"Scorpius! I'm glad to see you again."
Scorpius sat down in the ear-chair across the man, and leaned back. The white semitransparent curtains blocked enough sun to prevent him from squinting against them, and he suspected Alfred chose this specific location for his chair so his hair seemed darker in comparison. He was balding, yes, but his hair was dark grey and long enough to cover the shiniest area of his head.
The petite frame of his glasses drew disproportionally much attention to them as he spoke.
"How have the past two weeks been for you?" the man asked, folding his fingers together over his belly. Scorpius knew that the moment he'd start speaking those fingers would unfold again, struggle to find a pen and then scribble the gist of what he was saying on that notepad there.
Alfred had tried to use a Quick-Quotes Quill before, but the object had been too keen to write and required both of them to go through the notes together again to filter out the relevant information.
"Crap." Scorpius responded in his usual cheerful tone, placing his left ankle on his right knee and holding onto it. Subconsciously he tried not to cry.
"I still haven't received a message from my mother, the apartment is crap, I'm having difficulty sleeping now no matter how much I drink, I think I'm developing a habit of binge eating and my room mates hate me. I was disappointed when I didn't get hit by a car on my way here, and I ate mouldy food last night hoping it would kill me. ...And I was this close to stealing cigarettes from my room mates last night."
Alfred nodded his head to the side, and Scorpius knew what he wanted to ask so he answered; "...I would have taken them if they had any."
He'd manage easily without a psychotherapist if he just had the privacy to say these things.
"I feel empty," Scorpius nodded, smile still on his face. He didn't have to make any conscious effort to keep it there. "Nothing seems worth the effort, my mother had three weeks to respond to my owl now and she didn't even write to say she received mine. I know they're all right, dad's mentioned in the papers twice without exceptional news so it must be her simply... not writing. Unless he doesn't allow her to, but she's always been very well able to stand up to him and to do what she wanted."
He paused for a moment – he knew Alfred wouldn't interrupt him. Alfred knew he studied psychology, he knew that Scorpius knew what things were important when it came to these conversations. His father didn't know he studied psychology... his father didn't even know he was alive, unless his mother had been informing him of their correspondence. Then still- he probably was too busy to care, like the big time lawyer he was.
"Perhaps she's done with me too, she might just not want to have to deal with my drama any longer. I did cause them a lot of trouble when I was younger- surely you remember that."
Alfred nodded.
When the topic faded in silence, Scorpius continued; "the apartment is awful. I think we've got rats now – None of us can be bothered to tidy. I live with Muggles, so.. but it's-... I don't get the-... satisfaction from tidying as I would, if I used my wand to do it. It'd still feel pointless, not like an accomplishment. And it'd seem very empty and cold, I think, when I can see the floor again."
Alfred nodded.
"I haven't cut any more, not in those two weeks. There was no point; I felt...comfortably numb, I think you'd call it? I got a ten out of ten on my last exam, Abnormal Psychology, I was the only one to and I didn't care. While before, it was one of my main motivations to get full marks. But I'm not sad about it. I just... don't care." He shrugged – smile still intact. He nodded to himself a bit, and realised he was now fighting his tears. "Nothing matters. I just want to die." His voice choked up there. Alfred hadn't made a single note.
Scorpius pressed his lips together, and nodded in the direction of Alfred's notepad. "Have you given up on me too?"
Alfred sighed deeply and then leaned forward in his chair. His hands remained folded, but were now placed on the desk. "I haven't given up on you Scorpius, and I never will," during that sentence he looked up at him, "You, however, have. It takes more than that watery smile of yours-" Alfred nodded at him, and Scorpius lifted the left corner of his mouth and exhaled through his nose as if he was amused, "-to convince me of the contrary."
They looked at each other, therapist and client, until neither of them were certain what was going on any more. They had seen each other in this room so often over the past six years or so, that there was a certain comfort in just being together.
Tears started to make their way out of Scorpius' eyes, streaming down almost unnoticed if it wasn't for Alfred's eyes watering up in response.
"...I feel guilty, mainly." Scorpius said after half a minute. Experience taught him implicitly Alfred would have asked him about it if he would have waited. "Towards my family for not being the way I ought to be, for not... trying harder to stay in touch with them, for being gay for having tried to get help for problems they don't seem aware I'm having, and I feel guilty towards you for using you like I do, because you and I both know I don't need this... towards your other clients who can't talk to you when I'm here, for not being more grateful for what I have, I mean... I look good." The pause then made that final statement seem disproportionally important. "..and I'm intelligent, I'm just also fucked in the head. I just don't want it, I feel guilty for being so ungrateful, I feel guilty for not making a bigger effort to make the world better, I feel awful for whoever will have to scoop me up or clean me up after I've done it and I feel downright awful for seeing you like this... Don't cry, you haven't failed. It's my fault, you tried to fix it but it's too late."
Alfred pursed his lips and nodded, looking as if he was impatient for his own words to come out. "It's not your fault... you are suffering from a personality disorder-" Scorpius sighed almost impatiently, "- and it's affecting the way you think. You know that by now. And your guilt is... unjustified. It is my job to help you, it is not your job to make the world better and it is not. too. late." Alfred sounded desperate- he probably knew his words were in vain.
Scorpius waited for more to come but there was nothing. He wasn't making it easy for poor Alfred, was he? The man knew how well he knew what he was saying, that he wasn't saying it in a whim. "I know it's a personality disorder, but I also realize that it is part of me as much as any other aspect of me. It's not something that's going to go. I have to either learn how to live with it, or not." He almost chuckled at the pathetic phrasing, "It's that simple. I tried with now, it's not working, so I'm going to try to stop. I know that official policy means you ought to take me in now, so you can keep an eye on me, but I did my research and realised the only place you can take me is either Azkaban or a private place you might have somewhere-... and I highly doubt you would do that. A Muggle institution is also hardly an option, and there's nobody to keep an eye on me at home. I don't have a social circle, I don't even have pets, all I have is my fags and that includes the one I see in the mirror every day." His tears had stopped falling.
"I got you something."
Alfred's surprise was genuine and obvious.
"I know it's silly and random, but I saw it and it reminded me of you so I decided to get it for you..." Scorpius reached in his bag, a shoulder-strap black denim bag with neon yellow orange and pink graffiti print, and got out something wrapped in plain grey paper.
"It came from a Muggle store." He put it on the desk and shoved it forward the way a practised bartender would move a drink over the bar.
"I know our relationship is supposed to be purely professional, but... And if you hate it, you can smash it but only after I'm gone," Scorpius said as Alfred freed the painted clay hedgehog from the wrapping paper. The spikes on its back were much like combed coconut mat, and the entire creature was stretched out as if it was worshipping the sun, its big cartoon eyes looking up at it.
Alfred smiled. Scorpius did too. It wasn't clear whose face was sadder.
"You told me three years ago you collected hedgehogs, I don't know if you still do... but this one just-... yes. It reminded me of you so I decided to bring it for you."
Alfred nodded, and put the statue on the table while studying its bright green sneakers and white socks, the skinny legs -.. basically the entire thing as an excuse to not look at the other.
"I don't think you failed." Scorpius said. "I just don't want this any more. Nine years -six with you, and zero improvement, it's just not going to happen. I think you did a great job at cheering me up and giving me hope, but lately there's just nothing there. So," he shrugged in an animated fashion as if it was a statement in itself. "I'd name that thing Billy," he said with a nod when he noticed Alfred was still looking at it, not allowing the man to respond to his previous statement. "Suits him. You still collect them?"
Alfred nodded.
"Nice... he'll be right at home with the lot of them. Where do you keep them in? One of those display cabinets, or-?"
Alfred nodded. "Scorpius," he then said, just when Scorpius was about to open his mouth again. "You've told me many things in the brief time we've been together today." He allowed a pause. Of course he did – he needed to list these things for himself. Scorpius just sighed. "You said your mother still hasn't responded to your letter, your apartment still doesn't live up to your expectations-..." Scorpius interrupted him; "To health standards." Alfred nodded his head to the side to acknowledge that, but responded in no other way to it; "You also mentioned your sleeping trouble, your eating habits spiralling out of control, you feel empty, cold, and you want to die... and you feel incredibly guilty over that last- over wanting to die, specifically. Is that correct?"
Scorpius sighed again, his 'watery smile' still on his face. "Yes. It is. But I don't feel like talking through it all. again., getting more medication that doesn't do a thing for me, getting my hopes up, having them slammed down, and then sitting here again." He was on the verge of being annoyed now, and he continued; "...I can tell you're desperate, I understand it must be incredibly stressful for you to be one of the very few psychotherapists in the Wizarding World, because you're establishing the entire field nearly on your own here and all the critics are eyeing you... but you've got to realise that I know that, I recognise it, and I feel bad enough that I can't help you there as it is. I'm certain there are plenty of people you can help, but for me it's too late. I'm sorry. But I'm 'done'."
Alfred nodded softly, his eyes down on his desk, his hands folded again. It looked like he wanted to curl up over the edge of the desk (like a hedgehog would) and just make the sadness go away.
"I didn't mean to ruin your mood," Scorpius said at the same time as Alfred said; "I won't be seeing you again, then?"
It was quiet for two seconds. "I'm sorry," Scorpius then said, got up, and put his bag over his shoulder.
Alfred looked up at him from his nearly-curled up position. "Take care of yourself," Scorpius said, raised a hand, and then walked out the door.
The watery sun wasn't helping Scorpius mood, nor was the chilly wind. The best thing to do now was to get a rope, something like that plastic stuff Muggles used to hang their washing from. Annnd... he also needed really slippery soap or something for his hands and feet, a better razor for his wrists and perhaps some sleeping pills.
When he entered the Muggle shopping street, for some unknown reason his eyes were drawn to a man. To most people this man was probably no way out of the ordinary; he was quite tall though, his face seemed serious and not particularly handsome or ugly. He wasn't doing anything in particular either. In fact, he was walking in the general direction of the McDonalds in the distance, and he appeared to be listening to the men who were walking and talking at either side of him.
But there was something about that man... something about the way he moved, the way he seemed to nod very, very slightly every step he took, the way his hands were thrust deep into his pockets, the way not every step he took was equally big, the way his long black raincoat moved with those steps, the way his red hair seemed almost brown, the way he responded to the men at his sides with nothing but moves of his head... There was just something about him, something about him, that made him wildly attractive.
It wasn't even a 'handsome' kind of attractive, or a 'let's have sex' kind at all for that matter. Just the kind that made him want to be with him and make him happy.
Without a second though – without looking if there was any traffic coming, for Scorpius stopped doing that a long time ago – he crossed the street and followed the men on a good distance, not being able to hear what they said but just being able to hear their voices.
"Come on, Weasley!" one of the men said.
Weasley... WEASLEY! Ronald Weasley, head of the Auror Department... was that him?
Shaking, Scorpius entered the nearest store, bought a package of cigarettes and went right back to his student apartment, forgetting all about his plans. He had to talk to that man. Alone.
