Chapter Text
Albus tried really hard not to slam the door behind him as he exited detention, cursing whatever terrible force that possessed him to take Divination in the first place. He wasn't even good at the things his father excelled at. What had made him think Divination would be any better?
He made his way quickly down the staircases, thinking only of the nice, cool Slytherin common room and Scorpius waiting for him on their couch in the corner. Scorpius was probably using the Albus-free time to read—Albus could easily imagine him curled up in his stocking feet with a big heavy volume in his lap, one hand running absently through his hair and the other thumbing the edges of the worn pages. It was one of Albus's favourite versions of Scorpius, though at this point it probably wasn't worth differentiating between the various versions and would be easier just to admit to himself that he was hopelessly besotted and leave it at that.
Albus pulled aside a tapestry near the entrance to the Gryffindor common room to reach a shortcut and came face to face with Fred and Hugo Weasley bending over a perfectly innocuous-looking bottle of Butterbeer. Knowing Fred though, some form of mischief was certainly afoot.
Fred and Hugo jumped away from the bottle at the sight of the intruder, and then seemed to relax upon realizing that that it was just him.
"Albus," Fred smirked, his expression a mirror of his father's face when testing a new invention, "what a surprise! May I ask what you're doing in these parts of the castle this fine evening?"
Albus really couldn't have been in less of a mood to chum around with his cousins, but couldn't think of a way to tell them to shove off that wouldn't make it back to his parents. He folded his arms across his chest.
"Just got out of detention.” Albus debated internally for a moment before sighing heavily. “Alright, I'll take the bait, what are you up to?"
"So very glad you asked," Fred told him, reaching out and yanking him by the arm into a position next to Hugo, who crept up to the bottle. Upon closer inspection, Albus noticed that Fred was holding a box of Fizzing Whizbees.
"We're about to try something," Hugo told Albus excitedly.
Of course you are, dunderhead. Left to his own devices, Hugo was a perfectly reasonable human being. In the company of his cousin Fred, however, he became a tiny minion in the service of Fred's evil genius.
"Is this going to land me in another detention?" Albus asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. It wasn't that he really cared, just that detention cut into the time he normally spent communing with the back of Scorpius's head and two detentions in one week would certainly result in concerned letters from his parents.
"Certainly not!" said Fred, sounding incredibly affronted for a boy who had nearly set a record for most detentions earned in a term—a record surpassed only by his father and the uncle after whom he was named.
"This is a small-scale version," Hugo reassured him, "Just a test run."
Small scale version of what? Albus decided he didn't want to know.
"Alright," Albus nodded, "Let's see it then. But if I wake up in the hospital wing, then I was an innocent passer-by. Got it?"
"Agreed," said Fred, pulling two Whizbees out of his box and dropping them carefully into the open mouth of the bottle.
For a split second, nothing happened. Albus was watching so closely that he didn't notice Fred and Hugo stepping back, and by the time he realized that he ought to follow their lead, he was hit in the face with a spray of Butterbeer.
The bottle was absolutely erupting. Butterbeer was shooting into the air like lava from a volcano, foaming out the sides and forming an impressive puddle on the floor at Albus's feet. He scrambled back to avoid getting the bottom of his shoes sticky and wiped his face with the sleeve of his robes as the bottle rose to hover half a foot above the floor.
"Success!" Hugo whisper-shouted, pumping a fist into the air.
"Excellent!" said Fred, rubbing his hands together in delight, "This is going to work perfectly."
Albus spluttered, which seemed to serve to remind Fred that he was present.
"Oh sorry mate, did you get caught in the stream?" he asked, which seemed to Albus, who was standing there with Butterbeer dripping from his hair, to be a rather stupid question.
Fred waved his wand carelessly at the mess and then at Albus, vanishing the Butterbeer. Hugo snatched the empty bottle and out of the air and clutched it to his chest as though it were a priceless treasure, the weirdo.
Albus ran a hand through his hair, which was no longer wet, but noticeably sticky. He felt his temper flaring—why they had insisted on involving him in their idiotic, pointless prank...
"Goodnight," Albus forced through his teeth, before he lost it completely and decided to hex them, rushing past them down the staircase toward the only place he wanted to be now—his dormitory.
He meant to make straight for the bathroom after entering the common room, but Scorpius must have been watching the door because he waved wildly with both arms flapping in the air upon catching Albus's eye. Albus dropped his bag and sank into the couch cushion next to Scorpius.
"Hi!" Scorpius greeted him with enthusiasm, as though they hadn't seen one another in days as opposed to just since dinner. "How was detention?"
"It was detention, Scorpius," Albus told him incredulously, "How exciting could it possibly be?"
"Well, I don't know!" said Scorpius, practically bouncing on his knees where he sat, "Whenever you're away from me I imagine you're doing something interesting and I'll get to hear all about it when you get back."
Albus was about to reply when Scorpius suddenly launched himself forward so that they were practically nose to nose, then he took a deep whiff.
"Why, exactly," he said, "do you smell like Butterbeer?"
A perfectly reasonable question, but Albus was so distracted by having Scorpius all up in his personal space—close enough to kiss him by barely leaning in—that he just gulped like a fish and hoped that Scorpius wouldn't wait for an answer. He wasn't disappointed. Scorpius lifted his hand to run his fingers through Albus's hair.
"And your hair is all sticky! Did you take a bath in Butterbeer? Why wasn't I invited?"
Albus fought the desperate urge to close his eyes and lean into Scorpius's touch. Scorpius took another sniff. Albus was about to tell him about his run-in with Fred and Hugo when Scorpius let out a satisfied sort of hum that Albus tried really hard to ignore because it made his skin erupt in goose pimples. Merlin, he had it bad.
"Did I ever tell you," Scorpius whispered, looking him right in the eye and not backing up even an inch, "that when they showed us Amortentia in Potions at the start of term, one of the things I smelled in there was Butterbeer?"
“No,” Albus choked out, head spinning, “you didn’t mention.”
“And Fizzing Whizbees,” Scorpius continued, apparently oblivious to Albus’s plight, “which I thought was a bit strange because my favourite sweets are Pepper Imps. So it was Butterbeer, Fizzing Whizbees and...and some...other things,” he finished falteringly.
Had they been alone, Albus almost certainly would not have been able to resist the mad desire to lean forward and kiss him. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the common room was full of people who would definitely notice if Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy's sons started a mad impromptu snogging session in public. But an idea struck him in that moment, and it seemed like it might just possibly be a good one. One of Albus's better ideas. It would require some planning though—planning alone, away from Scorpius.
Albus's whole body fought him as he leaned back away from Scorpius.
"No you didn’t, in fact,” Albus repeated. “I was going to take a bath, especially now that I'm apparently sticky and smell of Butterbeer—no idea how that happened, by the way. Goodnight!"
Scorpius looked a little confused and maybe even a bit disappointed as Albus stood up and made his way toward the dormitories. Maybe it was just Scorpius's proximity driving him to madness, but he felt as though they were reaching a breaking point and he had to do something.