Look Who's on TV

POV Beatrice

"Mum! Hurry up, the interview's about to start!" Beatrice called to her mother.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" her mother called back from the other room.

Bea was already sitting in front of the television. Oliver had called her the night before and told her that he was going to be on television for the first time. She still wasn't quite sure what she thought about it.

She had known for a long time that Oliver was extraordinary. But the fact that he was suddenly appearing on television and was even going to play a role in a film didn't please her at all.

"It's starting!" her mother said as she sat down beside her on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn.

Bea gave the bowl a sceptical look. As if an interview required popcorn. By then, the screen showed a hall filled with journalists. Camera crews stood behind the rows of seats, while a long table had been set up on the stage at the front.

When the three children entered the hall, Helen excitedly grabbed Bea's arm. "There he is!"

"Mum, I can see him!" Bea pushed her mother's hand away, though she shifted a little closer to the television herself. Oliver sat down between Jamie and Emma and briefly glanced at the two of them. The fact that an entire room full of journalists was sitting in front of him didn't seem to bother him much.

"Look at him. He isn't nervous at all!" Helen said, as though that alone were reason enough to be proud of him.

Bea thought her mother's excitement was a little excessive, even though she could barely take her own eyes off the television. Helen commented on almost every one of his answers. Whenever Oliver smiled, she smiled with him, and when he made the journalists laugh, she excitedly nudged Bea.

At first, Bea rolled her eyes at her mother's excitement, but it didn't take long before she was just as invested.

"Pay attention!" Bea said when Helen reached for the popcorn just as Oliver began answering another question.

Helen gave her an amused look but said nothing, simply holding out the bowl instead. Bea took a handful without looking away from the screen.

"Oliver Bennett, do you think you can relate particularly well to Harry because you also grew up without your parents?" one of the reporters asked.

"What kind of question is that?" Helen put the bowl down on the table and leaned forward. "Is that really something you ask a ten-year-old?"

Bea glanced at her, then back at the television. She hadn't expected a question like that either. Oliver, however, remained calm. He seemed to think about it for a moment before answering.

"Harry grew up with people who never really made him feel like he belonged with them. It was different for me."

"I might have lost my parents, but I was never alone. I had Sister Margaret, who's like a grandmother to me, and Beatrice and Helen, who took me into their family and never made me feel like an outsider."

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Bea blinked and looked at her mother. Helen's mouth was slightly open, as though she had been about to say something. Instead, she pressed her lips together and listened. Her eyes were glistening, and when she quickly wiped a finger beneath one of them, Bea had to grin.

"You're crying," she observed.

"Be quiet." Helen kept her eyes on the television and wiped beneath the other one as well.

Bea would have liked to tease her a little more, but she had to swallow first herself. Yesterday, Oliver had only told them that they would be able to see him on television. He hadn't said anything about talking about them. Certainly not about telling everyone that they were his family.

She pulled the popcorn bowl back towards them and moved closer to her mother so they could both reach it. Helen put an arm around her shoulders without saying anything.

Maybe sharing Oliver with the rest of the world wasn't quite so bad after all. As long as the whole world knew that he had belonged to them first.

***

POV Lucy

Lucy was putting away the dishes from dinner when her husband called to her from the living room.

"Lucy! Isn't that your nephew?" he asked.

She paused. My nephew?

When she walked into the living room, she found her husband where he spent most evenings: on the sofa, a bottle of beer in his hand, his feet on the table and his eyes fixed on the television.

"That boy there," he said, pointing at the screen with his bottle. "His name's Bennett, isn't it?"

Lucy didn't need a caption to know who he meant.

She had barely recognised him.

The last time she had seen him, he had still been a little boy. Now he was sitting between two other children in front of a hall full of journalists, answering their questions as though he had never done anything else.

"So it is him?" her husband asked.

"Yeah, that's Oliver," Lucy replied as she sat down beside him.

Harry Potter.

Of course Lucy had heard of the books. She simply hadn't expected her nephew, of all people, to end up playing the lead in the film adaptation.

She looked at her husband again.

He used to have long hair and a slim build, wore leather jackets and went from one gig to the next with his guitar under his arm. Lucy had been there for almost every one of them.

Back then, they had been certain it was only a matter of time.

His band was going to make it.

That was exactly why she hadn't taken Oliver in.

A child wouldn't have fit into their lives. Not with the gigs, the rehearsals and the weekends spent driving across the country. Once the record deal came, things would only become more difficult. Tours, interviews, maybe America someday.

Lucy had told herself often enough back then that Oliver would be better off with someone else.

The band broke up two years later.

She looked at her husband.

There wasn't much left of the long hair, but he had acquired a decent beer belly instead. The record deal they had dreamed of had turned into a poorly paid job he complained about every evening before dropping onto the sofa and opening his first beer.

Lucy looked back at the television.

Maybe I should go and visit him.

***

POV Peter

Peter sat in his one-room flat, wondering for what felt like the hundredth time what the hell he was supposed to do with his life.

He still hadn't found a job. Apparently, nobody was particularly eager to hire an ex-con.

The television was playing in the background until Oliver suddenly appeared on the screen.

Peter grinned.

So the kid really hadn't been exaggerating. He was sitting between two other children in front of an entire hall full of journalists, answering their questions as though it were perfectly normal.

Oliver had offered him a job the last time they had met, which Peter had taken about as seriously as any grown man would take a job offer from a ten-year-old.

By now, he had spent weeks looking for work and learned just how quickly an interview could end once his time in prison came up.

Peter watched Oliver on the screen for a while longer, until one of the journalists apparently had nothing better to do than ask a ten-year-old about his dead parents in front of a room full of cameras.

"What an arsehole," Peter muttered.

Looks like he really does need a bodyguard.