Summary: Albus Severus Potter finds himself in an awful, dangerous, terrible situation - he's fallen in love with his best friend, Scorpius Malfoy. Now, with the help of a go-getter cousin and a blue-haired trouble maker, he must save the friendship before he ruins everything. And maybe - just maybe - he'll get more than he bargained for.
Notes: This story and its title are inspired by the song "Be Alright" by Lucy Rose, which your author was listening to when she was compelled to write this fic.
"You're at it again, aren't you?" Rose asks, utterly exasperated.
"No. What? No. Of course not." But Albus can't hide the reddening of hs cheeks or the diverting eyes.
"Don't lie, Al, you're terrible at it."
He ducks his head away from Rose, still refusing to meet her eyes.
"You're just torturing yourself. Honestly, you call yourself Harry Potter's son. Grow some bludgers and just tell him already, before I get sick of your whining and do it myself."
"Tell him? Are you kidding me? There's - there's no way - he'd never - you can't- "
"Relax, Al, I won't. But you can't just hide forever! He's going to find out sooner or later."
"Not if I can help it," Al mumbles stubbornly.
Rose rolls her eyes, and stops walking. Al keeps going, so she places a hand on his arm to stop him, and it takes almost no effort. Rose thinks he should be embarrassed at being so easily controlled by his younger red-headed cousin, but Al doesn't even notice she's done it. He's still thinking about Scorpius Malfoy, working himself into a complete panic.
"This isn't just going to go away. You know that, right? Deal with your feelings like a regular wizard and talk to him, or stop complaining. Got it?"
Albus nods, although he definitely does not 'got it'. He doesn't think he ever will. He's mortified even by just the idea of telling Scorpius. But Rose can be a bit scary when she's frustrated, and he doesn't want to deal with that today. Or ever. But especially not today, and not about this.
"Good. I'm glad we had this talk," she says.
Al watches her hair bounce as she walks away, and he makes the decision to never again mention Scorpius when Rose is around.
Al isn't quite sure when it happened. All he knows is that one day, he's watching Sco do his homework and admiring the adorable way his hair falls in his eyes. Instead of just fixing it with his hands, Sco's deciding to blow air uselessly at it every few moments. And then, quite casually - in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sort of way - Al realises he wants to look at this image every day for the rest of his life. And then he thinks: isn't that a strange thing to want for your best friend? And then he thinks: …shit.
So one minute, Al is perfectly happy being oblivious to the closeness of his friendship with the adorkable Malfoy, and the next, it hits Al that he's completely and utterly in love with this idiot.
And ever since then? Well, once his feelings had finally offered up a conscious representation of their existence, they wouldn't shut up. It's been annoying, to say the least. He can't study with Sco looking so destructively attractive, what with the ludicrous amount of quill stains he always gets on his slender hands, and the way he absentmindedly chews the top of his quill as he thinks. Al can hardly sleep with the sound of Sco's adorable little snoring sound filling the air. And Merlin, don't even get him started on how certain phallic-shaped foods are forever ruined during breakfast time now.
When Albus realised the abundance of emotions crashing down on him with this terrible epiphany, he made a list. Al always makes lists to try and deal with things. It's a way to sort through all the thoughts constantly racing through his brain at a mile a minute. The list for this particular situation states only three things.
The List of Things Albus Potter Knows To Be Definitely True In Regards To The Insurmountable Scorpius Malfoy:
1. Albus has feelings of a great and preposterous nature, in a probably permanent sort of way.
2. This was very, very bad.
3. No, like, really bad.
The third thing isn't even really a thing. He's only included it to emphasise how important the second thing is, but he decided that it still counts due to the important nature of how very, very bad this situation is. Some might say Al's overthinking the situation (not naming any names, Rose Weasley), but he would vehemently disagree. He needs to be as prepared as possible to deal with this confusing mess.
Now, it isn't bad for the reasons one might think. Albus's dad has always been unconditionally accepting of his children, so it was never a question of Al's gayness being an issue. In fact, Al's family have known he prefers boys since he was approximately 8 years old, when little-Albus decided it would be appropriate to announce his insistent love for boys during the annual Potter-Weasley-and-friends Christmas meal. What a delightful shock that was for everyone. Uncle Ron had made a joke about really taking after his namesake. Teddy Lupin was endlessly impressed with the display, offering a solid thumbs up and a head full of rainbow coloured hair.
Later, when it came out that Teddy and James had been dating in secret for ages, no one picked a bone with the fact they're both guys. So, no, Al isn't particularly worried about that part of his situation.
And it isn't like his dad will be mad at the whole 'son of my enemy' thing, either. At first, his dad struggled to comprehend how Al and Sco became instantly inseparable, but he got over it pretty quickly. The Potter-Weasley family learned to adapt to the unforeseen friendship, and Scorpius soon became as welcome in the family as Lily's Alistair or Rose's Helena. And okay, while full on homosexual love-fest life partners is a little harder to digest than plain old friendship, Al had faith his dad would be able to cope without any major jinxes or heart attacks. His dad would come around; he always does.
No, of course, the real problem lies at the feet of the blond boy with the crooked smile. Albus's best friend ever since they first met on the train to Hogwarts and shook hands, bonding over their lack of Quidditch skills despite extreme family pressure to do well in the sport.
"It just baffles me," Scorpius had said at the time. "The scoring makes no sense. Why is the Snitch worth so much? It renders everything else a little pointless, don't you think?"
"Exactly!" Al had exclaimed, maybe a little too enthusiastically. But he was so excited at having someone to talk to about Quidditch who wouldn't hex him for his lack of appreciation, he didn't care. "The rules are dumb. Anyway, James always sends the bludgers at me and I'm hopeless at dodging them. He once broke my arm in three different places."
"No way!" Sco grinned. "I nearly fell off my broomstick the first few times I tried to ride. My dad watched me like a hawk every time we practised for months."
Albus sniggered at this. "I bet he was happy about that."
"Ecstatic," Sco joked back. "How did your dad take the news you weren't going to be the next Quidditch super power?"
"Absolute denial. The worst case I've ever seen. My entire family kept telling him how hopeless I was - even my mum - and he wouldn't listen to them. Kept saying something about it being in my blood, or whatever."
"Being in your blood? The great Harry Potter actually said that?" Scorpius had asked, his eyes wide.
"I know, right? Never get between a man and his Quidditch, even the great Harry Potter. Especially the great Harry Potter. Anyway, he finally gave up on those dreams and let me read in my room instead of being subject to that special kind of torture."
"My dad would probably kill me if I tried to stop playing. He wants me to try out for the Quidditch team next year."
"Do you think you'll do it?"
"No way. I'm at Hogwarts now. Dad couldn't make me touch a broom even if he wrote every professor here."
"That's probably for the best. My brother James is on the Gryffindor team, and he's a right prat. My cousin Rose wants to try out next year, too, and she'd knock anyone off their broom before they could even take off."
"What about your other sister?"
"Yep, she got the Quidditch skills too."
"And what did you get?"
"I guess I'm still trying to figure that out."
"...Me too," Scorpius admitted, nervously studying his shoes. This was when Al definitively decided he liked Sco - no matter what his family said.
From that train ride on, they were best friends. Nothing could come between them. Not family feuds, or bullies, or the stupid rumours the gossip newspapers start every so often.
Nothing… until now. Until this.
Al is all too aware that he's in deep, deep trouble. He's not really sure how he got here, and he definitely doesn't know how he's going to dig his way out of it. All he knows is that he needs to figure something out and fast, because Sco is starting to get suspicious, and Al isn't going to be able to hold it in for much longer before everything explodes in his face.