Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. Well, a little bit, but nothing important.
Pairing: Albus Severus/Scorpius
Rating: PG 13
Author's note: I didn't want to call this story 'Snowball', because that makes 3 out of 4 one-word-title A/S stories, which is annoyingly incomplete. But it's just too perfect, and nothing else works. So now I feel like I need to write a new one that will have a several word title to make 'The Name Boys' feel less out of place, and soon, even though it took me 5 months to write this. Ack.
I've also noticed that I seem to be incapable of writing a story that stays mainly inside Al's head. I initially wanted this one to be more Al centric, as you can probably tell by the start. But then I realized that Al does the weirdest stuff, particularly to Scorpius, and that gives me cause to write reckless!Al with a confused!Scor perspective, which is my favourite of all the…perspectives…
I'll let you read now.
Snowball
The overly white sheets upon the overly white beds that lined the overly white halls of the hospital wing were reflecting light in such a way that made them practically blinding. The setting sun had hit just the right angle that allowed its light to directly stream in through every window along the western wall, giving the room an odd kind of glow. Scorpius makes his way down the rows with squinty eyes, trying to pick out the solid figure of a person amidst a sea of shining linen.
"Er…Scor?" says a very familiar voice from slightly behind him, and he realizes that he has walked right past his target. He spins around, and grins at the black-haired boy who is sitting up in bed, sporting a very blue pair of pajamas.
"Have a good day?" Al's voice is surprisingly cheery for someone who had only yesterday fallen down several flights of stairs and over a banister, Scorpius thinks. He dumps his bag on the ground and slumps into the chair beside Al's bed with a rather dramatic sigh. Al laughs. "That bad, huh?"
"Well, I only wished I was the one with the broken leg fifteen times," Scorpius mutters, folding his hands behind his head and lifting his legs up onto the pristine white sheets of Al's hospital bed. His chair tilts back ever so slightly. "You're face is less purple than this morning."
"Thanks. Chocolate frog?" Al gestures at the small pile on the nearby table, and Scorpius reaches for one. "So, what have I missed?"
"Madden assigned a new essay. Dragon raising."
"You know, I have an uncle who can help us with that," Al says through a mouthful of chocolate. "Anything else?"
"Just some reading to catch up on. We started on healing elixirs in Potions. You're down two chapters."
Al shakes his head. "Bugger."
"Yeah, well, that'll teach you to try out a new broom indoors," Scorpius says with a sigh. He leans his chair back further, and it sways perilously on its hind legs. "The house elves are still mad at you, you know. And Hugh says the Fat Lady has changed the Gryffindor password to 'Al Potter is Satan'."
"Lies and slander," Al laughs. "Well, I suppose being in here is as good an excuse as any to get my reading done." He slumps back into his pillow. "I don't suppose I can borrow your textbook? I would accio mine, but there are anti-underage magic wards up."
"There are?"
"You know, the headmaster put them in after that Slytherin caused the exploding toilet incident last year."
"Oh, that."
"Yeah."
There is a short silence as the two quietly reminisce. After a moment, Scor reaches for his bag. His chair swings violently out of balance, teeters for a moment in mid-air, and falls with a thud to the floor, taking Scorpius with it.
"I'm ok," Scorpius mutters as Al howls with laughter. He rolls onto his side and pushes himself up onto his knees, shooting Al a very dirty look.
"Sorry," Al snickers. Scorpius reaches into his bag and pulls out his Potions textbook.
"I was going to give you this, but..."
"No, no, I'm sorry Scor. Don't deprive me of an education just because I have no self control."
Scorpius sighs, and smiles. "Right, enjoy," he mutters wryly, dumping the hefty tome on Al's lap.
"Where would I be without you?" Al laughs, running a hand over the creased cover.
"Probably not in the hospital wing," Scor replies with a grin. "I'm never playing Double Sugar Poker with you again." He claps Al on the shoulder and stands up, pulling the chair back up with him.
"Where are you going?" Al asks, prompting a sigh from the blonde beside him.
"Visiting time's up," he replies.
"Already?"
As if on cue, Madame Dell comes bustling up the ward towards them, brandishing a healing potion and a business-like expression.
"Mr. Malfoy, you will have your friend back by the end of tomorrow. For the moment, however, I must ask-"
"I know, I know," Scorpius mutters. He meets Al's gaze, winks, and sets off at a loping pace towards the doors. Al watches him leave, feeling something that he suspects might be the beginnings of loneliness.
"Mr. Potter, your dinner," Madame Dell says with a dry smile. She thrusts the potion towards him and watches him like a hawk until he has downed every last drop.
"Yum," Al mutters darkly, his face scrunched up at the acidic taste of the draft. She takes the empty cup from him.
"Lights out at nine. You need rest." Without another word, she hurries off in the direction from which she had first come, and is soon gone.
As the dying light succumbs to darkness, Al sits alone in the hospital wing.
He checks the time. It's seven pm, and the rare silence emanating from the grounds and the corridors reminds him that the rest of the school is eating together in the Great Hall. He sighs, and reaches for Scor's textbook.
As he holds the thick book in his hands, he notices a crease near the centre of the pages. He runs his thumb along the top and slides it into the slight crevice; the book falls effortlessly open.
The page has been ear-marked, and recently, Al suspects. It is the end of the chapter 21 Uses for Centaur Hair; the writing stops at the top of the page, and the rest of it is blank.
Or, it had been.
Now pencil marks fill the spaces, grey lines that arc and curve before Al's eyes, then resolve themselves into a picture of a boy with wide eyes and floppy hair and a contemplative expression on his face. The boy is immediately familiar. The boy, Al realizes, is him.
He stares down at his unwitting portrait.
The likeness is amazing.
.*.*.
.*.*.
Scorpius listens to his footsteps echo through the empty halls as he pounds towards Ravenclaw Tower, racing back between classes to grab his latest Charms essay.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he mutters to himself.
"How did you know?" intones a feminine voice, sounding pleased.
He comes to a halt and looks up, not quite registering where he is. "What?"
An answer is not forthcoming; instead he finds himself standing at the very much open entrance to his common room. Without realising it, he had answered the entrance riddle.
"Oh," he says aloud, momentarily held in his stride by the force of his sheer luck. Then he is off again, across the room and up the stairs to his dormitory.
He takes the steps two at a time and bursts through the door. It takes him a few seconds to realize that he is not the only person in the room.
A familiar figure is sitting on the end of his bed.
"You're back," Scorpius exclaims, crashing to a halt.
Al looks up, and his mop of dark brown hair falls out of his eyes. For a second, his expression is clouded with something unrecognizable; then his face clears, and a radiant grin breaks over his features.
"Can't keep me away," he says, and gets up.
"All good?"
Al swings his right arm in circles and nods happily. "I need to ask you something."
"Sure," Scorpius replies, just the slightest bit disconcerted by the edge to Al's voice. Al nods, and turns to pick up something off the bed. When he is once again facing Scorpius, his hands are grasping Scor's potions textbook. His eyes drop down to gaze at it, and he runs his fingers along the top, slips a nail into a crevice, and allows the book to fall open in his hands.
In a second, Scorpius sees what is coming. He opens his mouth to speak, but Al has beaten him to it.
"When did you draw this?" he asks. He holds the book open for Scorpius to see, but Scorpius knows already what is on the page. He takes the proffered book, and a blush spreads to his cheeks, his left hand finding the back of his neck in a gesture Al recognises as one borne of embarrassment.
"Oh, yeah, that was yesterday," Scorpius mutters, and snaps the textbook shut, flinging it onto his bed.
An odd smile creeps over Als' face. "I wasn't with you yesterday, not for more than ten minutes. I was in the hospital wing. Alone, most of the time."
"Yeah, I just, I missed you, Al. I kept thinking about you during class and…" Scorpius trails off, staring at his feet. He suddenly feels a hand on his arm. Lifting his eyes, he finds that without warning Al has moved closer.
A lot closer.
Scorpius feels his body react unintentionally; heat floods his stomach and his heart rate increases as Al's green eyes bore into his.
"You drew it from memory?"
Scorpius nods, his throat tight. The intensity of Al's gaze surprises him, and he takes a step back.
Al responds, stepping forward, closing the temporary gap once more.
"That's amazing, Scor." His voice is low, almost husky.
Scorpius wants things that he cannot put words to. Needs and desires flit through his mind, too quick to define yet too strong to ignore. He feels himself drowning in possibilities, and feels one last urge to remain in the shallows of rationality.
He takes another step back.
And meets the wall.
Al won't let him have his way. He moves too, just seconds after Scorpius, coming so close that their skin is almost touching. And their lips, Scorpius can't help but think. His eyes flicker down to them, and then back up to meet Al's eyes. He hopes Al didn't notice but at this distance it would be impossible not to. Their lips are within millimeters of each other.
"Can I keep it?" Al murmurs, his eyes locked on Scor's. Scorpius feels the light brush of Al's breath on his face, and the words seem to vibrate the air between them.
"Su- sure," Scorpius stammers. He doesn't think about how that would possible, seeing as the drawing is on a page that is kind of vital to his studies. He just wishes that he had the power to stay cool in situations such as this.
And then suddenly Al steps back lightly and grins at Scorpius. "Thanks," he says happily, winks, and promptly leaves the dormitory, leaving Scorpius pressed against the far wall, breathing heavily.
Very much confused.
.*.*.
.*.*.
The attempt, and not the deed, confounds us.
Scorpius generally found that a refuge in Shakespeare was a refuge from the audacity of everyday life, but sitting in the common room as he was now, he was having trouble working his way through any part of his dog-eared copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare without constantly being drawn to the memory of yesterday's afternoon. It had been…startling, to say the least. Feelings he had long suppressed had been almost forced out of him. And yet Al had been acting normal ever since, as if he hadn't played a very dangerous game and then left Scor in the lurch.
"I shouldn't have drawn that bloody picture," he says to himself, and flips the book open to a random page.
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en.
"Damn you, William," he mutters, slamming the tome shut.
"Reading Shacklesprite again, are you?"
Scorpius looks up from his chair to see the tall figure of Lysander Lovegood hovering over him.
"Yeah," Scorpius mutters, not bothering to correct him based on the fruitless results of past efforts. Instead, he allows the large bound volume to be taken from him.
"Exit, pursued by a bear," Lysander reads aloud. "What an odd sentiment."
"It's a direction."
"Like left or right?"
"No, like…yeah, sure, why not," Scorpius responds, accepting the book back. Lysander flops onto a nearby couch.
"So, what's the problem?" He asks, staring vaguely at the ceiling. Scorpius shrugs.
"What do you mean?"
"You know," Lysander says with a sigh, still not bothering to look at Scorpius. Scor finds this habit of his annoying; he was raised to look people in the eye when speaking to them. He frowns at his couch-strewn friend, but of course, Lysander doesn't notice. "You're reading Shadarac. You always read Shadarac when you've got something on your mind."
"You remember what I'm reading and yet you don't have a clue what it's called. How is that possible, Lye?"
"I know what it's called, I just said it. Shackalear, yeah?"
Scorpius decides to ignore this strand of the conversation. He runs his hand down the spine of the hefty book. "Ok, so maybe I'm a little confused at the moment. Al is confusing me."
"Al?" Lysander shifts on his couch. "What's he done?"
Scor presses his fingers into his forehead and runs them down his cheeks. "Don't ask. I don't want to go into it."
"How am I supposed to help if I don't know the problem?" Lysander says with a smile, finally turning to look at Scorpius. Scor grins at him.
"Want to write my Arithmancy essay?"
"Not really."
"Fine." Scorpius pulls himself upright. "Give me some wisdom."
"What about?"
"Anything. Pick your favourite quote, your favourite saying. Let fate tell me what to do." Scorpius leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. Come on, he wills the Universe. Work.
Lysander clears his throat. "Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none," he announces grandly.
There is a moment of silence as Lysander lets his message sink in.
"That…that was supremely unhelpful, Lye."
"That was Shackabee, Scor."
Scorpius opens his eyes to see Lysander sitting with the Complete Works open on his lap.
"It was?"
Lysander points to the type. "You say the Shack is never wrong."
"He isn't."
"Well then. There you go."
Scorpius stares at the book, then shakes his head. "No, it doesn't make a difference, there is still nothing I can get out of that."
"Right." Lysander gets up. "Want to go steal ice cream from the kitchens?"
"Sure, why not."
Scorpius puts Shakespeare's works carefully down on the couch, and follows the hastily exiting Lysander out into the hall.
.*.*.
.*.*.
When Scorpius and Lysander return to their dormitory, the lights are out and everyone else is asleep.
"Night Scor," Lysander whispers as he climbs into his bed.
"Night," Scorpius responds, groping the wall as he makes his way further into the room. He steps on something that makes an odd wheezing sound and nearly trips over a shoe before finally reaching his own bed. Kicking off his own shoes, he fumbles with the drapes and finally half-sits half-falls onto his mattress.
There is something on his pillow.
He can feel it in the dark, slim and light and square. He picks it up with one hand, and with the other fumbles for his wand.
"Lumos."
The flare from the wand tip causes spots to appear in his vision, and he blinks hastily.
In his hands he holds a photo.
It isn't a wizard photo but a muggle one. The picture is still, and yet far from lifeless. It's been taken in black and white, and the subject is clearly unaware that he is the focus of a photographer. He is standing in the snow, one hand in his tousled hair. Only half his face is visible, and it is smoothed into an expression of calm concentration. Before the boy stretches an icy lake that looks as if it were made of glass.
Scorpius stares at the photo. He is looking at himself.
Scorpious only knows one person with a muggle camera. He looks over at Al's bed. The curtains are drawn, and he can hear Al snoring.
He stares at the heavy blue fabric, and feels lost. Al does that to him a lot, he realizes, and is slightly annoyed by this.
Fine, he decides. Two can play at this.
.*.*.
.*.*.
At breakfast, Scorpius sits to the left of Al. He keeps up the small talk, wondering when the right moment to strike is. He isn't sure whether he can even pull this off without looking like an idiot, he just hopes to hell that it will have the right effect.
His eyes flicker over the various items on the table before them, taking stock. Planning.
Halfway through a conversation about music that is extremely fragmented by Al's non-stop eating, the right moment arises.
"Scor," Al says through the oversized mouthful of French toast he had taken in order to finish the slice, "can you pass the cream?"
Scorpius glances at Al's now empty plate, distantly registering the fact that he had successfully understood what Al had just said, despite the vast quantities of food that rendered Al's speech incoherent to those around them. This was a minor victory for Scorpius, who had only given up trying to get Al to swallow before talking a few weeks ago.
"What are you going to put the cream on?" Scorpius asks, and Al looks at him as if he'd just asked whether Al would like to pull out of the Quidditch cup this year and donate their team's accumulated points to Hufflepuff, before bursting into a grin.
"Good one," he says cheerily. "The cream?"
Right, Scorpius thinks, and his heart rate speeds up just the slightest. This is the window I've been waiting for. In his head he wonders if he should say a prayer to the gods of something, like breakfast foods or maybe sexual innuendo. Are there gods for those kinds of things? He mentally shakes himself and reaches for the cream.
As he lifts it over in Al's general direction, he allows his fingers to slip somewhat. The bowl shifts, not entirely escaping from Scor's grip but dipping enough to allow a small stream of cream to drizzle down onto Al's pants.
"Oh bugger, sorry Al," Scorpius mutters hastily, summoning all his reserves of flustered-ness. He grabs his napkin and before Al can say a word starts to pad at Al's thigh.
He feels Al tense beside him, and smiles an invisible smile.
"Um, that's alright Scor," Al says stiltedly, staring at Scor's hand as it moves ever so slightly closer to his crotch. "Not your fault. R-really."
Scorpius stops, and looks up at Al with what he hopes is an apologetic expression. He is desperately trying to suppress the grin that threatens to break through his carefully constructed facade, because Al is looking startled and has the slightest of red tinges to his pale face. Scor's heart is beating wildly, and he wants to laugh or maybe run far, far away. Instead, he steels himself.
"Oh, hey, theres a splotch on your cheek." He reaches out with a finger, wondering how he is managing to stay calm and why he just had to say 'splotch' when it's such an unattractive word, and wipes the cream from Al's face. Al looks like a deer caught in headlights, so Scorpius smiles at him and slowly licks the cream from his finger.
Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god, Scorpius thinks.
"Right, I have homework to finish," Scorpius says.
He gets up smoothly from the table, and turns to Al. "See you in class."
For a moment he thinks he might have forgotten how to walk. And then he somehow puts one foot in front of the other and is off towards the entrance hall.
Al sits quietly, staring at Scor's retreating back. He takes a moment to survey the students sitting near him, but they are all engrossed in their own food or conversation. His eyes flicker back to Scorpius as he vanishes from sight.
He thinks for a second that maybe he understands what is going on, and then decides he probably doesn't. He frowns, and smiles, and frowns again. He closes his eyes firmly, takes a breath, and opens them.
And then he grins.
.*.*.
.*.*.
When Potions finally ends, Scorpius can't pack his books up fast enough. Having Al next to him all lesson had made him increasingly jittery, which wasn't helped by the effort he had to put into suppressing it so that Al wouldn't notice.
Scorpius can't stop replaying the morning in his head, swinging between vicious glee and wild regret. It starts again as he loads his textbooks into his bag, like a reel of film. On this particular showing he is obsessing over the choice of cream as his weapon. He finds himself wishing he hadn't chosen something so white and, well, creamy. Oh god, he thinks. Freud would have a field day with that one.
"Ahem."
Scorpius pauses in his fretting and looks up. Somehow, the classroom has emptied.
But not entirely.
Al is perched on the side of the adjacent desk, bag propped on a chair and feet swinging freely. His eyes meet with Scor's and he smiles a very Al Potter-ish smile.
"Hi," he says. He hops down from the desk and walks towards Scorpius, who feels his legs lock into place.
Through his mind runs every swear word he knows, and when he runs out he starts to make them up.
Al comes to a stop in front of him, stares up at him, and reaches out.
Slowly, his fingers brush against Scorpius's wrist, and if Scor had any chance of finding the power to move before it is completely gone now.
Al's hand runs up Scor's arm, over his shoulder, down the centre of his chest. He stares at Scorpius, his eyes dark and his smile something that Scorpius can only think of as wicked. Every nerve in Scor's body is alight, and he wonders how the hell he is going to do what needs to be done. One slow breath in, and then…
"No Al, please."
Al stops, eyes wide. He takes a step back and raises his hands, looking the picture of innocence. "OK, Scor. What's up?"
Scorpius stares at him, trying desperately to form coherent speech while also attempting to make his breathing slow down to normal. "What's up?" he repeats incredulously, and just a little bit breathily. "When did this snowball into something that I stopped understanding?"
"You understood this at some point?"
"…No."
Al laughs, and leans back against the nearest desk. "You don't like being out of your depth, do you Scor."
"You know I don't, Al," Scorpius mutters.
Al smiles at him. "You held up pretty well though, for a while."
"Yeah. Well I've got nothing on you, you clearly can't get enough of it. Unless of course you can actually tell me what the hell is going on."
Al shakes his head. "Nope. Got no idea."
Scorpius looks around to find the nearest tall object. The wall is only a few feet away, so he takes a few steps in the right direction and allows himself to slump against it, his head falling back with a thud. He squeezes his eyes shut, and then opens them, wondering if maybe he will be somewhere else. But he is still in the classroom, which is still empty apart from himself, and of course Al. He stands there staring at Scorpius, his cheery expression replaced with something closer to seriousness. Closer, but not entirely there.
"You drew a picture of me, Scor," he says now, and a smile flickers over his features. "Some people might call that romantic."
"Do those people respond to romantic gestures by making confusing sexual advances?"
"You did it too," Al mutters, and Scorpius laughs, a little nervously. Al sighs.
"Ok, so I started it," he says, voicing Scorpius's unspoken thought. He rubs his left arm thoughtfully. "I didn't know what I was doing then. I realized after that maybe I was a bit too impulsive. Hence the photo. I thought maybe that would… But then you and the cream…" He looks down at his feet for a moment . "I had no clue where the line could be drawn, when we would reach an endpoint." Al stares at Scorpius for a few silent seconds, as if judging something, and then moves closer to him once more, careful to keep himself at a normal distance. "I like you, Scor. There, simple enough? Do you need a demonstration?"
"You're mocking me," Scorpius mutters, a smile upon his lips.
"I might just be," Al replies, inching towards the blonde, "although it's all in the name of reclaiming a sense of…understanding."
The last word is almost a whisper as he turns his face up to meet Scor's lips, his eyes closing as they touch. The kiss is sweet and simple, and Al draws back after a few seconds.
He watches Scor's grey eyes flicker open and find his own green ones once more.
"It, ah, it can't hurt to reinforce a point," Scorpius says quietly.
"My thoughts exactly," Al responds. His hands comes up to hold Scor's collar, and he kisses Scor again, stronger this time. Scorpius feels the wall hard behind him but doesn't care, raising a hand to run over the nape of Al's neck.
I am so very out of my depth, Scorpius thinks, very, very briefly.
But for once, he finds that he doesn't mind.
.*.*.
.*.*.