"You're really alike, you know

"You're really alike, you know?" Al said, looking up from his book and leaning forward on the table. Scorpius could feel Al's gaze on the top of his head and pretended to ignore it.

"You're both swots, both bookish to the point of insanity," he went on. "It's actually scary how much alike you are."

"Mmm," nodded Scorpius, underlining a spelling mistake in Al's Transfiguration essay.

"It's really weird you haven't spoken to her, before. I think you'd get on like a house on fire." Albus paused and Scorpius circled another error in Albus' work. "She lectures me, too, about not doing my work. Always did, even when we were small and mum and dad used to take us to visit them."

Scorpius got to the bottom of Albus' parchment and looked up. "Good. Somebody needs to," he said, sliding the work back over to Albus. "You have about a foot and a half more to write, Al. This isn't finished."

Albus' face fell and he groaned, taking the parchment back. "This is the most boring Friday night ever, you realise?" he said, raking his eyes over Scorpius' corrections.

Scorpius removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, blinking in the dim light, before replacing them. They'd been up for hours, reading and studying; Scorpius had offered to check over Albus' latest essay and had spent the best part of an hour making corrections. He watched as Albus read, gazing at his creased brow and the way his nose scrunched up in confusion. "Salfyra Saffrone died in eighteen ninety four, didn't she? I'm sure I remember reading that."

"She died in nineteen thirteen. She fell into her six-year coma in eighteen ninety four," Scorpius corrected, then smirked. "And since when have you Iever/I remembered anything you've read?"

Albus grinned "Fuck off," he chuckled, still scanning the page. Scorpius could tell he wasn't reading everything properly, but he wasn't too concerned at this point; it was getting late and he was starting to feel tired.

"You need to expand on your section about her discovery of the fifth use for unicorn hair. You could get another few paragraphs out of that, and since you got your dates wrong about her death, you can add a whole new section about her coma and what caused it."

Albus kept reading. "Eating a pixie toadstool, wasn't it?" he said, without looking up.

Scorpius smiled and nodded. "It was." He looked at Albus for a while, feeling what he knew was a rather patronising sense of pride that Albus had known the answer – not only known it, but said it in such an off-hand manner so as to look utterly blasé. It tickled him. He said nothing, though, knowing that Albus would feel self-conscious and belittled by praise.

"Ok," Al said finally, putting down the parchment. "So if I expand on that section, add the bit about her coma… I could write up about some of her other discoveries in the bit about unicorn hair. I can get another foot and a half out of that, right?"

Scorpius nodded. "You should, yeah. And correct those mistakes I spotted." He glanced over at the clock on the end of the table and sighed. He had the end of his own essay to finish - though, granted, he still had much less to do than Albus.

"You have Defence Against the Dark Arts on Monday morning, don't you? After Transfiguration?"

Scorpius looked up, a little confused at the sudden and seemingly random change of topic. "Yes. Why?"

"You can talk to Rose, she's in your class."

Scorpius frowned. "What is this sudden obsession you have with wanting me to talk to your cousin?" he asked, reaching for his quill.

Albus shrugged, shuffling through his papers, obviously with no intention of doing any more writing. "Dunno. Just think you two'd get along."

Scorpius scrutinised Albus for a while, and then something dawned on him. He tilted his head to one side and put his quill back in its inkwell. "Are you trying to get me to befriend her so you don't have to feel guilty about spending time with Joanna without me?"

Albus looked up, his expression one of genuine surprise. "What? No. Not at all."

"Because you don't have to feel guilty about wanting to spend time with her."

"I don't," Albus began, then stopped and shook his head. "I mean, that's not why I'm doing it. I just thought, you know… you'd be able have really enthralling, swotty conversations with her and stuff." He grinned and raised an eyebrow. Scorpius couldn't suppress a grin of his own. "And besides, " Albus went on. "She could spy on you for me. Keep me up to date on what you get up to when I'm not around. You might be getting even more boring behind my back. You know it's not good for you? You'll turn to stone, one day."

Scorpius blinked. "What on earth are you talking about?"

Albus laughed and shrugged, and Scorpius shook his head, though his attempt at disguising the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth was futile. He looked quickly back down at his paper to try and hide it, picking his quill up again. "Sometimes it's like being friends with a monkey."

"Yeah," agreed Albus. "A tousled-haired, great-smelling, heart-melting, gorgeous, snitch-catching monkey."

Scorpius snorted. "You forgot modest."

Albus laughed again and gathered his papers up into a pile, pushing himself away from the table. "I'm going to finish this over the weekend. I'm tired and I have Quidditch practice in the morning. Are you staying up to finish that?" he asked, nodding his head towards Scorpius' current essay.

"Yeah. I'm nearly finished, though, so…"

"Oh," said Albus, sitting back down. "I'll wait for you, then."

Scorpius looked up at Albus for a while, expressionless, then smiled. "Thanks…"

He went back to his work, feeling oddly cheerful despite the late hour and the fact that his eyelids were feeling heavy.

"My next match is in just under two weeks. Are you going to come?"

Scorpius nodded. "I will." He continued writing for a while, then cleared his throat. "Who are you playing against?"

"Well, it's the second round of the finals, so we're playing Hufflepuff, first. Gryffindor after that if we win, which we will, of course."

There was silence for a while, and Scorpius felt he should probably say something, but he knew absolutely nothing about Quidditch. Thankfully, Albus continued.

"Joanna… asked if she and I could go to Hogsmeade this weekend." He said. "You don't mind, do you?"

The tone in Albus' voice took Scorpius quite by surprise, but he couldn't help his stomach tightening at the mention of her name. He looked up, with a slightly blank expression on his face. "You don't have to ask for permission, you know. I'm not your guardian. She's your girlfriend, you're allowed to whatever you want."

"I know," Albus replied. "I just… wanted to make sure you were okay with it."

Scorpius shrugged and looked back down at his paper. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He received no answer, and was thankful for it. Conversations about Joanna never went well. He understood how important Joanna was to Albus, and how Albus felt about her, but he couldn't help disliking her, and he hated that it was obviously causing Al so much emotional stress. He sniffed and finished the last line, added the last full stop, and replaced his quill back in its inkwell.

"I'm finished for tonight," he said, rolling his shoulders and feeling his spine click delightfully all the way up his back.

Albus stood up again, gathering his papers and tucking them under his arm. "You know," he said, walking around the table, "if I'm rubbish at practice tomorrow, I'm placing the blame squarely on your shoulders."

Scorpius grinned as he picked up his own things and piled his text books up neatly on the table. "And likewise if I get anything less than an O in my O.W.Ls."

They made their way up the stairs and over to their respective beds. Scorpius pulled out his folder from his bag and tucked his essay in neatly at the front. He changed for bed and climbed in under the sheets, lying on his back as Albus changed and climbed into his bed next door. The room was silent for a while, save for Michael Bishop's faint snoring coming from the corner, then Albus spoke.

"You don't have to come to Quidditch if you don't want to," he whispered, and Scorpius rolled onto his side.

"I do want to."

Albus let out a breath, and Scorpius could tell that Al was smiling.

"Thanks for waiting up for me," he added, feeling inexplicably as if the silence needed breaking.

"That's alright." Al yawned. "Goodnight, Scorp."

Scorpius smiled and rolled onto his back. "Goodnight," he whispered.