A/N All the characters and places you recognise here are based on J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The story below, however, is entirely my own.
Written for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition (S6R10) / Tutshill Tornados - Chaser 2
Wordcount 1519
Prompts
[theme] a character's will
[object] potion vial
[object] blanket
[image] a man kissing a woman's hand
Beta Adi (potahtopotato) aka the Angel
Scorpius shivered; it had gotten cold. The curtains covering the large Gothic windows were towering over him, but he didn't need to draw them in order to know that it was pitch-black outside by now. He had been lying on the hardwood floor of his darkened room for hours, blankly staring at the ceiling which he couldn't even see.
Another tear ran down his cheek and the familiar chorus reverberated in his head once more: It was over. She had lost the battle. And they had lost her. Forever.
Still, out of all the feelings the current state of affairs could have elicited, it was anger that overshadowed everything else. Anger at the world, for letting this happen and for moving on without her. Anger at his father, for being so different from how she had always been. Anger at himself, Scorpius, for not holding on tight enough. And anger at her, for leaving him like this—devastated, heartbroken, desperately grasping for something—anything—that would keep even the tiniest part of her alive.
He was tired of it all. It had been days since she had died, and since then it had been everything he could think about. It just wouldn't stop.
Another shiver ran through his body and goose bumps started to form on his arms. Sighing, Scorpius accioed a blanket from his bed and wrapped it around this body, transforming himself into a cocoon. It banished the cold from the outside, but the chill residing deep within him remained.
If nothing else, his mother's death had brought him clarity. Scorpius was now certain that when he died, he didn't just want to disappear. He wanted to leave something for the ones he loved, something they could hold on to and remember him by. Somehow, he had to ensure that they wouldn't end up empty-handed.
Vaguely, his brain informed him that what he needed was a will. As in testament. Noun. A legally valid declaration of someone's wishes regarding the retention of their possessions after they decease.
Nerd, he chided himself. (A part of Scorpius was always wondering why he hadn't ended up in Ravenclaw.)
But still, the idea was good: Maybe drafting a will would put his mind at ease.
Or at least distract me from crying, he admitted to himself.
Primarily, there were two important factors to consider. First, he had to figure out whom he wanted to leave something to. Who would grieve for him?
His father, definitely. After all, Scorpius was the only one the older man had left in his life. Apart from Draco, however, the only other person that came to Scorpius's mind was his best friend. At least Scorpius hoped that Albus would miss him. Scorpius knew just how miserable he would feel if Albus were to pass. (He didn't let himself properly consider the possibility, though. Especially not right now.)
The second question was more difficult: What could he actually leave them?
Had he not been wrapped in his blanket, Scorpius would have surveyed his room. But even without seeing his cupboards, shelves, and walls, he knew that he owned nothing of importance that would satisfactorily console any grieving party.
A wave of sorrow hit him, and Scorpius had to clench his fists to keep from crying. He needed to focus to get through this.
Maybe instead of finding a random object that was already there, he could make something. But what?
He didn't have any useful hobbies such as painting or crocheting. In fact, he spent nearly all of his free time buried in books, absorbing their words.
Of course—that was it!
Untangling himself from his blanket, Scorpius rose and dashed over to his desk. He took a seat in front of the empty piece of parchment that he liked to keep there for convenience.
The letter to his father was quickly completed; he knew exactly what he wanted to tell him. Scorpius folded the parchment, sealed and addressed it, and then put it aside.
This done, he stirred the black ink with his quill for a while. What was to follow would be harder to write than anything he'd ever written before, he imagined (and that included a 30-inch essay on the Goblin Rebellions). He wanted to start, but instead he found ink dripping on the parchment.
Albus was Scorpius's best friend, but he was also much more than that.
Albus made him feel at home. If Scorpius had a place to be in this world, it was with him, laughing and talking and sometimes just sitting and being, absorbing the fact that he had gotten lucky enough to have Albus Severus Potter in his life.
Albus made him feel worthy. Worthy of being alive. Worthy of being noticed. Even worthy of being loved.
And he made him feel... good. Present, whole, happy. Exactly as he should be. Scorpius never wanted that to stop.
There you have it, he thought, and he was suddenly writing so quickly that he found himself smudging the ink in an attempt to retain these thoughts.
After he had finished, he rolled up the parchment, and, opening his desk drawer and retrieving an old potion vial, carefully slid it into the tube and corked it.
The best place to keep both letters, he decided, was the lowest compartment of his Hogwarts trunk. If anything were to happen to him, someone would probably clear it out, find them, and give them to the addressees. The thought made Scorpius feel better.
Still, after closing his trunk, he retreated into his blanket cocoon on the hardwood floor once more. Everything around him felt like too much of a burden to bear, but in there, he could pretend that none of it existed, if only just for a little longer.
It was the end of his seventh and last year of Hogwarts when Scorpius came across the letters again. He'd been trying to tidy his trunk in an effort to find all the items (mostly library books) that he needed to leave at the school before boarding the London-bound Hogwarts Express for the last time.
At the very bottom of his trunk, hidden underneath a ragged pair of dragon-hide gloves, he found a dirty, crumpled parchment addressed to his father. In a flash, the memory of that terrible summer before his third year returned. Scorpius rummaged some more and, sure enough, a few seconds later held the old potion vial—cracked down the side but still very much intact—in his hand, staring at it almost in awe.
His hands trembled as he ripped off the cork; he couldn't help himself. His eyes already drank in the words as he was still unrolling the parchment, and his heartbeat sped up.
It seemed like a lifetime ago when he had written these lines. A lot had happened during the past five years.
He remembered the time he had asked Rose to the Yule Ball. She had said yes. He'd been overjoyed, telling everyone (whether they'd wanted to hear it or not). And they had really gone together. He had kissed her hand, like a gentleman ought to do, and had asked her to dance. They had spent a wonderful evening together.
But it had been different. Different from what he'd thought it would feel like to finally be with her. Different from what he'd hoped would happen between them. At the end of the night, he had hugged her, and she had smiled knowingly and kissed him on the cheek. You're a wonderful person, Scorpius. But we both know we're not right for each other. Scorpius's heart had sunk, but he'd had to agree: They had never been meant to be.
He traced the yellowed parchment, thinking. While he had experienced a lot, had grown physically and emotionally, he was still very much the same Scorpius he had been back when he had written his goodbye letters. Looking down onto the letter in his hands, he realised that he still meant every word he had dedicated to Albus.
Scorpius didn't really know what all of that meant; he just knew that it was true. And it was the kind of truth that demanded to be openly acknowledged.
For everything that Albus did for him, the least he deserved was for Scorpius to tell him how much he appreciated him. And he would. Eventually.
Suddenly, something stirred behind him.
"And here I always thought I was the messy one."
Scorpius's heart thudded.
"Albus," he said, turning around.
There he stood. Albus looked the same as always, but something had changed since the last time Scorpius had seen him. For the first time, Scorpius noticed the way his body pulled toward Albus, the way his lips were tugging into a smile even though Albus hadn't said anything. It had always been this way, Scorpius realised. Albus had always emanated something that Scorpius knew he wanted. Knew he needed.
The moment felt too important to let it go. It was now or never.
"Albus." Scorpius said again, and then took a deep breath. "There's something you need to know."
A/N I guess I'm going to hide under a rock for a while and hate myself for having written this.