Setting: Post Deathly Hallows
Warnings: BoyxBoy relationship, don't like, please don't read.
Disclaimer: Not mine though I really wished they were.
Hey, my first scorbus fic, so if it sucks. I'm really sorry. Let me know what you think in a review.
Scorpius Malfoy was scared shitless. To be perfectly honest. Not that his boyfriend understood. Or was being any help at all.
"I really don't know why you're so worried about this." Al's voice was a lazy drawl coming from somewhere around his feet. Scorpius abandoned the messy knot his tie was stuck in, in favour of glaring at the fireplace where Al's head was flickering back and forth.
Albus had lucked in and gotten the only bedroom in the Potter household with a fireplace in it, meaning that he could have all the private conversations he wanted, subsequently making his siblings eternally jealous.
"I am worried," Scorpius growled, snatching up his wand. "Because this is the first time I'll be seeing your family after you've come out and told them that we're dating." He jabbed his wand savagely at his chest hoping to rectify the whole tie situation only to set the damn thing alight. He hastily extinguished it and tore his room apart looking for a new one, all the while ignoring Al's hysterical laughter.
"I told you," Al said, gulping large lungfuls of air as he tried to calm down. "They were cool with it. Barely blinked."
"Yeah well, I'm still a Malfoy…" Scorpius trailed off, glaring at his face in the mirror.
Al sobered immediately. "Hey, I don't care what your last name is or who your father is. You're Scorpius and you're perfect ok? Don't let anyone tell you any different. Now are you calm or do I have to come over there and slap you?"
Scorpius huffed out a laugh and nodded. "I'll see you in a few minutes."
"Ok, I've got to get changed. See you soon, love." Al withdrew from the fireplace, brushing soot from his hair before changing into a nicer pair of jeans and a button up shirt, debating over two ties. Once he had chosen (settling on the green one because Scorpius had once said it brought out his eyes) he hurried downstairs to meet his boyfriend, Lily joining him on the way, both greeting their father who had just apparated into the kitchen, looking far too excited by something. Scorpius appeared, pocketing the small portkey he had used, looking pale but handsome. Al greeted him with a kiss and a quick hug, Lily with a punch to the shoulder and a smile.
"Looking good, Scor," Lily grinned.
Scorpius managed a small, glancing up at the large Potter home worriedly.
"Hey," Al murmured, slipping his hand into his boyfriends. "It's going to be great. Trust me."
They mounted the steps leading to the grand wooden front door and slipped into the warm depths. They were just about to step into the dining room when a tanned hand whipped out, caught them and pulled them back.
"Dad's in trouble," James grinned, his hazel eyes gleaming in the otherwise shadowy hallway.
The four teens peered into the brightly lit dining room, knowing from years of experience how to do so without getting caught. The table was decked out courtesy of Ginny; a scarlet tablecloth covered the scarred wood, floating candles decorated the centre and the nicest china adorned each place. Ginny, dressed in one of her best dresses with her hair twisted up off her neck, was furiously slamming down glass after glass, pausing only to shoot periodic glares at her husband.
Her voice was no more than an angry hiss, "You are supposed to be supporting your son and getting to know his boyfriend and you want to go gallivanting off to play Quidditch?"
The Potter siblings raised their brows at each other. The whole dinner had been their dad's idea from the start.
"Not just Quidditch," Harry begged her to understand. "Weasley family Quidditch!" He shucked off his Auror jacket, revealing an old Weird Sisters t-shirt underneath and dumped it on the table, only to have it picked back up immediately and shoved at him by his wife. Although she was trying to maintain her anger, the teenagers could see Ginny's eyes softening at the prospect.
Lily turned to her brother, excitement lighting up her brown eyes, while James struggled to remain quiet while he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. Their excitement was understandable. Even as much as Scorpius and Al wanted this night to happen, they couldn't dismiss the idea of Weasley Family Quidditch. At least every couple of months the entire Weasley Clan got together, all six siblings and their partners and children and played one massive game of Quidditch. Those who didn't play watched because it always ended up being the most hysterical night and a thousand times more entertaining than a regular game.
James punched the air and made for the stairs, already tugging off the bowtie, Ginny had evidently forced him into.
"Besides," Harry said easily, turning to the kids loitering in the doorway. "Scorpius can come too."
Honestly, Scor had thought that the parents hadn't noticed them, too caught up in their own discussion, but he should have known better. Harry was a seasoned Auror after all. He noticed everything.
As soon Harry's brilliantly green eyes found Scorpius' own pale grey ones, his fears melted away. He was looking at him like he always had, but even better he had that grin. The same grin, that had graced his face the first time Scor had visited the Potter's house, back in the summer between his first and second year, when Scorpius had been nearly as scared as he was tonight. He had been expecting Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World. A man who was proclaimed by the Daily Prophet to be as perfect as any human man could get. The dad he had met was far from it.
His first glimpse of the Boy Who Lived was a man yelling at a televised Quidditch match, feet covered in mismatched socks propped up on the coffee table, butterbeer in hand and hair an absolute mess. When Al had introduced them he had offered his hand for the man to shake but Harry had just shaken his head and laughed. Truthfully, deep down Scorpius had been expecting Harry to declare him unfit to hang out with his son and throw him from the house. But in reality Harry had told him it was nice to meet him, told them to have fun and ruffled Scor's hair - something that Scorpius' own father had never done - on his way into the kitchen for another drink
But it was the smile that had really calmed Scor down. Again he was expecting it to be perfect. The man had been awarded Witch Weekly's most charming smile award twice, for crying out loud! (Something that Scor would later learn, that Harry was teased mercilessly about by the rest of the Weasley's). But it wasn't a perfect smile, one of his incisors was chipped - from one battler or another, Scorpius assumed - one side stretched wider than the other, and it made one dimple appear and the other disappear completely. However it was the most infectious smile Scorpius had ever seen and he would soon realise, it was exactly how Albus looked when he smiled.
So when Harry smiled at him in the Potter's dining room, Scorpius knew nothing had really changed between them.
"What better way to get to know someone than over a friendly game of Quidditch?"
By the way Ginny was smiling fondly and rolling her eyes, everyone in the room knew Harry had won. And evidently, Harry knew that too because he planted a hand on Scorpius' head, like he had a thousand times before, the other hand going to Al's and began to gently turn and guide them towards the door.
"Let's go, kiddo's. Come on Lils, we're going for a game."
And all at once the Potter house was full of noise, Lily was whooping excitedly, and Ginny was yelling for James, and Harry was laughing, and James was thundering down the stairs and somewhere in all the chaos, Al's hand found Scor's. The reassuring squeeze said it all, 'See, I told you it would all be alright.'
Weasley family Quidditch started as it always did. In an argument. Which was resolved the way it always was. By Mr Weasley's calm but firm instructions. Although the man never played himself, Arthur possessed the uncanny ability to direct his many family members into ordered teams. Maybe it was raising seven children. Maybe not. Either way, Weasley family Quidditch could never get started without the aging wizard's directions. The one time they tried had ended in several arguments, one fist-fight, three crashed broomstick, a broken wrist and several fires that had left scorch marks all over the pitch for weeks.
Once the teams were sorted, split according to adults and those who had played in school so talent levels were fair, the game set off, with Fred II (taking after his godfather) commentating.
The game was fast and furious, as it always was. The Weasley's, so competitive as they were, played without mercy. George, playing beater, swung without abandon, casting only a quick thought as he aimed. Hermione and Audrey had tried reasoning with the other parents many times in the past, begging them to cast some kind of protective charm on the vicious bludgers, but not only would the adults not have it; but neither would the children. With so many of them playing on their house teams, they were well aware of the risks and insisted the hint of danger made the game so much more fun, much to their mother's dismay.
To accommodate the extra players, extra positions were added in as needed; tonight it being two extra seekers added in - Ginny and Lucy on one team and Harry and Scorpius on the other.
And so the game raged on, the quaffle moving so fast it was no more than a red blur, bludgers whizzing around, knocking people from their brooms left, right and centre and the snitch in particular was being particularly devilish, hiding in the folds of robes and one time in Fleur's sheet of white blonde hair. Freddie, called the plays as they occurred, words slurring together until they were one long continuous sentence, broken up only by rude comments designed to knock his sister off her game, until a particularly well aimed bludger from Roxanne almost cracked open his skull, earning herself a week's grounding.
Somehow in the furious game, Scorpius and Harry found a quiet moment to talk. They hovered metres above the game, watching lazily for the snitch, rather than each other. Scorpius couldn't know for sure, but he thought Harry's eyes were following Al's blurred form, just as his were.
"He really is amazing, isn't he," Scorpius murmured, not needing to clarify who he meant.
Al had been six months into his first year when he had been selected to play on the team, making him almost as young as his father had been. Al had of course, tried out for his house team but hadn't made it in. It was only after a particularly nasty injury had taken out one of Slytherin's chaser's had he been put on the team and he had remained on it since. Scorpius himself had played for a year or two as a seeker, but had lacked the skill or indeed the passion that Al possessed, instead finding that he preferred to watch his boyfriend play and occasionally join him in a training session.
Harry cleared his throat. "Truly spectacular." He coughed again and glanced away from where his son was hurling the quaffle through the ring, making his fifth goal for the night.
"Why didn't you ever play Quidditch professionally?"
The question seemed to surprise both Harry and Scorpius, the latter of the two not intending to ask the long unanswered question.
It was well known by everyone that Harry Potter could have played professionally before joining the Ministry, based on comments in magazines and stories by Quidditch commentators, but the Chosen One had never really addressed it.
Harry shook his head and turned his face upwards, the moon lighting his wistful expression. "I don't know how much your father has told you about the war, Scor."
Scorpius wanted to tell him how little he had been told, most of what he knew coming from history lessons at school, but he sensed he shouldn't interrupt.
"But, the wizarding world was a very different place after the war. Death Eaters were everywhere and everything was pretty much falling apart. And the Auror department was lacking the manpower and really, no matter how much I loved Quidditch, catching dark wizards was always my calling." The pair were silent for a moment, Harry reflecting on his teen years and Scorpius reveling at the thought of pressure that Harry had evidently endured when he was only a few years older than Scorpius was. Harry's face abruptly morphed from melancholy to mischevious. "Besides, I don't know if my marriage would have survived me and Ginny playing against each other, every other week."
They chuckled heartily, as Ginny apparently sensing the conversation regarding herself shot her husband a half-hearted glare from the other side of the pitch. He grinned back and she rolled her eyes before ducking back into the action, apparently intent on finding the tricky little snitch.
"So you and my son?"
The simple question sobered Scorpius immediately. He glanced at Harry uncertainly, but the man was watching the Quidditch game resolutely.
"Yeah."
It was all Scorpius could manage but Harry remained quiet. Just as Scorpius was opening his mouth to try and explain how it had happened, say anything to relieve the awkward silence, Harry spoke again.
"I had hoped it would be you. You're good for him."
Scorpius was floored by the comment. He felt that amazing feeling after closing his hand around the snitch, like he could do anything in the world. But he also felt like Harry was wrong. All he could think about was all the bad things about himself. The things that any father wouldn't want in his child's partner; his arrogance, a Ravenclaw trait made worse only by his Malfoy heritage, the way he could go into moods that lasted for days where he would lash out at anyone and everyone, particularly Al who was always pushing and pushing and pushing at him, the way he was horribly awkward in any type of social situation. This flew through Scor's mind in an instant, leaving him just as unsure as he had been in his room, an hour before. He knew by voicing these concerns, he would be ruining any chance of gaining Harry's approval, but it was like Scorpius' mouth had a mind of it's own.
Before he could say anything however, Harry continued. "He's good for you too. I can tell."
Of course he was. Al was amazing. The most generous, crazy, well-liked boy in school. Not only was he good at Quidditch, he was incredibly smart, liked by the entire staff and had a fair share of admirers. Scorpius wanted to say all this and more but all that came out when he finally spoke was a croaked, "How can you tell?"
Harry's eyes once again found his wife, across the pitch and a smile began to form on his lips. "Because the best couple balance each other out. Not only that, by they know the worst parts of each other and accept them anyway." He glanced at the blonde boy and Scorpius was struck, not for the first time with the feeling that Harry could read minds. "You know what I'm saying, Scorpius?"
He could only nod. Harry clapped him on the shoulder and turned back to the game, eyes scanning the stadium once more for the snitch.
"It must have been a shock for you when Al told you he was gay," Scorpius said, just for something to say.
"Oh, no," Harry replied, shocking him. "There are just things you know as a parent. I've known Al wasn't straight for years now." Harry's face was pensive as he stared across the Quidditch pitch but then he grinned that infectious smile. "But Lily's whole environmentalist thing? Didn't see that coming a mile off."
Scorpius couldn't control himself and soon both found themselves clutching their brooms for support while they laughed, only controlling themselves when Charlie, their team captain, yelled at them to get their heads back into the game. Sharing a smile, the pair ducked into the mess of brooms, intent on finding that snitch.
