AN: I do not own any recognizable characters or places

Scorpius opened up his package as he waited for his parents to come up to his room. He grinned when he saw what it was Albus had gotten him. It was a snow globe with the Hogwarts castle. When he shook the thing, instead of snow, fireworks littered the crystal sky. It was a cute whimsical thing.

After a while his parents came into his room again, but by then Scorpius had already placed the snow globe on his mantle and had fallen asleep while he waited.

The next morning he woke to an owl tapping on his window, a letter tied to his leg. Scorpius rubbed his eyes and moved to let the owl in. The tawny beast flew in and circled his room a few times before settling on Scorpius' outstretched arm.

After he removed the letter, the owl quickly took off out the window. Scorpius glanced down at the letter, the purple stamp being the only sign that the message had already been read. Scorpius placed his thumb over the taunting purple ink, he could almost pretend that it wasn't there.

Scorpius,

My mother said that we had already made a commitment to Nana that we would be going to the Weasley party and they we wouldn't be able to make it to yours.

sorry

Albus

Scorpius sighed and paced the letter on his nightstand before changing into robes. He was hungry.

.: .: .:

The new year's party passed in a lazy fashion. Scorpius plastered on a fake smile and made conversation with the guest, spending most of his time with Daniel Goyle and the other Slytherins. He did his best to ignore the tension between his grandfather and his mother and tried not to read too much into the smile his grandfather had when seeing him with Goyle and the others.

Soon his parents were escorting him back to the Hogwarts express and Scorpius felt relief to finally be out of the manor and back to school. It was funny how he was so worried about going to school earlier in the year, and now he was looking forward to it. He couldn't wait to get away from the looks his parents were trying not to let him see and all the time he spent doing nothing. At least at Hogwarts he could ignore what was going on and listen to Albus rant about something, he was even looking forward to the boy's rant that would take up the train ride. He wanted to settle back into his normal ways for school life.

He found Albus at the entrance to one of the compartments tugging on Rose's arm. "Come on Rosie, sit with me." He begged, giving her his perfected puppy eyes that had managed to get Scorpius to do a few things he wouldn't usually have.

"I spent all Christmas listening to your whining Albus, I haven't seen Hailey since break started." Rose gave Albus a firm glare, trying to pull her arm out of his grip.

"You can see her at dinner tonight, please, for me?" Once again Albus gave her his puppy pout, his sparkling emerald eyes going wide and his bottom lip jutting out. Scorpius would have caved already, he was beginning to entertain the idea that the flaming red head would be joining their compartment.

It seemed that Rose had built up her resistance to Albus as she finally managed to pull her arm away. "No, Albus, I won't sit with h- you," she stuttered on the last word when she looked up and saw Scorpius watching their spat. Then she sent him a glare and walked out of the compartment Albus had been trying to pull her into.

"Hey Al!" Scorpius called, walking into the compartment, pretending not to have heard the conversation between him and his cousin.

"Scor!" Albus launched at Scorpius and gave him a hug. "I missed you! We have a lot to talk about!" he said pulling away and sitting down on the seat. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it to your party, but I made my mum let me go to next year's."

"What party?" Kris said as she slid into the compartment. She smiled and plopped down into the seat across from them, "And why wasn't I invited?" she asked, flicking her black curls out of her face.

"Sorry Kris, maybe next year," Scorpius shrugged, leaning back in his seat.

"Oh I get it," She said, pressing a hand to her chest with a wide smile, "Mister 'my family is full of deatheaters' doesn't want a mudblood at his house." she laughed, leaning against the window and throwing her legs up on the other side of the seat. Scorpius rolled his eyes. That was what he liked about Krystal, she was open about herself and didn't let anything get to her. She was able to make a joke about almost anything, even if some people didn't take it as a joke. He supposed that was what happened when both of our parents stand up comedians.

"Anyway," Scorpius drawled out, turning back to Albus, "While she is off in the corner having her pity party," at this Krystal stuck her tongue out at him, "What was it that you wanted to talk about Al?"

"Oh, let's see, there is James being an arse the entire break, Uncle Ron throwing a fit, purple stamps. Oh! and Lily thinks that you are cute." Albus had a wide grin on his face, laughing at the thought.

"I was starting to wonder if anyone was going to think that you were cute," Krystal teased, "though the fact that it is Al's little sister doesn't mean much, she's probably heard so many stories that idolize you."

"Oh shut is Kris," Scorpius laughed, "I still haven't heard about any boys calling out about you."

"I don't have time for boy's right now," was her quick reply "they have cooties and I need to focus on my school work. our O.W.L.s are only four and a half years away." She managed to keep a straight face on for a few seconds before she burst out laughing, the two boys joining in with her.

"But seriously, Albus, on your list of things to talk about," Krystal continued once she had caught her breath, "James is always an arse, so that is nothing new with you. Your Uncle Ron, we don't know him, so why would we care about his tantrum. And purple stamps?" she shook her head "if those are about our intercepted letters, then it seems like everything you have to talk about revolves around our dear Scorpius," she chuckled lightly.

"How can you get off on saying that they are all about Scorpius? James is about James, my Uncle Ron is about him, only the purple stamps really apply to him," Albus shot back crossing his arms. Krystal just rolled her eyes but urged him to continue on with his stories.

Albus went on to talk about how James was being a prat all break saying that Slytherins were stupid and notorious for not giving presents over Christmas so Albus shouldn't expect any from his friends and that if he was to give presents he would be discriminating them. Scorpius noticed that Albus would let out a small stutter sometimes when he said 'Slytherins' making him grin slightly, knowing that it was probably his name that belonged there but Albus was proving his point to Krystal.

Scorpius couldn't believe that James was acting this way about everything. He thought that the Gryffindor would eventually get over whatever it was that he held against Scorpius. Apparently he wasn't, though, and Scorpius hated that he was the reason the two brothers relationship as strained.

"What about your Christmas?" Krystal asked when Albus stopped to take a breath, "Oh and thanks for the book of wizards famous in the muggle world, my brother and I spent hours looking over it." She smiled brightly.

"I'm glad you liked it," Scorpius smiled, "The break in general was pretty uneventful. Christmas was a little crazy though." Scorpius smiled at the memory and launched into the story of the elf chasing after Albus' owl . He was careful not to mention the events that shortly followed once the chaos had settled down, preferring the laugh that he got from his friends over the yells of his grandfather.

"Why was my owl that late?" Albs managed to get out through his fit of laughter, "I sent him early in the morning, it shouldn't have taken that long."

Krystal sobered up quickly giving a quick glance to Scorpius before looking at Albus, "It was Christmas Al, the interception squad's busiest time of the year. Sometimes the owl's end up waiting there for a day or two. You should be lucky that Scorpius got it at dinner if you sent it on Christmas morning."

Scorpius was watching Albus and how he reacted towards the words. The Slytherin boy was looking down at his feet, chewing his lip. Scorpius saw that his grandfather was right, Albus didn't know about the interception squad. Perhaps he didn't know any of the restrictions that were placed on people with the brand. Scorpius wondered if his gift was the first time that Albus saw a purple stamp on his mail.

"Albus," Scorpius said, reaching a hand to rest on the boy's shoulder, "Did you know about that at all?"

"Not really," Albus shook his head, "I mean I knew that the ministry sometimes looked in letters, but I thought that it was only for the people that we really needed to worry about," he shrugged, "Is that what the purple stamps are about?"

"Yeah," Scorpius said, "Every letter send by or to someone with a brand gets looked over by the ministry. In the eyes of the wizarding community, anyone with a brand is someone that we should worry about."

"Well that's stupid," Albus ran a hand trough his hair, "I'm sorry about that Scor"

"Hey," Scorpius said with a small smile, "It's not you who should be apologizing. Besides, I have lived with this my entire life, it's alright."

Albus gave out a small chuckle, "No, it's not."

Krystal let out a groan, "It doesn't matter. It's there and we can't do anything to change it. What we can do though, is ask me how my vacation was."

Scorpius rolled his eyes, gave Albus another squeeze on his should before dropping his hand, and asked Krystal how her break had gone.

"Oh, it was great!" she gushed, "We hadn't even made it all the way home from Kings Cross before my brother told me to shut up because he was jealous." She went on speaking about how everything went over her break and how her parents had let her redecorate her room however she wanted and it was now overdone in Ravenclaw claw colors.

Eventually they changed into their school robes and made their way to the welcome back feast. The rest of the school year passed in the same fashion of the previous semester and everyone was back on their way to summer vacation, making promises to see each other or meet up when they were buying next year's school supplies.

AN: Short chapter, but first year is now over, (thank Merlin). We got to see a little bit more of Krystal Clare and a little bit more of the restrictions that are placed on the Branded. I am hoping to breeze through summer vacation and second year. Please hang in there with me. It is going to be a fun ride.

also be on the lookout for a "short" story that I hope to have out by the end of the month, It kind of got me distracted from this one. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and please review!