Author's Note

September 1st 2017: On this day, Albus Severus Potter and Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy boarded the Hogwarts Express, met their soulmate, ate way too many Pepper Imps, and played a game of Wizard's Chess. Such a momentous occasion deserves to be immortalised in a one-shot, doesn't it?

The scenes from Albus's PoV are actually deleted scenes from a multi-chapter Scorbus fic I'm currently working on. Since I couldn't work out how they would fit into that story, I decided to add a dash of Scorpius and share the result on this very special day. I love my boys so much.

And without further ado... Hogwarts ahoy!

"SLYTHERIN!"

It took a moment for the word to register in Albus's mind, and another for him to understand the magnitude of what had just happened.

Slytherin.

An awful, hollow silence filled the Great Hall.

Slytherin.

Panic wrapped itself around his heart and squeezed tight. He felt hot and cold at the same time, as if he were developing a fever. Why was it so quiet? He looked out at the sea of faces, searching for something that would reassure him, tell him this was okay, but he was met only with shocked, almost horrified stares.

Slytherin.

In this moment, Albus reached out to the world for comfort, but the world gave him none, and that left a wound that would spread poison through his veins in the years to come. It broke him in a fundamental way, and it would take a very, very long time for the damage to be fixed.

"Slytherin?" said a first-year girl in a hushed voice.

"Whoa! A Potter? In Slytherin," said another student, except this one had no qualms about being too loud.

The entire Great Hall broke into whispers, and the weight of it all seemed to push Albus down, down, down. He was rooted to the spot, Sorting Hat still on. Desperate for a friendly face, he sought out his big brother, but that just made things worse: James looked stunned, hurt, betrayed.

But Albus hadn't betrayed anyone. He'd just been himself. He'd made a choice, not knowing it would be considered so wrong.

Albus had always been a solitary boy, but he'd never felt so crushingly alone.

With shaking hands, he took off the Sorting Hat and placed it on the stool. Everything seemed to move slowly, as if he were underwater. Whenever he'd pictured this scene, he'd always assumed he would turn left and head to the Gryffindor table, to the family he'd never quite fitted in with, but who expected him to join them. They expected so many things of him.

He turned right.

A mass of black and green and silver. Unfamiliar faces that looked at him appraisingly, almost suspiciously – and a familiar face that didn't.

Scorpius Malfoy was waving at him, beaming, his whole face lit up. His obvious delight looked completely out of place, but he didn't seem to care.

"You can sit next to me!" he called, pointing to the empty space at his side.

Albus stared, then blinked, and the world became a little clearer around the edges.

"Right. Yes," he mumbled, and swiftly made his way over to the Slytherin table. He had to pass next to the remaining first-years.

"I suppose his hair isn't that similar," one of them muttered to another.

'What does this have to do with my dad?' he wanted to reply. Had he not just proven that he was nothing like his father?

A very confused Rose followed his movements, and he distinctly heard her cry out from the Gryffindor table: "Albus? But this is wrong, Albus. This isn't how it's supposed to be."

'Why?'

Ignoring his cousin, he sat down, and a very excited Scorpius began to babble at once:

"I can't believe this is happening. It's amazing, isn't it? Albus Potter in Slytherin, I never would've dreamed – I mean, Potters end up in Gryffindor, don't they? And yet here you are, in Slytherin, and it's great. Wow. Just wow."

Albus was beginning to see that there was nothing great about it, but he smiled weakly all the same, glad that at least one person was happy to see him.

As the Sorting continued, he could still feel stares digging into his back, but Scorpius's giddiness turned out to be an effective shield. He was so enthusiastic it was hard not to share at least a tiny bit of his excitement.

'Maybe it's just the shock,' Albus told himself. 'Maybe everything will go back to normal tomorrow.'

He desperately wanted to believe it, but the disgust he'd seen in some faces told him no, it wouldn't be that easy. This reaction was just a glimpse of everything his decision would entail.

"What would be wrong with ending up in Slytherin?" his father had asked.

Everything, it seemed.

Later that night, Albus stared at the canopy of his four-poster bed, unable to sleep. He was tired, since he'd barely slept the previous night, but he just couldn't relax. The moments after his Sorting replayed themselves vividly in his mind and his stomach began to twist with the first hints of regret.

Scorpius had said that he'd been what was commonly known as a Hatstall – an unusually long Sorting, one that took longer than five minutes. To Albus, the Sorting itself had been a blur. He vaguely remembered the Hat quickly dismissing Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, because his concern had always been the other two Houses: Gryffindor and Slytherin. The expectation… and the option. Choosing Gryffindor meant choosing a life as Harry Potter the Second, a life that he already lived back home and had grown to dislike. Choosing Slytherin, on the other hand… Slytherin offered a chance to start over, to distance himself from the Potter name, to be Albus – just Albus. And that was something he craved above all things. He had been so sure the others would understand; everyone who knew Albus could tell that he longed to be his own person, right?

Wrong, apparently.

He could never have imagined that his choice would backfire so spectacularly.

He could never have imagined that his choice would eclipse everything else about himself, as if he'd never existed before the Sorting Hat had been placed on his head. He wasn't Albus anymore; he was the Slytherin Potter.

And here he was.

He buried his face in his pillow, feeling the sudden, childish urge to cry.

"Psst!"

He looked up, brow furrowed.

"Albus?" a nearby voice said very, very quietly.

He yanked open the hangings to his right and was greeted by the sight of a beaming Scorpius Malfoy. He wondered how it was physically possible for someone to be so cheerful all the time.

"Ah, good, I was hoping you'd be awake," said Scorpius, speaking at a normal volume this time. Since they were the only two Slytherin boys in their year, he didn't have to worry about waking anyone else up. It was an unusually small number, but their House's bad reputation, coupled with the worrying lack of young witches and wizards after the war's many casualties, meant that Slytherin had seen better days.

"Is everything okay?" Albus asked uncertainly.

"Yes, yes, everything's brilliant. First day of class tomorrow! I don't even care what subject we'll have first; it'll be amazing. I'm just terribly excited, you know?" Scorpius gushed.

"Really? It's hard to tell," Albus said drily, sitting up.

Scorpius laughed. "Aren't you? Our magical studies start tomorrow! We'll be taking our first steps into our futures as wizards!"

"I dunno," said Albus, slightly taken aback. "I haven't really thought about it. I mean, it's just school, isn't it?"

"Only the best school in the world," Scorpius said dreamily. "I can't wait to learn everything."

Albus wondered why Scorpius hadn't been Sorted into Ravenclaw. It definitely seemed to suit him more than Slytherin did. Then again, who was he to talk? Perhaps Slytherin didn't suit him either.

And all this talk about school and learning… It just made him feel more nervous. What if he was rubbish at everything? James wasn't very good at anything except Transfiguration and Quidditch, but everyone liked him. Unfortunately, the night's events had made it quite clear that Albus wouldn't have the same advantage. Not that he'd been counting on it, anyway: he'd always been the least likeable of the Potter children, and he knew it.

"You can sit, if you want," he told Scorpius awkwardly, making room.

Scorpius plopped down next to him, bouncing a bit on the mattress. "Since neither of us can sleep, do you want to play Wizard's Chess? I'd propose Exploding Snap, but I'd like my eyebrows to be intact on my first day. Got to make a good impression and all that."

"Um, sure."

The sunny smile he received in return made him feel just a little bit better.

Scorpius's heart was thundering in his chest as he dug around his trunk for the brand new chess set his parents had given him as a start-of-term present. He still couldn't quite believe it. Albus Severus Potter, in his House, in his dorm.

His heart had almost leapt out of his chest when Albus had walked into his compartment. He'd been so eager to please and impress this boy he'd heard so much about, so overwhelmed by his own incredible luck. Maybe he'd messed things up a tiny bit –he had to admit the song had been too much– but he'd been given a chance and he'd wanted to make the most of it. And it had gone well, hadn't it?

Scorpius bit his lip. He still didn't want to get his hopes up. And it wasn't as though he was asking for too much: all he wanted was a friend, one of those lifelong, unbreakable friendships he'd read about in his books and longed for throughout his lonely childhood, but it was silly to think Albus Potter would be that for him. He was destined for greater things, no doubt.

But he'd stayed in Scorpius's compartment, hadn't he? And it had been nice. Albus hadn't stared, hadn't made any comments about Scorpius's parentage; he'd even looked interested in everything that Scorpius had to say. They'd worked their way through the small bag of sweets a little too quickly and Scorpius had been sure that would be the end of it, but then Albus had bought some sweets of his own from the trolley witch. "It's only fair," he'd said with a timid smile, offering Scorpius another Pepper Imp. By the time they'd reached Hogwarts, they'd eaten so many that the windows were all fogged up because of the steam.

"Have you seen him? Albus Potter, in our year!"

"And who's that?"

"Are you blind? Look at that hair. He's got 'Malfoy' written all over him. Always sucking up to the popular and powerful, the Malfoys."

"Well I've heard that he might not be a Malfoy…"

The whispers had followed them all the way to the castle, and still Albus had stayed. More than one person had approached them, intending to talk to Harry Potter's son, and backed away after seeing who stood at his side. Scorpius had been certain it would only be a matter of time before Albus decided he'd be better off somewhere else, surrounded by cool, popular people who weren't rumoured to be Voldemort's spawn. He would inevitably be Sorted into Gryffindor and would soon forget the strange, lonely boy he'd shared a bag of sweets with.

And yet there he was, in the Slytherin dorm. Scorpius didn't quite understand how that had happened, but he wasn't going to complain.

"Ah, here we go. Ta-da!" Scorpius held up the wooden chess box triumphantly. He glanced at Albus and was surprised to find those famous emerald eyes fixed on him. He gave him a quick, nervous smile, just like he'd done when Albus had first opened the compartment door. Embarrassed at being caught, Albus returned the gesture and looked down, fiddling with the sleeve of his pyjamas. It was obvious that he was upset about something, but Scorpius didn't let that discourage him. Though he didn't know Albus very well, he liked what he'd seen of him so far and was determined to make him smile – his mother always said that laughter was the first step in any friendship.

"Black or white?" he asked, making his way over to Albus's bed and starting to set up the board. They both sat cross-legged, facing each other.

Albus mulled it over for a few seconds. "Black."

Good, Scorpius preferred white. He ordered a pawn to move to E4 and waited patiently for Albus to counter, but he appeared to have other things in his mind. He rested his chin on his hands, looking troubled.

"Can I say something that's going to sound really weird and a tiny bit horrible?"

"Um, yes," Scorpius said uncertainly. "Go ahead."

Albus opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, and this time he seemed to find his courage. "I didn't realise who you were when I walked into your compartment. And when you said your name, your full name, I – well, I thought you were going to be… less nice."

Ah.

Scorpius's heart sank like a stone. "You thought I'd be more like my dad." It wasn't a question.

Albus nodded, looking guilty. "I'm sorry. It's just – my family – well, like you said, our families don't get on, so I've heard some pretty awful things about your dad. And I thought you'd be a git. But you're not!" he added hurriedly. "You're alright. You're nice. The nicest person I've met today."

Scorpius goggled at him, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing. Albus Severus Potter thought he was nice. He could die happy now.

"You're not how I expected you to be, either," he admitted. "Except I didn't think you'd be a git, even if my dad doesn't like the Potters very much. I thought you'd be more like Rose."

Albus looked suddenly unsure. "And is it good or bad? That I'm not like her."

Scorpius blinked, surprised. Was that what was bothering him? That he wasn't what everyone expected the son of Harry Potter to be? It made sense, he supposed. But he didn't understand how that could possibly be a bad thing. Scorpius knew he was a bit odd, but he was happy with that and proud of who he was, despite what other people said about him. There was nothing wrong with being different.

"It's good, of course. Excellent. You're your own person. That's something to be celebrated, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure," Albus said quietly, almost to himself. He shook his head, as if trying to dispel the thought. "But seeing the way everyone's reacted to… everything today, it's made me realise that this surname thing is really stupid. Can't we just forget about them? We're not our fathers, are we? I'm just Albus and you're just Scorpius. Being a Potter or a Malfoy doesn't have to mean anything."

Scorpius had never been 'just Scorpius'. For as long as he could remember, he'd always been Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, the Malfoy heir – or Voldemort's son. His surname always came first. He wasn't sure who 'just Scorpius' was, but he desperately wanted to find out. And it looked like Albus wanted the same thing for himself.

"I like the sound of that," he said, smiling. He stuck out a hand. "Nice to meet you, just Albus."

Albus returned the smile. "A pleasure, just Scorpius," he said pompously, and shook his hand.

Scorpius's chess set was brand new, and Albus almost felt guilty when he ordered his pieces to take an opposing pawn or bishop, which they did with violent gusto. Scorpius didn't seem to mind, though. Not even when he lost by a narrow margin.

"A narrow defeat is almost a victory," he said optimistically.

"Still a defeat, though," replied Albus. He yawned. It had to be past midnight by now.

Once they'd packed everything away in the chess box, the boys bid each other goodnight and went back to their respective beds, which stood facing each other. Albus grabbed the hangings that faced the middle of the dorm, intending to pull them closed, but hesitated.

"Scorpius," he said quietly. How could he say this without sounding pathetic? "Are we friends?"

Scorpius, who had been about to grab his own hangings, paused. His cheerful disposition vanished, replaced by uncertainty. "Well," he said, tentatively. "I want to be your friend." He met Albus's eyes, looking hopeful.

"Me too." Albus discovered that he wanted it very much. Scorpius was a bit weird, with his posh voice and constant bounciness and lack of self-consciousness, but Albus liked him a great deal. "So we're friends, then, right?"

"We are." Scorpius looked down, a bit sheepish. "That's nice. I've never had a friend before."

"Me neither," Albus confessed, relieved to have finally found someone he genuinely liked, and who seemed to like him back just as much.

They smiled shyly at each other.

"Maybe your mum was onto something after all," said Albus. "Sweets do help."

Scorpius laughed, and the sound of it made Albus's heart feel a little lighter.

Sleep came easily after that. Albus still hadn't forgotten the Sorting, the looks, the nerves – but perhaps being in Slytherin wouldn't be such a bad thing after all. Not if he had Scorpius.

If you liked this, it would mean the world to me if you left a lil' review! 3