Disclaimer: Harry Potter and the Harry Potter universe belong entirely to JKR.

Prologue

"Creevey, Colleen," continued Professor Neville Longbottom, watching as a tiny girl bounced forward to be sorted. "Gryffindor," he added under his breath.

"GRYFFINDOR!" bellowed the school sorting hat, and Neville nodded in satisfaction. He usually did win these little bets with himself, even for those students who were muggle-born or whose parents had attended another wizarding school, for whom he had no real point of reference. His ability to judge character at a glance was legendary among the other Hogwarts staff.

The sorting continued with no surprises until "Finch-Fletchley, Andrew."

"Hufflepuff," Neville murmured.

"RAVENCLAW!" screamed the hat. Neville blinked in surprise.

"Finnigan, Sean," he continued. "Gryffindor," he predicted.

"GRYFFINDOR!" confirmed the hat.

"Flint, Stacey," he called. "Slytherin," he added with more confidence. And sure enough...

"SLYTHERIN!"

The sorting continued uneventfully.

"Malfoy, Scorpius." Neville refrained from groaning. "Slytherin," it seemed almost redundant to add.

"SLYTHERIN!" the hat screamed in unknowing agreement. As though there had ever been any doubt. Neville looked to where his friend's son Albus stood, nervously awaiting his own sorting, and he cringed slightly as he considered an early retirement. Old resentments only ever seemed to strengthen themselves with succeeding generations, and the 'resentment' between Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter had never been exactly weak. And as a teacher he was going to have to deal with it.

"Potter, Albus," he called at last. "Gryffindor." Towards the middle of the Gryffindor table a sea of red hair interspersed with the occasional blacks and browns swayed as the people attached to it sat forward on their benches, preparing to leap to their feet and welcome their cousin. Even James Potter, who had, by all accounts, spent the last three weeks tormenting his brother with the unlikely possibility that he might become a Slytherin was leaning forward eagerly, awaiting what they all believed to be a foregone conclusion.

"SLYTHERIN!" pronounced the sorting hat, and all hell broke loose.

-x-

Greener Grass

"I can't believe there's only a bit over a month til our OWLs," Albus Potter groaned for the fourth time in as many minutes. Scor Malfoy, his best friend and the only other person currently in their dormitory ignored him, so he continued. "There's no way I'm going to be ready in time. I've been going though some old exam papers and—Scor, are you even listening to me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I've heard it all at least ten times already."

"Have you really?" huffed Albus. "Fine then, what was I going to say next, if you're so clever?"

"You've been going through some old exam papers, and even though you got sickeningly high marks on all of them you're worried that you might be grading yourself more easily than the examiners will, so that they don't really count. And that's just the theory stuff, there's no way for you to be able to test yourself on the practicmmpph—"

Albus laughed, watching as Scor spat out the cushion.

"Am I really that bad?" he asked, slightly contrite.

"Worse," Scor muttered sourly.

"Sorry. Kick me if I start again alright? Dad always says I'm getting more like Aunt Hermione every time he sees me, and believe you me, that is not something I want happening."

"I thought you said you liked her?"

"I do, she's great, she's just a bit, um..." Albus trailed off, unable to find the right words.

"A bit of a know-it-all?" Scorpius offered.

"You've barely even met her," Albus laughed, although Scorpius noticed he didn't contradict the term.

"I really don't see why you're worrying so much though," Scor commented, giving his Potions essay up as a bad job and dropping it over the side of his bed to join the rest of his half-completed homework; it would remain there until such time as Albus decided to finish it for him. "Even if you fail everything spectacularly—which you won't considering how brilliant you are at everything, especially Defence, Potions, Transfiguration, History of Magic—"

"Alright, get to the point."

"Even if you fail everything spectacularly your family will still dote on you. I mean, James got—what?—four OWLs last year? But he still got a celebration party so huge that even my parents were invited. It stands to reason that the same applies to you."

Albus was biting his lip.

"I s'pose so," he agreed reluctantly. "It's not the same thing though. Even Mum knew that Jamie was going to play Quidditch professionally as soon as Dad let him drop out of school, so it's not like he was damaging his future career prospects or anything. But everything I'm even remotely interested in requires astronomically high NEWTs—"

"—Which you will get," retorted Scorpius, interrupting the pity fest. "I need high NEWTs to become an Auror too, but the chances of my getting them are nothing like as good as yours. And even if I didn't want to become an Auror, I've still got Father's expectations to live up to, and that's even worse!"

"What's the worst thing he can do, kick you out?"

"He won't do anything! He won't even say anything, he'll just look at me, and I'll know that I've disappointed him, again, and damn it, I don't want to! He's been through enough lately, what with my mother's death, and all..." Scor blinked rather rapidly.

Albus, caught between offering sympathy and pretending not to notice anything, settled for clearing his throat awkwardly and gazing out the window into the lake.

"And it's not even like I have older or younger siblings to take the pressure off me," Scor muttered a little huskily. "It's all down to me. Sometimes I really wish I wasn't an only child."

"Don't," Albus retorted, relieved to be back in familiar territory. "Between James taking all the hot water and Lily taking all of Dad's attention, siblings aren't all you make them out to be."

"I wouldn't mind," returned Scorpius, shrugging. "At least you'd never be bored."

"That's what you think. You've never had to wait for an hour and a half for Jamie to get out of the bathroom. He might seem like your stereotypical Quidditch-playing womaniser, but he's vainer than me and Lily put together."

Scorpius shrugged.

"A price worth paying, as far as I'm concerned."

"Oh really? I'll trade you," Albus offered in exasperation. "You can spend the holidays dealing with my crazy extended family and I can enjoy the peace and solitude of Malfoy Manor..."

"Yeah, because no one would ever notice the switch, certainly not. We're practically identical," Scor drawled sarcastically. It was a mistake. Opposition was all that it had ever taken to transform Albus's wildest flights of fancy into plans into which Scorpius would inevitably be dragged.

"Polyjuice Potion!" Albus exclaimed enthusiastically.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, please. Even someone as clueless about potions as you are has got to know what Polyjuice Potion is. I mean, your family were all Death Eaters weren't they? It was one of the most popular methods they used in both wars, right after the Imperius curse. It uses a small part of an individual's essence in order to..."

With the ease of long practice Scor tuned out a long and complex explanation of which he understood about one word out of five.

"So it basically turns you into someone else for one hour at a time?" he asked at last, when it seemed as though Albus had wound down a little.

"No, of course not. Not really. I mean, you still have the same thoughts and memories and whatnot. It's just a physical transformation, really. Although I suppose there would be a bit of personality variation caused by having to adapt to different reflexes. That's probably why it only works for human to human transformations, too much difference. It doesn't even work on werewolves or people who have one parent who's a human and one—"

"And you're seriously suggesting we do this?" Scorpius interrupted incredulously.

"Sure, why not? It would be awesome!" Taking Scorpius's stunned silence to be agreement, he continued. "It'll be easy! The hardest bit will be brewing the potion, it's supposed to be NEWT standard, but I won't have any problems with it I shouldn't think..."

Scorpius buried his head under his pillow and groaned. It was going to take a long time to talk Albus out of this one...