Madame Pomfrey gives him something that smells like juniper and antiseptic, and tastes just like it smells. She doesn't tell him what it does, but he finds out easily enough on his own: within ten minutes, Scorpius feels his mind begin to fog, his heartbeat begin to ease. He does not forget the terrifying knot of time into which he was just thrust, but he is able to step back from it and, albeit slightly drunkenly, process it.

For nearly an hour – and now Scorpius knows what hours are, thank Merlin – he lies curled up on the thin, lumpy mattress there in the corner of the Hospital Wing, and on the far side of the room he hears Madame Pomfrey muttering to various professors who come asking – Headmistress McGonagall, Slughorn – that they're going to have to call in a special consult, that she has no idea what to do in the long-term.

Hour two rolls around, and Scorpius is on the edge of falling into something like sleep when he hears a soft voice behind him.

"Scorpius…?"

He forces his eyes open and slowly lifts his head to look over his shoulder. Al is a few feet away and approaching slowly, like he's nervous, although Scorpius can't imagine why.

"How are you feeling?"

Scorpius considers the answer for a minute.

"Drunk," he answers eventually.

"Madame Pomfrey said you might be," Al says. "The draught that closes your Eye, she said it could put you a bit off-balance."

Scorpius drops his head back onto the pillow. He can hear the hesitation in Al's footsteps behind him, and a moment later he comes around to the other side of his bed and sinks down to the floor, centered in Scorpius's line of sight.

"So you're not in pain anymore?" he asks.

"Wasn't in pain," Scorpius mumbles. His eyelids are heavy and his vision is swimming.

"You were screaming," Al says with a frown.

Even if he weren't drunk – or whatever he is – Scorpius would lay even odds that he could not adequately explain to Al why he screamed. He's not even sure he could explain it to himself. He's barely even sure what he saw, let alone why it was the most viscerally terrifying experience of his life.

Scorpius shivers involuntarily recalling it, and his knees curl up toward his chest.

"Sorry," Al mutters, scooting closer across the aging tile floor. "I didn't…"

Scorpius shakes his head. It's the very last thing in the world he wants to talk about.

Al worries his lower lip. Scorpius drops his eyes shut.

"Your dad's coming."

Not terribly surprising. If convulsing and screaming in the middle of class doesn't get an owl home, Scorpius isn't sure what would.

"Apparently he's tied up in some business in Sao Paulo, but he's ordered a long-distance portkey for tomorrow morning."

Right before Scorpius can ask how he knows—

"Slughorn told me to tell you. I guess you were asleep when he came."

As much as Scorpius doesn't like to admit it, being thirteen, he is privately glad that his father is coming. After this afternoon, it will be good to see him.

"I'll stay here with you," Al says abruptly, all his words stumbling over each other on their way out of his throat. "If you want me to."

Scorpius opens his eyes again. Al is right up at the side of the bed, big green eyes boring right into him.

"You don't have to do that," Scorpius mutters.

"I want to," Al answers at once. He presses his forearms on the edge of the bed and leans forward. "You really scared me, Scorpius."

He's not sure why, but Scorpius feels guilty to hear it. "I'm sorry."

"Do you remember that time in first year, when Madame Hooch was giving us flying lessons, and you were such a disaster that you flew into a tree?"

Despite himself, Scorpius laughs. "Father never forgave me."

"It's funny in retrospect, but when I first saw you hit that tree and fall ten feet, for a second I was the most scared I've ever been about anything," Al says. "I barely even knew you at the time, but already, I…"

Scorpius presses his lips together tightly. He has a feeling, quiet and timid and in the very back of his mind where he keeps all the other things he doesn't think about, that he knows where this is going. "Al…"

"I suppose from the moment I met you, I've always…" He falters, starts again. "Something about you just—" He stumbles again, pushes a hand through his hair.

Al is floundering, but so is Scorpius. It's not like Scorpius hasn't noticed the way Al always scoots closer when they're bent over their cauldron, or how he stares across the dormitory when Scorpius combs his hair at night, it's just that Scorpius has never known what to do about it, never known how to handle—

Al leans forward and kisses him – just once, just briefly – and Scorpius's mind grinds to a halt.

Before he can even decide how to react, it's over. Al is pulling away again with a look halfway between horrified and anticipatory.

"Just don't scare me like that again, okay?"

"Okay," Scorpius answers without thinking, which he immediately realizes is a stupid thing to say, but Al smiles anyway.

"Do you want me to stay?" Al asks.

"Madame Pomfrey—"

"—will have to drag me out by the feet," Al interjects.

Something surges in Scorpius's chest. It's warm, and it's new, and it's not something he'd ever thought he'd feel for goofy, loudmouth, ridiculous Al. But there it is anyway, and as Al snags one of Scorpius's pillows to fashion himself a seat by the wall, it only gets stronger.