dorm scene. It's the moment when it doesn't even feel like they're trying to understand each other anymore. They're just bouncing off, because it's all so emotional and awful and they're done with containing themselves. It's like they have to hit rock bottom before they can build back up again. 

Also I love the look of disgust Albus throws his dad as he stalks off at the end of the scene. Harry says 'no, nor me,' and sits down on a suitcase (which turns into one of his parents' graves), and Albus just looks at him like he's the scum of the earth, like 'ugh you're making this all about you again and I hate you'. It's a wonderful awful look. I love it. Sam's gestures and facial expressions tell so so much of the story. I would highly recommend sitting in the stalls and watching him because you will not be disappointed. It's no coincidence that I fall back in love with him every time I'm near the front. 

One thing I remember from this show's library scene was that there was a moment when the boys were both leading against the ends of their beds, as close to each other as they could get without getting off, in beautiful mirror image. I like those moments of the two of them framing each other. Also, James had the perfect mix of seriousness and squeaky excitement in this scene. The 'it's time Time-Turning' was perfect, sort of subtle and with Scorpius staring at the Time-Turner, trying to keep a straight face. 

One note from the last time I saw Anthony do a slumber party scene. Scorpius actually leapt up onto his bed when he said 'turns out Malfoy the Unanxious is a pretty good liar!' He leapt up and kind of curled in on himself, and it was a bit like he didn't want Albus to get to him, and also that he was so pleased with himself he didn't entirely know what to do with his body. It was a seminal Scorpius moment. Brilliant. (There's no way Scorpius doesn't bounce on his bed and probably hit his head on the canopy all the time.)

There's an interesting thing about James's version of the Owlery scene. Scorpius never slides closer to Albus. There's always a little bit of distance between them, and I can't help but wonder if it's Scorpius doing it deliberately, if maybe he doesn't trust himself to get so close to Albus in this beautiful place when it's just the two of them. I never know how much to read into James's performance, in light of the things I know about her as a person, and her opinions about the story... It's difficult. My Scorbus-y little brain wants to run away with me but I don't know if I should be restraining it.

Anyway, this is another scene when you can so clearly see Scorpius's thought process. His brain is whirring away as Delphi talks, and you can't not watch his face because it's just so animated and expressive. You can see everything fall into place. If only Scorpius had drawn his wand faster instead of being nice enough to try and challenge her verbally... 

Another scene in which Alex was my favourite was Act Three, Scene Seventeen. When Ron was chatting away about him and Neville drinking Firewhisky, Draco literally turned and walked out of the door in frustration. He didn't leave, he needs Scorpius back of course, but he was so ready to just storm out. He's a man who needs action (good job Harry Potter is always where the action is at). 

Delphi was not fucking around in the maze. She was brutal. She grabbed Albus by the chin and manhandled him, she shoved him hard enough he nearly fell over, she hit Scorpius in the face. When she got close enough to kiss Albus and he tried to pull away from her she just grinned and held him tighter and closer. It's rough and mocking and awful. And after she killed Craig, when she ran at Scorpius he actually screamed. That happened twice. It was pretty incredible in a terrifying way. Esther is amazing and just keeps stepping up the evil. 

My favourite thing about James's version of the maze scene is that there's a moment when Scorpius starts to stop Albus from talking to Cedric. He's painfully aware that this might damage time, and he's probably terrified that Albus is going to warn Cedric about what's coming. Scorpius rises up on his knees and is about to interrupt, but when he realises what Albus is saying he sinks back onto his heels and bows his head, because he understands. He understands completely. And he knows that those words are as much about Albus as they are about Cedric. 

I found another bit of cool Delphi poetry on the wall of the dress circle, on the panel next to rows A and B on the left hand side as you look at the stage. I don't remember what it said, something about 'let the birds be dumb' but it was classic Delphi weird creepiness. I wish one time they would just leave the black light on so I can run around and make notes on all the cool stuff. There's just too much to remember it all. 

There was a beautiful moment in the first scene of Act Four. When Hermione said Voldemort had a child everyone looked at Draco, a thousand subtle glances, and Annabel was standing right in front of him, trying to restrain herself from looking round at him, but I think she threw him one glance. But then when it was confirmed that Voldemort had a daughter, Annabel turned round and murmured an apology to Draco. She was the only one to do it, and I just thought it was so sweet. 

This is really random, but in the station scene, when the boys are reciting the prophecy together, I noticed that Sam and James's voices were really different pitches, and I actually enjoyed that. You could hear them both speaking it in their own amazed horror, rather than blending together as one. 

Another random thing, but Josh Wyatt is tiny, and he came from Lily and James's door during the pumpkin transition, and I had a weird moment where I was like 'wow, it's Peter Pettigrew'. Pretty sure that's not an actual deliberate thing, but it really looked that way. 

It gives me great joy to inform you that James's 'Wow, squeak! My geekness is a-quivering' was every bit as masterful as Anthony's is. The squeak in particular was everything you want it to be. High pitched, ridiculous, wonderful.

There was something particularly painful about this version of the scene in Harry's office. Barry steps up the feels every time, and with Jamie's quiet, exhausted, barely restrained anger it was just pretty awful. 

I'm fascinated by the process of an actor trying something and then mastering it to the point that the general audience notices it and catches onto it. This is almost exclusively a Draco thing I've noticed. Either Alex or James will try something, and the first time I see it no one will notice, but then I'll come back a few weeks later and everyone is dying laughing. I don't know what it is that suddenly makes people notice it, maybe it's confidence in its presentation, maybe it's figuring out the perfect facial expression to accompany the action, maybe it's something else, but I've seen the same process multiple times, and I love watching it in progress.

This time it's Draco walking into Harry's office, seeing him crying, and walking right back out again. I saw it a couple of weeks ago and I was the only person who seemed to see it, and I thought it was utterly hilarious but had no idea how no one else noticed it. This time a bunch of people noticed and laughed. I feel like that's one that will stay around and develop for a while, and I can't wait to see the level of giggling it gets next time I see the play.

Anyway, when Alex isn't making us all laugh he's tearing our hearts to shreds. Draco's speech about Astoria was especially emotional this time. He completely broke at the end, voice all cracked, almost unable to finish the speech, and he had to turn away and wipe his eyes a couple of times before carrying on. I was thinking earlier that I'd love to know the image Alex has in his head of Astoria. He must have an idea of her, to speak so passionately and emotionally about her every night. I'd love to know the thoughts he's had about her...

I am in love with James's version of Act Four, Scene Five. I have always been in love with it, and I always will be. This time it started with Scorpius's 'HELP. HELP. HELP' routine. He sort of paused between each help and turned to Albus, like he was looking for approval to continue, and each one escalated in scale and ridiculousness. Thank goodness James's version preserves the over the top, absurd version Anthony used to do on a regular basis (the newer version is far less dramatic and ridiculous). 

The best thing about James's Scorpius in this scene, however, is how close he stays to Albus at all times. There are moments when he crouches down to Albus's level (Albus sits for the whole scene) when they're talking. There's a desire to be close, a need for comfort, and just an equality and gentleness to the interaction, which I always find really beautiful. Them staying so close together means they communicate more, especially in the significant moments. I think it's quite brave on Scorpius's part to allow that communication, especially given what he's saying.

James's Scorpius stays right by Albus's side when he says 'still, if I had to choose a companion to be at the return of eternal darkness with, I'd choose you', and when he says he'd choose Albus he actually turns to look at him. And then Albus gets up, and instead of walking behind Scorpius, to his other side, he just has to stand, and then he bumps his shoulder into Scorpius's and grins as he says 'no offence but I'd choose someone massive and really good at magic'. And it feels, in that moment, when they grin at each other, like something has changed. There's a second before Lily walks out of the door where it's just the two of them, suspended in time, and it was a breathtaking second where I wondered if they might hug, or take each other's hands, or say more, and I couldn't help but think that if they'd been left to their own devices, maybe something would have happened (just the way I sometimes wonder the same thing in the library scene). 

Skipping some scenes... Poppy and Jamie are wonderful but you know that, the farmer's market line is hilarious but you know that...

Let's talk about Alex and Anthony's hug from the other show I saw! It was one where Draco already had his arms spread waiting when Scorpius shrieked and ground to a halt, but then he beckoned Scorpius in and swept him off his feet and actually carried him to the side, and they just kept on hugging. They were grinning at each other and so happy, and Draco ruffled Scorpius's hair. I live for a good, satisfying, lengthy exchange of Malfoy affection. Express your love for each other you idiots! You need it and so do we! 

The Hinny moment in the church was so passionate. Harry had his face buried in Ginny's neck, and she had her hands sort of hovering in midair, like she couldn't decide where to take hold of him first, whether to bury her hands in his hair, or clutch his back, or his waist, or what. I mentioned above the Jamie and Poppy are perfect, and they really are. I'm happy I've seen Poppy every single time I've seen the show, and Jamie every time but one (I've just jinxed myself now, haven't I? I shouldn't have written that...)

Okay, this happens every time, but I don't think I've remembered to mention it before, and I love it with a passion. When Harry has his family back together, when he feels in control, when he knows he can act and fight and help, he becomes so enthusiastic. He's grinning as he says he can transform into Voldemort. This is something he knows how to do, something he's been doing his entire life, something he's trained for. He can put his own life on the line because it's his life. Not anyone else's. No one has to fight for him or die for him, he can do it himself, and that's just the way he likes it. So he gets all smiley and confident and is bouncing with energy because he's ready to go. 

There was a brilliant moment in the fight this time. After Albus came out of the grate he was alone on the floor for a moment while Harry and Delphi were fighting, facing the audience, centre stage. You could see him glance at the two doors, then at Delphi, and you could see the moment he realised he could actually help. It was great. Albus taking matters into his own hands, trusting his dad to protect him while he acted, trusting himself to be able to open the doors. One of my favourite Albus moments ever. 

The best Malfoy family moment (the only stand out Malfoy family moment) from Saturday night was the death scene, which was amazing. Scorpius was staring at the house, transfixed in horror, unable to look away. He was shaking, and Draco sort of gently drew him in, and tried to turn him away, wanting to protect him. And Scorpius resisted for a bit, but when he finally did turn away, he buried his face in his dad's chest and clutched desperately at him, and Draco held onto him and kissed his hair. It was the best Malfoy moment of the night by far. 

Bless James for keeping in the flailing/falling down the stairs routine. Actually this version was a little different. Scorpius sort of stumbled round in a circle but stayed really close to Albus, and Albus smirked and gave him a little shove down the stairs towards Rose. It was a 'you got yourself into this mess, mate. Deal with it' moment. 

Sorry, I realised I forgot something from the second Godric's Hollow scene. At the end of this scene, Albus just cannot keep his hands to himself. He's so excited by his brilliant idea, and desperate to bring Scorpius along with him, that he keeps patting Scorpius's chest and shoulders and arms. Just hands everywhere. 

Anyway, back to the point... Speaking of handsy Scorbus... I'm pretty sure there was a bit more shoulder patting after this penultimate scene hug. It wasn't a long hug, but it was a pretty nice one. And I actually quite liked the way Scorpius said 'ha! Yeah. Right' this time. It sounded more like he was really considering talking to Rose about it. I can't tell you why that was preferable to the sarcastic version we normally get, it was just a bit different and quite nice. I liked the delivery. 

In the final scene we got more quiet Harry. Not angry this time, just a bit tired, and nervous, and desperate to reach Albus. They were both quiet and nervous. But the tension was broken by a brilliant pigeon racing line, which got the sort of double laugh from the audience that normally means the actors are barely holding it together. Harry was certainly grinning an awful lot, and Albus was smirking and pleased with himself. It was a lovely final scene. It always is. And a great show, which again, it always is.

If you get chance to see James (and Nicola) I would highly recommend it. I think you can learn a lot about these characters by seeing two people play them. 

Also, please hit me up about the lighting if you're interested. Let me gush at you about the lighting in the first train ride scene, and all the Scorbus feels it induces. I know I should just write a post about it anyway, but sometimes I need encouragement. 

Thanks for reading! <3