It had been almost too easy to fall in love with him. The ridiculous carelessness with which Al had wandered into his life and made him fall in love with him was nearly too obnoxious to bear; but, by inference, Scorpius had borne it, or else he would not be here now, with this letter in this hands, this letter he had received moments ago, this letter that spelled both his and Al's doom in the slightly shaky but undeniably noble hand writing of his father. Nobly-born, that is.
He could feel the knot in his back twisting into a hurricane-like configuration. The roar of the Hall pulsed and echoed frighteningly in his ears.
Maybe I'll die! he thought, and was seized by the glimmering simplicity of such a solution – how easy it would be to stumble, clip his chin and hear the sharp crack of his own neck snapping, to shatter the exact wrong beaker in Potions and press his palm to the cut as the dreamy incompetence of a peaceful death overwhelmed him. There were a thousand ways to die, especially in a place where the Healing was so prompt and efficient.
"I sense a morbid stream of consciousness," murmured Al against his ear, and Scorpius realized, heavily, that he could not die so easily after all. He promised himself he would let go of his selfish and disturbing misery at this thought if Al would keep his whisper against his ear a moment longer.
He did.
Scorpius had never loved him more.
Al shifted onto the bench, one hand dragging lightly across the storm in Scorpius's back and dissolving it almost immediately, the other brushing, then closing over the tight claw of his right hand, which had pinned the letter brutally to the table. Al picked gently at his fingers, which, to Scorpius, looked waxy and corpselike. He was suddenly ashamed of them, crushing the letter to the worn, warm body of Ravenclaw table like some luminescent butterfly, and wished they were not his. Al continued his futile battle of separating digit from table.
Scorpius obliged and almost convulsively ripped his nails from the table, crumpling his ugly hands into his lap.
Al was looking at him strangely, softly, as one might look at a severely traumatized young woman, or something. "May I read this?" The politeness was unexpected and made Scorpius feel at once childish and treasured.
"I would prefer if you would set fire to it and drag me into a broom cupboard and ravish me," he tried to say, but the words arched willfully in his throat so he nodded and looked away instead.
"I won't read it if you don't want me to," said Al. His heart swelled with love, and Scorpius choked around it, "it's fine, you can," and, at Al's beautiful and dubious expression, gasped, "I want you to!"
He noticed that this was true and stared at Al, hoping desperately to convey this without words, which had failed him and with whom he was disappointed. Honestly, I'm supposed to be the smart one.
Al got it though.
Scorpius sat in an agony of the nervous system. His back had returned to the level of tropical storm and was twisting tighter. His shoulders curled in and his spine seemed to shorten and hunch him over. He thought he must look like a defanged and tragic version of his grandfather, almost sobbing with impatience for Al to finish that goddamned letter.
After a reign of calcifying terror Al laid down the letter and blinked philosophically. He digested.
"Well, I think it's rather nice," said Al, and Scorpius sputtered for a few wild seconds until he remembered that he hadn't even read the letter. It had arrived and he had been quite calm until he got it open and was suddenly he could not have read it anymore than he could have Apparated to India.
Rather nice?
"I'll go with you to the meeting, if you like."
Meeting?
If who liked? If Scorpius liked? Did Al not know that he was completely useless without him?
"I'm not disowned?" Al looked surprised.
"I'm not a disgrace to the family honor and a deep personal disappointment?"
Al skimmed through the letter. "No, he doesn't ask you to commit seppuku or anything. Just says he wants to see you. Sounds a bit worried about you. What did your letter say?"
Scorpius thought about it. Indeed, the letter he had sent to his father had been akin to a strangled shriek. He nodded. "Okay," and nodded some more. The tension leaked from his mind and shoulders like pus from a boil.
"D'you want me to come with you?" said Al, and Scorpius stared at him incredulously. "Oh, sorry, just thought – moral support and all – " Al backtracked hastily and shifted uncomfortably.
Scorpius continued to gaze blankly at him for a moment, then recovered himself. "I," he started, and then thought about it. Al would probably spend the entire meeting trying to find some way to sneak his hand up Scorpius's inner thigh without anyone noticing. The idea made him smile. "I really want you to come."
Al's grin split his face in two; Scorpius's chest pounded with love. He thought that he had never seen anything so easy or free.