Albus was hiding behind his cousin Rose when the Potters and Weasleys came through to Platform 9 ¾ on September first.
"Albus, cut it out!" Rose whined when he clipped her heels with his feet.
"I need protection, Rose. Who knows where that ponce could be hiding?" Albus looked around the platform wildly, keeping an eye out for the shock of white blond hair that usually preceded exuberant unwanted hugs.
"Don't be mean, Albus," his father chastised with a disapproving frown from where he was pushing Albus' trolley. Albus whirled on him, completely forgetting about needing to hide behind Rose.
"Need I remind you, father, of what happened last year on the platform?" he asked angrily. His dad laughed. Laughed.
Last year, Malfoy had rocketed toward him as soon as Albus and his family stepped onto the platform. Within seconds of seeing the Hogwarts Express, Albus was caught up in the warm but very unwelcome embrace of one Scorpius Malfoy.
"I missed you this summer, Albus," Malfoy breathed into his hair, placing a small kiss on Albus' cheek. Albus tried, without success, to pull away without injuring the other boy.
"Get off me, Malfoy!" Malfoy obliged Albus' request, stepping back with a wide smile.
"I brought you a present from Italy!" Malfoy enthused, digging around in his pockets.
"I don't want any presents from you," Albus said sharply.
"Here it is!" Malfoy rejoiced as he handed over the gift, completely ignoring Albus' comment. In his outstretched hand sat a small glass orb about the size of a Snitch, and suspended inside of it looked to be some kind of white flower bud. As Albus watched, the flower bud bloomed right before his eyes inside of the orb.
"It responds to human touch, see?" Malfoy said, obviously excited by the magic of the gift. "The bud closes back up when you put it down."
"Oh…" was all Albus could say in response. It really was very beautiful. If you liked that sort of thing.
It took him a few moments to realize that he was just standing there staring at the gift without taking it, but he quickly snapped out of it and reached out to accept with a grumbled thanks. Malfoy grinned widely and darted forward to plant another kiss on Albus' cheek before running off.
"I thought it was sweet," his Aunt Hermione said with a smile. Albus sputtered.
"That was not sweet! It was assault. Honestly, woman." Sometimes Albus wondered if his family was conspiring with Scorpius Malfoy to make his life miserable. He didn't deserve this.
"I know for a fact that you still have that gift, Albus Severus," his sister Lily pointed out.
"I haven't gotten around to throwing it out yet," Albus muttered sullenly.
"You've had literally an entire year to do that," she retorted.
"It's been a busy year!" he defended, looking around the platform again, but still saw no sign of Malfoy. "He's probably waiting to ambush me on the train," he moaned.
His father and aunt rolled their eyes at his histrionics.
"Alright you lot, onto the train," his father said, motioning them towards the nearest car. "We'll see you at Christmas. And Albus, try to play nice this year, yeah?"
Albus scanned the platform once more before following the rest of his family to the train. When he still saw no head of blond hair, he let out a grateful sigh that didn't sound wistful in the slightest thank you very much.
He was relieved. Really, he was.
"It was a jonquil," Rose said as she settled next to him in their compartment on the train.
"Hm?" Albus grunted, distractedly gazing out the window that looked into the small corridor running up and down the train car, ever vigilant.
"The flower that Scorpius gave you last year. It was a jonquil."
Albus turned towards her, eyebrow cocked. "And you know this why?"
"Oh please, I know everything. Did you know that oftentimes a jonquil can symbolize unrequited love?"
A thought suddenly occurred to him.
"Do you know where he is right now?" he asked, turning to face her completely. She gave him a funny look.
"Just because we're in the same House and occasionally study together doesn't mean I know where he is at all hours of the day. Why do you care so much?"
"Because I need to prepare myself for the onslaught!" That was the only reason. Honest.
Rose clearly wasn't buying it if the way she was looking at him was any indication.
"Albus—"
"I'm going to go see what Lily and Hugo are up to!" he said, rather loudly, rushing to open the compartment door and go out in search of his younger cousins. At least that's what he told himself he was doing.
Albus spent the next half hour or so stalking up and down the train, peeking in on each compartment. At one point he had caught sight of Iris Zabini walking down the corridor and he followed behind, confident that Malfoy would be wherever she was going. Once he knew which compartment Malfoy was in, Albus could prepare his evasive maneuvers for the rest of the train ride.
However, when he peeked through the window of Zabini's compartment, he was disappointed to see that it was just her and a few other Slytherins he didn't know playing Exploding Snap. Fed up with his fruitless search, Albus let out an annoyed huff and started to trudge back to the compartment he shared with Rose.
As he was passing by a storage compartment, though, Albus was startled to hear a thump coming from inside of it. Curious, he reached out and slid open the door only to find—
What.
What.
WHAT!?
There, sprawled on top of a pile of stacked trunks was Scorpius Malfoy, head thrown back as the boy on top of him—Albus immediately identified the culprit to be Andrew Thomas—was tracing the line of Malfoy's neck with his tongue. The slam of the compartment door sliding open didn't seem to bother them much, as Thomas kept right on fucking licking Malfoy's skin, what?
Malfoy looked over at Albus with glazed eyes and hooded lids. It didn't even see to register that it was Albus standing there. "Do you mind?" he asked breathlessly, gesturing to the compartment door with a small hand movement.
"Erm…nope. No. Sorry!" Panicked, Albus slammed the door shut again, right in time to hear what sounded like Malfoy letting out a high-pitched moan. Merlin.
Albus hurried away, not wanting to hear anymore, and went in search of his cousin.
"Rose!" he shouted as he wrenched open their compartment door, startling her from her reading. "Malfoy's kissing Thomas!"
Rose quirked an eyebrow at him. "Okay?"
"Okay? OKAY!? No, this is not okay! When did Malfoy start kissing Thomas?"
"Since when did you care who Scorpius kisses, Albus? I would think you'd be rejoicing that he finally found someone else to go after. I'm glad that this time he at least picked someone who wants to kiss him back." With a shrug, Rose went back to her book as Albus stared at her, slack-jawed.
When she realized that he was just standing there, Rose looked up again. Her eyes narrowed.
"Albus are you…jealous?"
That snapped Albus out of his daze in a jiffy.
"What! No! Why! Why would you say something like that! Of course I'm not jealous!" he was doing that thing again where he talked far too loudly to be considered appropriate.
"Then I don't see what the issue is," Rose replied. "Now please settle down. All your shouting is starting to give me a headache."