Work Text:
It was supposed to be easy with Scorpius. Friendship had always been a tricky prospect, but that was where other people were concerned. Albus and Scorpius were supposed to fit. They always had done. But that was Before, and Albus had never been good at 'supposed to be' anyway. Which was why he was awake at 2am in the Slytherin dormitory watching as Scorpius had a nightmare. Again.
Scorpius grumbled something about his father, punched the bedsheets to the floor and shouted something which may or may not have been "Grindylow flower piglets". Albus sighed and pulled the sheets back over his friend.
Scorpius sat up and glared at him.
"If you won't give me the decency to have theatrically expressed dreams," he declared, "at least permit me some night-time nudity while I'm still young enough for it to be appreciated."
Albus blinked.
"Yes, fine, act as ignorant as you like, but I can promise you I'll never be this pale and smooth-skinned again!" Scorpius made an indignant harrumphing noise and promptly fell back to sleep.
It occurred to Albus that James would know a spell for storing images of people sleep-talking, and then he remembered that he wasn't speaking to James and that he could hardly admit to watching Scorpius sleep without having then to explain why.
The why, of course, was the hardest part. It involved words like 'Delphini' and 'prophecy', thoughts such as 'world without you' and 'best friend ever', and too many complicated emotions for Albus to even start unravelling in the middle of the night, far less in the light of day.
So he sat awake, picking such holes in his blanket that they would trigger a full-scale debate amongst the Hogwarts house-elves, and watching his best friend rage against his dreams.
*
"I know we hate Potions with the passion of a thousand romance novels," Scorpius said, batting his eyes and swooning as if he was auditioning for the role of Gilderoy Lockhart in the not-so-autobiographical life story Molly Weasley had mentioned no less than forty seven times over the Christmas holidays. "But why are you incapable of even crushing a Festooned Slug today?"
Albus frowned at the creature in question as it left glittery tracks across their table in an attempt to escape its fate. He stabbed it with his paring knife and crushed it with enough vehemence that a burst of sparkly slime sprayed across Scorpius's left cheek.
"Yes," Scorpius sighed. "Proving my point quite magnanimously."
Albus flicked a desiccated newt across the room, earning a glare from Rose Granger-Weasley and a moony hum from Scorpius.
"Well, I'm not going to sit here guessing what's put you in such a foul mood, but if you've had another row with your father, I want to make it perfectly clear that I am staying well out of it."
"Dad and I are fine."
Scorpius sat up significantly straighter. "Oh, good. Will you come to mine for Easter then?"
"You don't even celebrate Easter. I thought you had plans to drown Rose in a vat of Honeydukes chocolate until she finally lost resistance to you."
"She's smiled at me twice this week."
Albus raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, that second one was more of a grimace but she definitely looked in my direction when she did it."
"Why do you want me to come to yours for Easter?"
Scorpius sighed dramatically and flopped down onto the desk. "My father is having a midlife crisis," he said, drawing the words out more than Albus would have thought possible for such a short sentence.
"It's true!" Scorpius cried, and the whole class turned to stare at him.
Albus smiled blandly and made his best 'nothing to see here' gesture. Their classmates turned away, muttering and rolling their eyes as if dramatic outbursts were par for the course where Albus and Scorpius were concerned. As if one incident was enough to mark them out indefinitely.
"What do you mean, he's having a midlife crisis?"
Scorpius glanced around and bent his head closer before whispering, "He thinks we should have some 'bonding time'. Like you and your father did."
Albus snorted. "I don't think nearly ending the world counts as bonding."
"I don't think he's planning anything like that," Scorpius assured him. "Thankfully. He mentioned dancing-"
"You?"
"Exactly! This is why I need you there! You know I can't dance, wouldn't know poise or rhythm if it snuck up behind me and screamed JITTERBUG!"
Albus stared hard at his potions textbook and tried to pretend he couldn't feel the eyes of the whole class burning into him.
"Anyway," Scorpius continued, oblivious to the disturbance he was causing. "I thought perhaps we could just get a pet instead."
Professor Kleavy slapped his hand onto their desk. "Mister Malfoy, do you think Potions class is the best place to be arranging your social life?"
Scorpius twisted over his shoulder to look up at him. "Are you asking me honestly or is that a trick question? Because-" He indicated the mess of the Festooned Slug and the congealed gunk quivering in the bottom of their cauldron. "-I think it's about the best we can expect from Potions today."
*
Scorpius offered a pitiful half-shrug. "We hadn't been thrown out of Potions for weeks before that."
Albus shook his head and began their customary trek of exile towards the lake, Scorpius falling easily into step beside him.
"I don't know that I'll be much use to you," Albus muttered. "With your father, I mean."
"Strength in numbers, that's what I always say!" Scorpius chirped.
"You have never said that."
"I’m about to start saying it. Strength in numbers. See, that’s twice now!"
Albus stopped walking, took a deep breath and addressed the back of his friend’s head. "Can you please stop pretending to be so bloody happy? I know it seems like we used up our whole lifetimes’ supply of misery last year, but do we really have to spend every waking minute acting like everything is fine?"
Scorpius had stopped several paces further down the path, but he hadn’t turned around.
"I’m sorry," Albus continued. "I know it’s always me bringing the mood down, but can we please just be honest with each other?"
"I think we’ve been very honest,” Scorpius said, so quietly that Albus had to strain to hear him. "We had that talk over Christmas about Ahmed Patil and then again on Valentine’s Day. We’ve been brutally honest, I’d say."
Albus took a pace forwards. "Scorpius. Please tell me your nightmares aren’t about Ahmed Patil."
Scorpius cleared his throat and made a show of frowning up at the branches of a nearby tree.
Albus took another pace forward. "Is your dad really having a midlife crisis? And are you really thinking of getting a pet?"
Scorpius spun around so quickly he lost his balance and sat down quite suddenly on the floor. "Actually, yes, I am. I wanted something small, like a rodent or a ferret, but father is being completely unreasonable and he won’t explain and I know between the two of us we could either convince him to change his mind or bring enough ferrets into the Manor that he can’t possibly remove them all." He took a deep, somewhat shaky breath. "My nightmares aren’t about Ahmed Patil. They’re about that version of the world- about the one where Voldemort was in power."
Albus thought he could hear the words Scorpius didn’t say. He sat down on the floor beside his friend, leaning awkwardly against him. "We could talk about it?"
Scorpius tipped his head to rest it on Albus’s shoulder, then quickly moved away. "Ouch. That looks much more comfortable when other people do it."
They sat quietly for long enough that the silence stopped being awkward.
"Do you think we stand a chance then?"
Albus chewed the inside of his cheek, considering how to respond. He was just mustering the courage to reach out and hold Scorpius’s hand, when his friend spoke again.
"A chance at convincing my father to get a pet ferret, I mean."
There was a stifled chuckle above them, followed by a far less dignified snort. Albus scrambled to his feet, making space on the path for Professors McGonagall and Longbottom to pass them by.
"A word of advice, Mister Malfoy," Professor McGonagall said somewhat conspiratorially. "You would have far better luck with a more conventional animal. Perhaps a nice owl."
Neville Longbottom sniggered. "Yeah, Draco Malfoy would have to be mad to get a ferret, wouldn’t he, Professor? He’d probably be bouncing off the walls at the very idea."
Scorpius stared at him, his face a picture of astonishment.
"Close your mouth, Mister Malfoy," Professor McGonagall advised him. "Professor Longbottom, hadn’t we better see to this Alihotsy tree?"
"Oh, absolutely. I’m sure that’s what the young Centaurs have come across, if only I could get a sensible word out of them… although that’s difficult enough where Centaurs are concerned, let alone when they’ve been reduced to giggling buffoons." He turned back towards the two boys. "See if you can’t get old Draco to tell you a story or two about Mad-Eye Moody some time."
"That’s probably quite enough, Professor."
Neville smiled broadly at Professor McGonagall and the adults continued on their way. Some paces on, he turned back and waggled his eyebrows at the boys.
"Never mind my father," Scorpius muttered. "I think your Godfather might be the one having the breakdown."
*
In the common room that evening, Albus set about transfiguring his Wizard Chess set into various animals, which were then set gallivanting around the array of books and papers Scorpius had set out in one of the alcoves. Scorpius put up with the interruptions to his homework quite good-naturedly until a tiny, stone Hippogriff headbutted an inkpot over his Arithmancy notes.
"I know you’re trying to distract me," he said in an odd, tight voice that sounded to Albus exactly like the way his shoulders had gone all hunched and pointy.
"Is it working?"
"I don’t think I want to finish our conversation."
Albus felt the smile fade from his face. Scorpius turned in time to see its last vestiges and there was a sympathetic crinkling of something around his eyes before he turned back to the homework.
"Look," he muttered into the parchment. "It’s alright for you, you’ve got your head all figured out this year, but I’ve got a lot more questions than answers and I feel like we should talk properly when-"
"We should," Albus agreed, kneeling beside his friend and tucking his feet beneath the green tapestry draping the stone wall. "And we will. We’ll talk When. But for now, can we just be us again? Please."
Scorpius beamed at him and made a shrill squeaking sound. "That’s a ‘yes’ to Easter, isn’t it?"
*
Malfoy Manor was an adventure at any time of year, but particularly in the heady months of spring when the ground was still hard and crisp but the air was struggling to settle into its new-found warmth. Albus watched a raft of ducks confusedly make their way around the pond, testing the surface ice for weaknesses. Someone had wittily clipped the Manor’s hedgerows into the shape of body parts, and a grotesque hand stretched out behind the pond, a single sightless eye looming slightly beyond that.
"I’d apologise on behalf of the staff," Draco Malfoy commented. "But the house-elves wouldn’t care and I wouldn’t like the idea that Hermione Granger may hear that I do."
Albus smiled. "Your secret is safe with me, Mister Malfoy. Sir."
"Draco, Albus. You can still call me Draco."
Albus coughed and nodded in what he judged to be a fairly non-committal manner.
"I understand you and Scorpius are not quite seeing eye to eye at present."
"Oh, we’re seeing plenty of each other’s eyes!" Albus replied, somewhat wildly. "Our eyes aren’t the problem, it’s our mouths."
Draco pressed his lips together so tightly that they all but disappeared.
Albus realised what he’d said and belatedly tried to backtrack. "When I say our mouths, what I mean is our words." He began to pace along the edge of the frozen pond, turning at a severed hedge ear and pacing back the other way. "It’s like we’ve forgotten how to talk to each other. Or like talking is all we can do together now." He stopped abruptly. "I don’t know."
Draco was stood with his arms folded across his chest, regarding him with a cool, somewhat distant expression. "I don’t suppose he ever talks to you about her? His mother." He swallowed. "Astoria."
"Sometimes. A little bit. We talk about lots of different things."
"There was a story she used to tell," Draco continued. "This was when we were younger, not long after we’d decided to start a family, despite my misgivings."
Draco sat down on an ornately-carved iron bench enchanted to always be the perfect temperature for anyone who rested upon it. He patted the seat beside him and Albus reluctantly sat down, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut and just gone to find Scorpius’s latest ferret hiding place instead of wandering the grounds.
"Astoria began the story: ‘In a time when magic itself was young’," Draco told him. "I always liked that, although I never told her. It turns out that there are always too many things you didn’t say, Albus; try to remember that. Anyway, the story:
‘In a time when magic itself was young, man was a wild creature, yet to tame the beasts of the world. We lived in fear of the giants and cowered before those known as Cursed – the vampires, the werewolves – for they held a power we knew not. They had might, where we had only cunning and then not much of that. In this time, lived a woman more striking than any who had come before or any who would live after, a woman so majestic that even the earth bowed to her whims. The earth was eager to please this woman and it began to change itself, to craft itself into a shape she would admire. It loomed high above her in imposing mountains, hoping to impress; it sank into verdant valleys, an attempt to woo her with beauty. It poured forth great rivers and seas, demonstrating its generosity; it tore open fiery chasms, showing great passion. But the woman was not impressed, nor wooed; she felt neither gratitude nor desire. The earth refused to give up and the woman refused to give in, and to this day they remain locked in their struggle – the earth constantly shifting seasons and weather and even the landscape itself, an effort to find what it will take to please the woman it so admires.’
"Astoria loved that story, not because she dreamed herself to be the woman so desired that I might do anything and everything to make her happy – however true that might have been. She loved it because it so amused her that if the earth had simply thought to tell the woman how it felt, to ask her what she wanted, the tale would have ended very swiftly indeed."
"It’s not that easy, though, is it?" Albus mused. "Especially when it’s someone that matters, like your wife’s ‘majestic woman’."
Draco smiled, a soft, sad expression which played around only the edges of his eyes. "Astoria would have said that that’s exactly when it should be easiest of all."
*
Scorpius was in a small reading room which put Albus in mind of a side chapel; tucked away off the main library, it felt like a bookworm’s sanctuary. In one corner of the room, Scorpius had lined a cupboard with an assortment of sponge, felt and insulation fluff and was focused on settling in a family of hedgehogs. Albus knelt beside him and slid a saucer of milk into the nest.
"Ferrets aren’t working out," Scorpius informed him. "Too many sharp bits."
"Did your parents read you bedtime stories?"
Scorpius squinted at him. "Beedle the Bard, that sort of thing?"
Albus hummed.
"My mother did. My father wasn’t ever really one for stories. He’s always been more of a factual man. Magical history. Alchemy. When I was young, his books were more inclined to send me to sleep, though."
"He just told me a strange one, out in the garden."
Scorpius nodded and fussed the hedgehogs some more. "That’ll be the one about confessing your feelings so you don’t go around in circles never getting what you really want."
Albus gaped at him, and Scorpius grinned.
"I got the full shebang when I came back from yours at Christmas."
"The thing about Ahmed-"
"It’s fine, we don’t have to-"
"James was right, although if you ever tell him I said that, I’ll hex your hedgehogs so they burrow through every single one of your favourite books and some of the ones you’re only a tad fond of too."
Scorpius pulled a packet of Pepper Imps out of his pocket and offered it to Albus. "I feel like this is a good moment to start this conversation again, because I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re threatening me about."
Albus grinned and popped an Imp into his mouth. He waited until his ears stopped steaming before explaining. "The thing with Ahmed – I just wanted to know how you’d react, that’s all. If you didn’t care, then I could try to ignore it and we could just carry on as usual. Best friends. Like we were Before."
"And if instead I got somewhat stroppy and made more of a show of seducing Rose Granger-Weasley than usual?"
"I think you mean attempting to seduce Rose…"
"Call a spade a spade, why don’t you?"
Albus bumped his shoulder against Scorpius’s considerably bonier one. "If you acted like that, I had no plan whatsoever. Talking to you seemed terrifying, because I didn’t even know how to think about it myself."
Scorpius nodded slowly. "So your next step was to stay up all night watching me sleep?"
Albus suddenly became very interested in nudging the hedgehogs into their new home. He adjusted the milk saucer several times and commenced unnecessary fluffing of the insulation foam.
"Did you honestly think I’d be so cavalier with my naked self if I didn’t know exactly who was watching me?"
Albus turned to frown heavily at his friend. "You," he announced. "Seriously need to work on your seduction technique."
Scorpius shrugged. "I’m still unclear whether I’m the earth or the majestic woman."
Albus bumped their shoulders together significantly more firmly.
Scorpius giggled. "Fine, point taken. I guess we both know I’m far more majestic than you could ever be."
There was a moment then, where Albus was aware they were at a crossroads. Scorpius was giving him the option to turn the conversation into a joke, to laugh away the tension that had been building between them and dissolve the taut wire holding them together into the safer string of friendship.
But friendship, he decided, had never just been friendship where they were concerned. He reached out and threaded his fingers through the other boy’s and held his breath for a split second until Scorpius squeezed tightly and pulled Albus towards him.
In that second moment, Albus was aware of nothing more than Scorpius’s lips on his own, the feel of barely-there stubble on his best friend’s jaw, the way Scorpius’s fingertips played feather-light across the side of his neck. They pulled away, hesitant breaths and too-wide eyes, and then Albus smiled and Scorpius was kissing him like the world might end if he stopped.
*
The hedgehogs were long gone when the boys emerged from the library sanctuary. Scorpius was an enthusiastic shade of red, his blonde hair mussed and his shirt buttoned up wrong; Albus’s t-shirt seemed to have been oddly stretched and he was missing his shoes entirely. They stood together in the hallway, holding hands and looking somewhat dazed, as if the world had changed slightly in their absence and they couldn’t quite figure out where the difference lay.
Albus stroked his thumb over the soft skin of Scorpius’s inner wrist.
"I didn’t mean to push you away," Scorpius said suddenly, the words tumbling after each other like a poffle of Pygmy Puffs. "I kept thinking back to last year, when everything went so badly wrong, and I didn’t know how I felt about this-" He held up their joined hands and pressed a kiss to the tip of Albus’s thumb. "And so I thought, until I was sure one way or the other, that it was better to still have you in my life just as a friend."
"I’m not sure we ever were just friends."
Scorpius hummed thoughtfully. "The nightmares, they weren’t about Ahmed or even really about Voldemort; they were about losing you. That’s always been my nightmare, the idea of a world without you."
With a sudden surge of emotion, Albus crushed Scorpius against his chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around the other boy and pressed his face into his neck.
"Oh, yes," Scorpius murmured faintly when they pulled away. "We hug now too. I’d almost forgotten."