The castle has probably become his most prized possession since then. He loves it, shows it off to any friends that come to visit, and on occasion gets it down off his shelf to play with it. He has to be careful, though, because it's just a Lego toy, held together only by the friction created by those interlocking bricks.
The other day, he had brought his castle downstairs to play with it. He left it on the floor for several days, and we were all sick of the mess, tired of stepping around it. My wife insisted that he take it upstairs and put it back where it belongs. He put up a fuss, but eventually agreed to actually take care of it.
He grabbed the castle by the roof, and a sense of dread came over me.
"Um," I said, "I don't think..."
I was trying to warn him that the way he was holding it was bound to be trouble, but he lifted it high off the ground, and it held together just fine.
"Oh, never mind," I said. Everything seemed fine. I turned away to go back to what I was doing when--CRASH!!
The friction holding the blocks together was overcome by the gravity pulling down, and the piece of the castle my son was holding came off in his hand. The rest of the castle tumbled to the ground and exploded as if there had been a bomb inside of it. My son stared at the wreckage, aghast, and then burst into tears. His prized possession had just been reduced to rubble before his eyes. He ran to his mom, who hugged him close, trying to soothe his tears.
"It's okay," she said, "We'll build it again."
"But it took forever to build it," he protested. "It took us days."
"Well," she said, "maybe this time, you and Daddy can get super glue and stick it together so that it can't break anymore."
Well, I knew what I was going to be doing this weekend. We gathered up all of the pieces of the castle, and put them on the table for the project.
My wife took him out to the store to get us one of those bottles of super glue that comes with a brush that you can use to apply the glue with minimal mess.
My son and I sat down, and spread out the original instructions in front of us.
I was hoping that it would be easier to assemble this time, since a lot of it was still partially assembled. We started gluing, and the castle began to rise from the ashes.
We worked on it for hours, and my fingers were glazed over with dried super glue. We did all the various pieces of the castle, even the ones that hadn't been destroyed in the accident.
After a very long struggle, we at last finished the process. The castle was now basically one big piece. I took these pictures where I held it up by the spire on top, and now it held together.
It was funny, though, as I tried to take the pictures, my son hovered around me, wringing his hands nervously. He wasn't as confident of the glue as I was. That previous explosion was replaying in his memory, and he was certain it was going to happen again.
As soon as the camera clicked, he jumped forward and grabbed the castle from my hand. He needn't have worried, however. The glue was very secure. There is one piece of the castle that is in the wrong place, because I had it backwards when I glued it on. I realized that it was wrong, tried to pull it off and fix it, and it wouldn't budge. The piece itself started to crack rather than the glue breaking loose. We had to leave it as it was. Luckily the backward piece wasn't significant, and didn't cause an issue. Because of that, though, I knew this thing was going to hold together. My son didn't have to worry for the future of his Harry Potter castle anymore.
He liked the results enough, however, that now he wants to do it for more and more of the sets he's gotten over the years. Looks like I may be doing this for many more weekends in the future.
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