CHAPTER ONE
By the time Albus managed to drag himself down to the Great Hall that morning, he'd already missed the better part of breakfast. Students were filing out of the open doors, laughing and chattering and shouting over the clatter of noise. A few called Albus's name, and he gave his crooked smile and said hello in his half-awake voice, though he wasn't always sure who he was saying hello to. This was a consequence of having James Sirius Potter for an older brother and Harry James Potter for a father: everyone seemed to recognize him, no matter how much Albus wished they didn't.
When he got to the Gryffindor table, it was nearly empty. He thumped down onto the bench beside Rose Weasley. She barely looked up from the paper she was madly scribbling – an essay that was due that morning, and an essay she'd clearly forgotten about until now – and she didn't bother to say hello as Albus took a piece of her toast. He tore it into little pieces and then into even smaller pieces after that, not once putting any of it into his mouth, as he looked across the Great Hall with a bowed head and hunched shoulders, glancing up every now and then through his eyelashes as he tried to act as though he wasn't looking.
Scorpius Malfoy lingered at the Slytherin table. There was a crease in between his eyebrows, but beyond that, there was no emotion on his face. The hairs of his eyebrows were white, as though they'd been dusted with powdered chalk, and matched the color of his face almost perfectly. A smattering of pink was on his cheeks, the tip of his thin nose – and his lips were pink as well.
Scorpius wasn't paying attention to whatever it was that Ursula Spinnet and Norwood Nott were saying on either side of him. His blank eyes were unfocused, gazing at the air in front of him – he blinked and looked across the hall. He looked at Albus. Albus turned his head away, heat creeping up his neck, and pretended he hadn't been looking at all.
A slam shook the table. Albus jumped in his seat. "This is complete bullocks, this is," Rose said. "Who the bloody hell gives a bloody shit about a bloody draft that can raise the godforsaken bloody dead?" And she threw her quill onto the table for good measure.
"Not going well, then?"
Rose gave him a look that withered his smile. "Mum's going to flip if she finds out about this. She's always telling me to stop acting like the damned fool my father was when he was here, but I can't help it if I'm not the bloody genius she is, can I?"
The thing was, Rose was a bloody genius – everyone knew that she was – but she just never did her work. At that moment, though, Albus felt inclined to agree with anything she said. "Right you are."
"Albus," Rose said, "that prat Scorpius Malfoy is staring at you."
"Yeah?" he said. He fought the urge to look up, to see if Scorpius Malfoy was really watching. The bread he was tearing apart was a mound of crumbs now.
"Yeah." Her eyes went from the bread and back to Albus's face. "You know, I heard that Scorpius Malfoy is gay."
Albus stopped tearing the bread apart. He brushed his hands off. "I heard the same thing."
"Think it's true?"
"I guess. I don't know. Why does it matter?"
"Just curious. Never met a gay person before."
The bell echoed. They only had a few minutes to make it down to the dungeons. Albus jumped up, very aware that Rose was staring after him. "Come on, then. We'll be late."
As they were leaving the Great Hall together, a small group of Slytherins pushed their way in front, pretending they hadn't seen Albus or Rose, and went out of the open doors. Albus watched Norwood Nott and Ursula Spinnet and Odile Zabini – and his eyes inevitably found Scorpius Malfoy.
It wasn't something Albus could help. It wasn't something he could explain. But there was something about Scorpius Malfoy that always drew his eye. Maybe it was just curiosity – a curiosity he'd had since his first night at the Sorting ceremony, when he first looked across the hall and saw Scorpius Malfoy sitting at his table, decorated with silver and green, with eyes so expressionless that he reminded Albus of the Bloody Baron. That night, no one had been surprised that yet another Potter had found himself in Gryffindor. Maybe that was something Albus regretted – that he wasn't special or different, that he couldn't have surprised everyone and ended up in Ravenclaw, or even Hufflepuff. Still, better than Slytherin.
The Malfoy boy, whom Albus had been watching throughout the ceremony – he'd been put in Slytherin. No one was surprised about that either. Even as he watched the Malfoy boy, Albus knew that the Slytherin felt the same way he did. Barely eleven years old, and he was already bored with his life. He was expected to follow in his father's footsteps, just as James and Albus were expected to follow in theirs.
Albus watched the backs of Scorpius Malfoy and the other Slytherins as they walked ahead, all headed towards the dungeons. He'd always watched Scorpius without ever having said a word, though he'd heard the Malfoy boy speak on more than one occasion: in the class they shared in Potions, and in the Great Hall as he spoke with friends, and once when Scorpius had bumped into Albus in the corridors and on the way to dinner, and he'd said, "Excuse me," without any particular enthusiasm or joy.
Albus knew that he wanted to speak to Scorpius – just to say hello, or comment on an assignment they'd had in Potions. He knew that once they spoke, he'd see there wasn't anything particularly special about Scorpius Malfoy, and that they didn't have much in common after all. Saying something – anything – would relieve his curiosity. But Albus also knew that Potter's simply did not speak to Malfoy's. If he wanted to speak to Scorpius, he'd have to find a damned good excuse to do it.
After Potions ended, Albus and Rose emerged from the dungeons and headed to their next class, Rose complaining all the while that the professors always gave too much work. Albus wasn't listening – ahead of him, Scorpius Malfoy was speaking to Odile Zabini about an assignment they'd just been given. His voice was low – lower than most sixteen-year-olds – and made him sound older than he really was. It was a nice voice, Albus had decided long ago.
Further down the hall, Albus's older brother James was laughing so loudly that his voice echoed throughout the corridor. He stood on a low wall, in front of a stained glass window so that yellow and orange and red light shined down on him. James was what most would consider attractive. He was tall, with brown eyes and browned skin, darkened from days of playing Quidditch in the sun, and with a mess of dark hair. Albus was a lot shorter than his brother was, and skinnier too, with green eyes he thought were a little too bright at times. While the mess of dark hair matched James's image, Albus's black hair just looked messy and tangled.
James was so loud that heads swerved to watch him. To Albus, it seemed his older brother always had to be the center of attention. "He can be such a prat sometimes," Albus said.
"Don't you think you should be a little nicer? He's your brother."
"I'm just saying he's a prat," Albus said, "and besides, he could be a little nicer to me too."
Rose couldn't disagree with that.
As they got closer, James quieted down and peered down into the crowd. He jumped down from his wall and into the center of the corridor, only a few feet in front of Albus – and right in front of Scorpius Malfoy.
James grinned. "Why, hello there, Malfoy," he said, apparently as loudly as he could. "Heard something interesting about you, you know."
Scorpius watched James with bored eyes. "Oh, yes? Please tell me, I beg of you. There's nothing more I want to hear than something you've heard about me." And he rolled his eyes as Odile snickered. The two of them began to walk around James and continue on their way – but stopped when James spoke again.
"Heard you're a faggot."
Movement in the corridor had already stopped, as it often did whenever James had singled out a new victim. Most eyes were on Scorpius now. Albus watched Scorpius too – looked hard to see if Scorpius would affirm the rumors – but Scorpius only shrugged. "Can't help it if that's what you heard."
"So it's true, then? You like sucking dick? What's your daddy got to say about that, eh?"
Scorpius didn't respond. He just stood there in the center of the crowded corridor, lips pressed together, not seeming to mind that whispers had erupted and were spreading throughout the hall. Albus had heard the same rumors, of course – that Scorpius Malfoy had been caught on his knees in the prefect's bathroom, with a Durmstrang boy during the Yule Ball, and that he'd kept moving pictures of naked men hidden in his trunk.
"I mean, he's got to be pretty disappointed, right?" James went on. "How'll he keep his pure blood line going if he's got a faggot for a son?"
"Come on, James. That's enough."
Everyone looked at Albus. The whispers stopped, and beside him, Rose stared. He swallowed, and forced himself not to look at Scorpius, who he was sure was watching him too. He just kept looking at James. James towered over the crowd, grin slowly fading from his face, his brows furrowed and his eyes hard on Albus. "We were just talking." He looked at Scorpius again, and smiled. "Right, Malfoy? Nothing wrong with talking."
"Just leave him alone," Albus said, quietly so that only the few around him and Scorpius and James could hear. "He didn't do anything to you, right? So just leave him alone."
James stood there for a second, watching Albus – but finally he pushed past Scorpius. He knocked his shoulder into Albus too as he walked by, his seventh-year friends close behind. "Didn't realize you made a habit of sticking up for Slytherins," he said as he passed.
The crowd began to disperse, though people still twisted and craned their heads to look at Albus and Scorpius. Scorpius began to walk away as well. He didn't acknowledge Albus. He didn't look at him, or thank him – he didn't say a word, and Albus realized that this was what he'd wanted. "You're welcome," he called out to Scorpius's back.
Scorpius stopped. He turned around, and there was a small smile on his face. It wasn't a friendly smile. "I'm sorry," he said. "You seem to think I should be grateful to you."
"Shouldn't you be? I just got James to stop bothering you."
"And if your brother hadn't been such an asshole in the first place, there never would've been a problem." He turned around again and kept on walking. Albus felt a strong urge to use his wand on Scorpius's back, or to at least throw something at him.
"That's what you get for helping out a Slytherin," Rose said.
They kept moving down the corridor.
"Why did you help him, anyway?" Rose said.
Albus stuck a hand into his hair. "You're not going to give me shit for this, are you? James, I understand, but you too?"
"I'm not giving you shit, Al, but can you blame me for asking?"
"James was being a prat."
"James is always being a prat."
Albus shrugged. "I don't know. Dad told us this story about our grandma, once. She was always sticking up for people, even if they were Slytherins. Maybe that's where it came from."
Rose didn't say anything else about it, but Albus wasn't too sure she believed him.
One thing Albus realized, as he was walking to the Great Hall for dinner later that day: he'd spoken to Scorpius, and had a conversation – but it hadn't relieved his curiosity. If anything, he wanted to speak to Scorpius Malfoy even more than he had before.
Not an hour of dinner had passed before news spread through the Great Hall, while Albus sat with Rose and his little sister Lily over their half-eaten steak and kidney pie: Scorpius Malfoy had been found out on the Quidditch field, bruised and bloody and hexed unconscious.