A/N: I meant to have this up at least two weeks ago, but moving to a new country takes up a fair amount of time. That being said, I don't know when I'll be able to get the next chapter up. A huge thank you to Pendragon2601 for beta reading this chapter.

"United by a common goal,

They had the selfsame yearning

To make the world's best magic school

And pass along their learning."

— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Prologue

The sun shone through the windows as Albus and Eden ambled down the corridor in the direction of Eden's classroom. He'd had it drilled into him over the past several months that a good boyfriend walked his girlfriend to class. Usually, Eden loved to use this time to talk, but she was being strangely quiet.

"What's up?" Albus asked.

Eden sighed before pausing in her steps and turning to face him. Albus mirrored her. When they'd begun dating, he'd been almost even with her in height, but the same growth spurt that had led his mother to buy him new trousers over Christmas had made it so that he had to look down at her.

"You know class is about to start," he said, glancing between her and the turn they needed to take to reach her classroom.

Eden nodded but didn't otherwise answer.

"We need to talk," she said instead.

Albus shifted uneasily. He had no idea what this was about, but he could tell from Eden's hesitation that it wasn't good. He tried to remember if he'd done anything she could be angry about.

He couldn't come up with anything.

"I think we need to break up," she said abruptly.

It was so unexpected that it took Albus several seconds to process what she was saying.

"What? Why?"

Her answer seemed to be harder for her to voice than the break up declaration. She was no longer looking him in the eye as she fiddled with the straps of her school bag.

"At first, I thought I was just reading into things too much, and then I thought that maybe it would stop once we were together awhile, but I'm tired of dating someone who likes someone else, Albus. It's not fair to me, and it's not fair to Scorpius either."

The contents of Albus's just consumed lunch sloshed unpleasantly in his stomach. His mouth felt dry, making it difficult to speak.

"What are you on about? Eden, I like you, not anyone else. That's why we're dating!"

She finally looked at him, and he saw pity in her eyes. He tried to swallow, but there was nothing but air.

Albus wouldn't make it to his class that day, but that was the least of his worries.

Chapter 1

The commotion on the platform could still be heard as Albus led Rose down the train corridor, having to brush past student after student. After following this routine twice a year for the past three years, Albus felt like he had it down. Without any hesitation, he headed straight for the compartment that Scorpius had been in on each trip they'd taken to Hogwarts.

He was a fourth year, with at least as much of the school younger than him as was older than him. It was enough that many people moved out of his way. He could remember his first trip on the Hogwarts Express when he'd felt the need to plaster himself against the wall as he squeezed by. That wasn't how it was anymore.

Sliding the door open without a second of hesitation, Albus found Scorpius curled up on one of the benches, a book open in his lap. Forgetting that Rose was behind him, Albus paused in the doorway, taking in the sight of his best friend.

They hadn't seen each other over the summer. Despite the willingness of the Potters to host him, Draco Malfoy was resistant to the idea of his son spending time elsewhere when not at Hogwarts, and the idea of having a Potter in his house unnerved him even more. Though he'd never been anything but polite the few times Albus had spoken to him, he'd become protective in the year since his wife's death.

Scorpius had been too deep into his book to hear the door open, but upon growing impatient, Rose nudged Albus forward, allowing her to enter the compartment. She slid the door shut behind her, causing the reverberation to echo through the room. Scorpius' eyes shot up, startled until he saw Albus and then Rose. He smiled brightly at them.

"Hi," he said.

Albus couldn't help but mirror his smile.

"Hi," he repeated, his own greeting sounding five times as enthusiastic as Rose's. She'd already begun stowing her trunk on the rack above the bench opposite Scorpius. Albus checked himself, looking away from Scorpius and taking care of his own trunk and owl, Trace, who chirped happily at the sight of her friend once she'd been stowed away.

"How was your summer?" Albus asked, sitting down next to Scorpius and turning to face him, legs crossed in front of him.

Scorpius shrugged, a small frown on his face despite his attempts to hide it.

"Same as always, I suppose."

Albus watched him. It couldn't have been the same as always, not when it was the first full summer that Astoria had been gone. Albus would never dare say such a thing aloud, but he did wish that Scorpius would tell him the truth.

"My family and I went to France," Rose bragged. Despite the satisfied smile on her face, she was watching Scorpius as closely as Albus was, gauging whether she was helping or hurting him by deflecting attention.

"We know," Albus said, rolling his eyes. He felt a surge of pride when he heard Scorpius giggle, but he kept his gaze on Rose. "You had to've mentioned it as much in your letters to Scorpius as you have to me all summer."

He glanced over to see Scorpius nodding.

Rose turned up her nose at him, crossing her arms against her chest.

"I'd been waiting for that trip for more than a year. Excuse me for being excited."

"I understand," Scorpius said, though his lips were turned up in an amused grin. "I get just as excited when we go on holiday." His face fell. "We didn't go anywhere this year."

Albus scooted across the bench to press his arm against Scorpius's. Scorpius looked up at him and attempted to grin. It wasn't convincing.

"We didn't go anywhere either," Albus shared. "Dad was too busy with work. I'm amazed Aunt Hermione got away, being Minister and all."

Rose shrugged. She'd dropped her formerly crossed arms, giving up the appearance of offense.

"She worked every day using the floo. There's no way she could completely escape."

She sounded surprisingly okay with her mother being occupied during their family holiday. She wasn't lying. Rose had always been so proud of her mother that she never minded the time her job took up.

"We managed to do lots though," Rose continued. She leaned forward eagerly despite having told them her stories in her letters. The boys let her ramble, and Scorpius even listened. Albus grew bored, and he found his eyes wandering to Scorpius instead.

It was a dangerous thing to do. They were sitting close enough together that there was no way to be discreet about it. There was nothing he could have been looking at but Scorpius's face. Still, his eyes were drawn to the other boy.

Though there was a hint of sadness in his eyes, he was making an effort to smile at Rose's stories, and he laughed at the appropriate moments. Neither Rose nor Scorpius seemed to notice that Albus didn't.

He forced his eyes away from Scorpius before he could dwell too long, but that only made him focus instead on the way their arms brushed against each other. His eyes wandered, finding Rose, who smirked.

Albus wasn't sure if that was a response to his indiscretion or not. He pretended like it wasn't. It was easier that way.

She'd been dropping hints whenever they were in the same place over the summer. Even in her letters there were scattered comments that Albus didn't know how to interpret. It was easier to believe that they had no motive, nothing he needed to worry about, but from the look in her eyes, it was difficult for him to believe that.

Scorpius repositioned himself, momentarily pressing into Albus's arm. It was enough to draw Albus's attention to the other boy again. Scorpius looked at him this time, and the sadness in his eyes had dissipated. Albus smiled back, barely hearing Rose's scoff from across the compartment.

"You two can't be like this all year," she complained. "I'll retch."

Scorpius turned away from Albus, brow wrinkled in confusion.

"Be like what?"

He looked at Albus, who kept careful control of his expression as he shrugged.

His feelings had been muted over the summer. Though never forgotten, they'd been easier to push aside in favour of other things when Scorpius wasn't right in front of him. He thought that maybe he'd sorted some things out for himself, but he was discovering that wasn't the case once he was face-to-face with Scorpius again.

He was as perplexed as he had been before.

Each time Scorpius looked at him, his heart hammered quicker in his chest, but then–

Scorpius's eyes widened, having caught sight of someone outside in the corridor.

"Eden." Scorpius said the name quietly and with a hint of thinly veiled unease.

Albus turned around, barely able to catch a glimpse of the back of his ex-girlfriend's head before she'd disappeared down the corridor.

Rose whistled. "She did not look happy to catch sight of you, Al."

Albus shrugged. She shouldn't have been. He'd never accept that their breakup was entirely his fault, but some of it was. The words she'd said to him echoed through his head sometimes when he was left to his thoughts.

Scorpius nudged at his arm, and Albus smiled at him, trying to calm the worried look in his eyes.

"You okay?" Scorpius asked, not responding to Albus's smile. "I know you took the breakup hard. It has to be difficult to see her."

If only Scorpius knew the real reason that the breakup had been difficult. He nodded, giving Scorpius as reassuring a smile as he could manage.

"I'm fine," he said, not bothering to glance at Rose to see what she thought. She was as oblivious to Eden's accusations as Scorpius was. "Really, I'm over Eden. The whole thing was nice while it lasted, but it was never meant to be forever, you know?"

Scorpius nodded, but he looked at Albus as if he couldn't make sense of something. His head was tilted to the side, and Albus found himself thinking about how adorable he looked. He forced himself to look away again.

He'd only had to survive a month and a half of this the previous school year. Before then, he'd managed to remain oblivious for years. If only he could have gone back to that. Scorpius was going to drive him mad, and they hadn't even made it to the castle yet.

Wracking his brain for a way to get the attention off of himself, Albus asked Scorpius, "What did you do at home all summer?"

If he noticed anything odd in Albus's voice, Scorpius didn't question it. With a small grin, he began telling Albus and Rose about the wizard's chess tournament that he and his father had held between themselves.

Albus listened with rapt attention, not caring how many times Scorpius brought up beating his father in less than ten minutes. It didn't matter what Scorpius had to say; Albus found all of it rather fascinating.

XXX

While it was difficult to conceal from Scorpius his innermost thoughts, Albus thought it might have been growing easier as the first week of term passed. They fell into their old routines instantly despite the different class schedule.

Rose, too, had fallen back into more of the same.

"I can't believe that we've started our fourth year and still haven't found the Room of Requirement. Of course, I haven't had the time to look that I would have liked. The course load gets heavier each year, and I have to spend most of my time on it if I want to make it into the Ministry. It's just unfortunate that I haven't made more time to search for the room."

Albus sighed.

"Maybe if you spent as much time looking as you do talking about it," he muttered. Rose didn't hear him, but Scorpius had to stifle a giggle.

They'd made it to the front door of the castle and come out into the cooling September air. Rose led the way as they travelled in the direction of Hagrid's hut for Care of Magical Creatures. The wind blew Rose's hair in her face. It took her a moment to secure it and continue speaking.

"The things we could do with that room if we found it…" She shook her head. "There wouldn't be a limit to how useful it could be."

Albus shrugged, though she wasn't looking at him. He'd long grown tired of the search for the room. Scorpius, however, still managed to get excited whenever Rose discussed it, despite not being as committed to the search as she was.

"It would be useful," Scorpius agreed. "By now, though, it's almost as if someone doesn't want us to find it."

Rose waved a dismissive hand in the air.

"It's a room. It doesn't care one way or the other if it's found. We're not looking hard enough."

"The room may not care if it's found," Albus said, "but I'm starting to think it's not the room that's against you. Have you ever considered that it might be the professors who don't want anyone finding it? For all we know, it can't be found by anyone anymore."

Rose paused in her steps. Hagrid's hut was visible in front of her. Albus could see half of their class gathered outside of it, talking amongst themselves. Neither Hagrid nor any creatures had appeared yet.

Rose had her thinking face on, the one Albus dreaded seeing because there was a good chance he'd get dragged into something he didn't want to be a part of.

"I suppose there's a chance," she said. "I could get why the professors would want to keep us from finding it, but I don't think that's what's going on."

"Why's that?" Scorpius asked. "It makes sense to me."

Albus grinned at him, and he thought he might have seen a light blush on Scorpius's cheeks before the blonde turned away from him.

"The Room of Requirement is a crucial part of Hogwarts." Rose sounded offended, as if either of them had claimed otherwise. "The secret passageways, the ghosts, the hidden secrets, that's what makes Hogwarts special. You can't take those away, and that includes the Room of Requirement. Maybe the professors want to make it harder for rule breakers, but they'd never mess with the true magic of Hogwarts."

"That sounds kind of..." Albus struggled for a word.

"Idealistic," Scorpius said, earning a nod from Albus. "But I think it makes sense."

Albus shot him a disapproving look, but Scorpius wasn't looking at him. He was looking at Rose, who looked proud.

"Thank you, Scorpius."

She turned and began walking towards the hut. They'd only gone a few more steps when Hagrid stepped out of the Forbidden Forest, but he had no creatures with him.

"The room is still accessible," Rose said, her voice growing quieter as they got closer to their classmates. "It has to be, and I will find it. It's up to you guys whether you want to help me or not."

Scorpius looked towards Albus as if he alone could answer Rose's question. Albus didn't give him, or Rose, a response. For three years he'd been trying to get out of searching for the Room of Requirement, and the trips had grown infrequent in years two and three.

"Why does it matter so much?" he asked. "Sure, the room is cool, but what would we do with it?"

He wasn't expecting the devilish smile on Rose's face.

"About that," she said. They'd reached their class, and Rose kept them on the fringes of the group to talk to them in a semblance of privacy. "I thought a lot about it over the summer, and I think I have a plan."

"What is it?" Scorpius asked eagerly.

Rose puffed out her chest as she spoke. She had wanted to share this with them for a long time.

"You know how we've always said that it's hard for people from different houses to spend time together because the castle isn't set up for it?" She paused long enough for both of the boys to nod. "Well, all four houses can get into the room, and it can be whatever we want, including the perfect place to hang out."

"So you want to turn it into some sort of hangout for all four houses," Albus clarified. "You're going to advertise it to the whole school once you find it?"

He wasn't sure that sounded like a good idea, but Rose was nodding eagerly.

"Might that make the professors ban the room if they haven't already hidden it?" Scorpius asked, wringing his hands together. "They might not want so many people knowing where the room is."

"I won't explain the nature of the room," she said as if that solved everything. "All they'll know is that it's a place I've set up. I don't have to tell them what the room actually is."

Albus scoffed. "As if no one would figure it out when you're letting the entire school in."

Rose pouted and was about to say something when Hagrid's booming voice descended over them, calling the class to attention. With one last glare, Rose turned from them and began maneuvering her way through the crowd so that she stood at the front. Albus and Scorpius let her go, staying towards the back of the class.