Chapter Text
If someone asked Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy what the worst thing about his birth was, they’d probably be surprised by his answer. Scorpius wouldn’t say that it was his family’s long standing tradition of having one child, meaning he didn’t have any siblings. No, it wouldn’t be that he got cursed with a weird hairline and a pointy nose from his arse of a father. It wouldn’t even be the dreadful name, Scorpius Hyperion. Scorpius would tell the asker that the worst thing about being born, was that there wasn’t one other magical child his age who had an initial that started with an M, or an N, or even an O, in the greater Britain area.
For Scorpius, this meant that he was assigned to work with Albus Potter when Professor Longbottom went down his roster and paired his N.E.W.T. Herbology students off.
“Neville, why!?” Scorpius looked down to his table when Albus Potter called out in anguish from the back of the room. Several snickers from his group of friends followed.
“It’s Professor Longbottom, Albus,” he replied with little heat. When Scorpius looked back up, he saw the Herbology Professor shaking his head and trying to hide a smile. Before Albus could speak again, Professor Longbottom said, “Poulter and Quintin…” Scorpius could hardly hold back his sigh as he listened to Longbottom read off the rest of the pairs.
The shuffling of seats had Scorpius looking up, so he shifted his sprawled out textbook over and pulled his knapsack off of the empty seat next to him. Professor Longbottom hadn’t assigned seats for their start of term, and Scorpius liked sitting in the front so he didn’t have to wear his glasses.
There was a small thud as Albus Potter walked into his table, and Scorpius looked up when the boy started chuckling. “Sorry, wasn’t watching where I was going.”
Scorpius opened his mouth, completely at a loss for words.
“It was a joke, Malfoy,” Albus said a few seconds later, the corner of his mouth lifting to a smirk. Scorpius looked away from the smile, and down to the boy’s untidy red and gold tie. Instinctively, he reached to his own neck and straightened his out. He watched as Albus ran his hand along the back of the chair before sitting in it. When Albus stuck his whole arm into his bag to feel around Scorpius turned back to the parchment in front of him. With a delighted noise, Albus tugged a copy – about twice the size of Scorpius’ tome – of Flesh Eating Trees of the World out of his bag and dropped it on the desk. The thud caused Scorpius to run a line of ink across his page and tear it.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Scorpius crumpled the paper into a ball. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Albus smirking as he leafed through the pages of his book.
“Alright then,” Professor Longbottom said as the last of the students found their new partners and seats. “We’re going to jump right into things. You’re here because you could understand basic magical botany, so I don’t expect to be doing a lot of hospital runs this lesson.” The class chuckled when Professor Longbottom looked pointedly towards the back of the class. Today we’ll be working on a particularly favorite plant of mine.” When Longbottom turned around and grinned at the plants behind him, Scorpius and the rest of the class followed his glance. Except for Albus, who was running his fingers along his book and scribbling on a piece of parchment next to him.
As Professor Longbottom walked around the table he talked about the plant. “Mimbulus Mimbletonia belongs to the Cactaceae family, and is most widely known for its production of Stinksap when prodded. Stinksap is used in a wide variety of potions and remedies, and is what you will be harvesting today.” He looked around the room. “If I could have one person from each table come up to get a plant and vials, while the other starts researching the correct way to harvest. I’ll be collecting three vials and one parchment with ten things not to do when harvesting Stinksap at the end of the lesson. Which I’m sure some of you will learn rather quickly.” He grinned when the classroom filled with several chuckles.
They were freed to work, and Scorpius pushed his chair back to get the plants. At the sound of the chair scraping across the greenhouse floor, Albus finally turned to him.
“I’m going to get the plant,” Scorpius said, unsure if he needed to. He glanced down to Albus’ copy of the class text and looked to where the boy’s hand had stilled on the page. “So can you—”
“—got it, Malfoy. I’ll stay here so I don’t break anything.” Albus’ tone was a mix of irritation and sarcastic joy at the chance to snark back. Scorpius watched him for a second as Albus’ hand started moving across the page again. His other hand dropped the quill he was holding and moved up to run through his unruly black hair, making it stick up more than it already had been. Realizing he was staring, Scorpius shook his head and walked up to gather their supplies. He avoided Professor Longbottom’s grin as he picked out the least intimidating of the smelly cactus looking things, and grabbed the three required vials.
Albus didn’t give him any notion that he noticed Scorpius was back with the plant, so he cleared his throat.
“Yeah, see, that’s the thing,” Albus said, lifting his head with an annoyed expression. “I heard you dragging your feet back here and setting the plant on the table, and can freaking smell the thing right he—” Albus gestured towards the plant, but moved his hand too far and hit it, causing several boils to burst all over his arm and torso.
Albus let out a disgruntled shout and stood from his chair. All Scorpius could do was stare as Albus shook his arm, trying to fling the foul smelling Stinksap off of it. When Scorpius’ robe got the front line of the attack, he finally snapped out of his trance.
“Stop! Potter stop!” Scorpius shouted. He looked around to see the other Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students staring at them. By some sort of miracle Albus listened to him, and froze in his spot with his arm in the air.
Ignoring the laughter from several of their classmates, Albus dragged his hand down his torso and grimaced. “It smells so bad,” he whined to himself.
When Scorpius was sure that Albus wasn’t going to knock the plant over freaking out, he looked down to his own book to start figuring out what to do.
“Oh, come on!” Scorpius complained at the puddle of Stinksap in the middle of the page. Tugging out his wand, he pointed at the page and muttered, “Scourgify.” When the Stinksap gave a pathetic shiver and stayed, he waved his wand and repeated the spell louder.
“It’s not going to work,” Albus said after Scorpius tried a third time, reaching for his chair and sitting as he talked. “It can’t be extracted by magic, so it can’t be cleaned by magic either.”
“What?” Scorpius replied, turning to him.
“I said, it can’t—”
“I heard you,” Scorpius interrupted. “How am I supposed to do the assignment without a textbook?”
Albus’ grin was feral. “Well you could use mine.”
Frowning, Scorpius said, “You know I can’t.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Albus replied, still grinning. Sliding his parchment over across the table, he added, “I started writing them already. You can add ‘don’t punch the plant’ as number seven while I start extracting.”
Scorpius looked up from the boy’s messy scrawl. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Albus’ smile dropped. “Why wouldn’t it be?” his tone was challenging, and Scorpius knew the boy was just trying to rile him up.
“Fine,” Scorpius snapped. “Just don’t get any more on my book.”
In neater writing, Scorpius added Albus’ number seven. Piecing messily written phrases together, Scorpius read through Albus’ other bullet points as Albus stood from his chair again.
“Can you please hand me one of the vials,” Albus asked a moment later, tone clinical. He held his hand out to Scorpius. Scorpius grabbed the vial from next to Albus’ inkwell, and placed it in the boy’s palm. Enthralled, Scorpius watched as Albus ran careful fingers over one of the branches. The plant made a weirdly satisfied noise while Albus filled the vial with the Stinksap.
“Another,” Albus muttered, holding out his empty hand. Scorpius stood with him, and handed him another vial so he could keep collecting from the plant. Soon enough, they managed to fill their three required vials.
After capping them off, Scorpius looked down to their list. “We still need two more things not to do.”
“The book said not to shout at it, and not to extract more than once a month,” Albus said, tapping his own textbook with a nod. Scorpius added them to the list, and after neatly signing his name next to Albus’ scribble, placed it in a clean spot on the desk.
When Scorpius looked to Albus again, the boy was already turned to the table behind him and talking to one of his friends. With another sigh, Scorpius grabbed the parchment and the plant and brought it to the front of the room.
They were dismissed shortly after, and Scorpius stared at his soiled textbook as his classmates ran out of the greenhouse. The Stinksap was already eating through the pages. He could probably get his parents to send a new copy by the weekend if he wrote today, even though they’d be annoyed that he managed to ruin his brand new textbook on his very first day of classes. He considered just using the library copy for the rest of the year as he walked back to the castle. That way, he wouldn’t have to write home on his first day. Knowing it wasn’t feasible, Scorpius dumped the textbook into the rubbish bin inside the castle and planned a trip to the Owlery for later in the week.
Grateful that Herbology was over, Scorpius walked into the Great Hall to grab lunch before his Double Potions lesson.
His sour mood finally broke when he saw Jia sitting at the Ravenclaw table, and he smiled when she waved to him. She was talking in rapid-fire Chinese across the table to their other friend, Oliver.
“You need to talk slower!” Oliver complained in English. “I can understand you when you don’t speak so fast!” Scorpius chuckled as he dropped his things on the table to join them.
“Still having trouble?” Scorpius asked the dark-skinned boy.
Oliver frowned at him. “I think it’s my teacher,” he muttered as he leveled his eyes at Jia.
“Just wait until we start Slavic languages next month,” she replied. Scorpius watched as she suddenly scrunched her nose. “You smell terrible.”
“I hate Herbology,” Scorpius replied sourly. He grabbed a few of the sandwiches off of one of the large platters and a handful of crisps. “I hate it. And I hate Albus Potter, while we’re at it.”
“Well,” Oliver replied, pushing his glasses up his freckled nose, “You need Herbology if you want to be a Potions Master one day.”
“And, we’re well aware of your feelings towards Albus.”
Scorpius swallowed his food and narrowed his eyes at Jia. “Don’t say it like that.”
Jia grinned, tucking a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. “What happened? Is he still—”
“It’s worse,” Scorpius muttered. “He just despises me. Whatever I say or do…” Scorpius let his sentence trail off and sighed. “And Longbottom paired us together today.” He looked up to Oliver. “I know she can’t, so will you please reconsider taking the N.E.W.T. with me?”
Oliver chuckled. “As much as I will miss Longbottom’s insane lessons, there is no way in hell I want to take classes outside for another year.”
Scorpius sighed. “It’s all Gryffindors. Elias Corner is the only other ‘Claw. And all Elias does is talk about which plants he can light up.” He looked down to the Ravenclaw table to see the boy tugging a bowl of crisps away from his friends and dumping the whole thing onto his plate.
A loud wave of voices filled the entrance of the Great Hall, and Scorpius turned to see Albus and his Gryffindor friends laughing loudly as they headed for their table.
Scorpius rolled his eyes and turned back to his friends. “He destroyed my new Herbology book.”
Jia faked a gasp. “Oh no! However will you learn about trees that eat humans now!?”
“Funny,” Scorpius deadpanned. “At least he got it all over himself more.” Scorpius looked over to the Gryffindor table, where Albus was running his hand over a hole in his robes. “I want to get to Potions early. Nott hands out the required texts, and I don’t want a scribbled over copy. Are you coming with?” He turned and asked both Jia and Oliver. When they both responded in the negative, he stood from the bench and left the Great Hall.
“I’m fine, Lily.”
Just reaching the staircase towards the Dungeons, Scorpius turned at the sound of the familiar voice. Right behind him, Albus had left the Great Hall with a young red-head, whom Scorpius knew to be his little sister. The two Potters didn’t see him, so Scorpius stopped to watch the exchange.
“There are holes in your uniform!” the small girl said, poking him in the chest. “What on earth happened?”
Albus ignored her, and continued to unfold his cane with a practiced ease. “Nothing. Herbology happened. I can walk to the bloody Common Room and change by myself, Lily. I’m not a child.” Albus walked past her, the stick guiding him towards the staircase going up.
Scorpius watched as the red-head sighed, staring after her brother. She turned a second later and caught Scorpius’ gaze.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped, causing Albus to stop in the middle of the staircase.
Scorpius was at a loss for words, but thankfully Albus spoke instead. “Who’s there?” he asked Lily.
“Malfoy.”
“Ah. Can I send your parents my Madam Malkin’s bill?” the boy asked, using his empty hand to touch the hole in his robes.
“It was your fault!” Scorpius argued defensively as he ran back up the stairs. “I should make you pay for my new textbook!”
“Wow,” Lily said from between them. “Way to blame the blind kid, arse.”
“Shut up, Lily,” Albus snapped. Scorpius could see his knuckles going white from gripping his cane. “Malfoy, it’s been another bloody pleasure. This was twice as many times as I’d have liked to talk to you today.” He turned and continued making his way up the steps, using the banister and his cane to tell him when the staircase ended.
After Albus disappeared out of sight, Lily turned on Scorpius. Fixing a glare on him, the girl stared for a moment, before rolling her eyes and heading back for the Great Hall.
Thoroughly distracted from the whole interaction, Scorpius nearly plowed over a group of lost first years on his way to the Dungeons. He tried not to let the whole interaction with the Potters ruin his excitement about going to Potions. He even went so far as to tug his glasses out of his knapsack so he could focus on learning instead of reading half blurry words.
Professor Nott looked up when Scorpius opened the classroom door.
“Mr. Malfoy,” he said with a warm smile. The Nott’s were old friends of his father’s, and Scorpius always loved spending time with Theo whenever he and his husband visited.
“Hello, Professor,” Scorpius said back, matching the smile.
Professor Nott stood from his desk, setting down his quill. “I should have guessed you’d be the first—” When his teacher paused, Scorpius furrowed his eyebrows. “What happened to your tie?”
Scorpius looked down and inhaled sharply. Except for two inches of fabric and the knot around his neck, his tie was melted off by Stinksap. Bewildered, he looked up to see Professor Nott laughing at him.
Holding back an anguished cry, Scorpius tugged the charred fabric and shoved it into his bag. He would not let Albus Potter ruin Potions class for him, especially since he overheard the boy telling his friends he wouldn’t be advancing to the N.E.W.T. class.
He tried to focus on the new year as he leafed through his copy of Advanced Potion-Making. He thought about his new classes, and pushed aside the thoughts trickling in about the brilliant slate green of Albus’ eyes.