Year 1: More Than a Crush

Chapter 8: April 2018

As March turned into April, Albus continued to seek out opportunities to spend time with Hayley. But everywhere he went, Scorpius went also. Eventually, Albus realized that if he was going to get any time with Hayley, he might just have to resign himself to having Scorpius around too.

Albus was in the library when he finally came to this decision. He was studying with Rose. They were working on their latest history of magic essay, but Albus was too distracted to get any work done. He'd spent the past twenty minutes staring in Hayley's direction, his eyes glazed over and his jaw slack. He hadn't heard any of the questions Rose had been asking him. In fact, he didn't even know she'd been speaking to him at all. But Rose finally got fed up and waved a hand in front of his face.

"Earth to Albus," she said in irritation. "If you're just going to sit here and moon over her, then let's just get out of here. We can study just as well in the common room. I'm sure Madam Maxwell wouldn't mind if I borrowed these books for reference."

"I don't want to go to the common room," Albus muttered, watching in rapt attention as Hayley responded to something that Scorpius had said and then smiled that beautiful, glorious smile she had. It was almost painful to watch, knowing that she was smiling for Scorpius and not for him. But Albus would rather she smile for Scorpius than not at all. A smile that radiant had to be seen, be shared with the world.

"Well you're not getting anything done here," Rose insisted. "You haven't even finished your introduction." She pointed to the sentence and a half that Albus had written, which wasn't even very good. He'd started his essay with In this essay, I will discuss... It was practically the cardinal rule of essay writing that you never started an essay by saying what you're going to say. Instead you should just get straight to the point. But Albus didn't know what his point was. In fact, he could barely remember what his essay was supposed to be about. All he knew was that Hayley was gorgeous and he should be writing his essay with her instead of his cousin.

"I'm going over there," he decided then.

"What?" Rose frowned, sure she'd heard wrong.

"I'm going over there," Albus repeated. "I'm going to sit with them."

"You can see Scorpius sitting over there, can't you?" Rose inquired.

Albus nodded. "I can't spend my life waiting for him to go to the bathroom or something," Albus declared. "I'll be waiting around for ever. He never leaves her alone. I'm just going to sit down and he'll have to deal with it."

Though Rose thought it was a terrible idea, Albus didn't care. Standing up, he gathered his things, leaving the reference books with Rose since she'd been the one to go to the work of procuring them, and headed over to Hayley and Scorpius' table.

They were sitting at a table made for four, so there were two free chairs - one next to Hayley and one next to Scorpius. It was a tough decision picking where to sit. Ideally he'd sit across from Hayley, but Scorpius was occupying that chair. If he sat next to her, he'd be looking at Scorpius. If he sat next to Scorpius, he'd be sitting in the undesirable diagonal seat from Hayley. He chose to sit next to Hayley in the end, figuring that at least he'd be closer to her that way.

"Hey guys," Albus said brightly as he took his seat.

"Hey Albus," Hayley responded in a similarly bright tone.

Scorpius narrowed his eyes. "What do you want?" he demanded in a harsh voice.

Albus didn't back down. He met Scorpius' glare with an equal gaze. "I thought I'd join you," he said. "What are you working on there?" He peered over at Scorpius' work. "Transfiguration? I did that yesterday. I was just getting started on my history of magic essay."

"We didn't invite you to study with us," Scorpius said harshly.

"Oh come off it," Hayley rolled her eyes at Scorpius. "If he wants to study with us, he can study with us. Besides, I still have to write my history of magic essay. We could write them together Albus?"

Albus grinned. "Sounds like a plan." He glanced back at Scorpius and waggled his eyebrows as he smirked.

Scorpius huffed and crossed his arms, but didn't say anything else.

"So how far had you gotten?" Albus asked Hayley, unrolling his very empty scroll with the beginnings of his essay. "I was just at the beginning."

"Well I have an outline that I prepared," Hayley said eagerly, reaching into her bag to get it out. "But it needs some work."

"Let's take a look at that," Albus offered, reaching over to help her to spread out her parchment in front of her.

The three spent the next hour and a half in much the same way. Albus and Hayley collaborated on their history of magic essays while Scorpius glared and huffed and scribbled out answers to his transfiguration assignment furiously. When Albus and Hayley had finished their essays, Albus was feeling really good. Not only had he spent time with Hayley, but it had been enjoyable. Hayley had seemed to have fun at least. She'd smiled and laughed when Albus had joked with her, and they'd actually worked really well together.

But all good things eventually come to an end, and Scorpius had been waiting for his chance to whisk Hayley away. So as soon as the essays were finished, he swooped in.

"Well Hayley, we'd better get back to the common room," he declared. "It's getting late and you wouldn't want to be caught out past curfew."

"There's still an hour before curfew," Albus pointed out.

"Better to be safe than sorry," Scorpius retorted.

Albus looked at Hayley and she sent him an apologetic and resigned look. "I should probably go," she said. "But this was fun, we should do it again sometime."

"Definitely," Albus agreed.

Then Hayley and Scorpius left and Albus returned to his original table where Rose was still hard at work.

"Did you at least write your essay?" she asked in a tired voice.

"I did," Albus assured her.

"Alright," Rose nodded. She didn't say another word on the subject.

AaAaAaAaAaA

The next day, Albus looked forward to crashing Hayley and Scorpius' little study session in the library yet again, but though he waited for them to show up, they never came. Albus suspected Scorpius was insisting she do her homework in the Slytherin common room instead of the library, where Albus couldn't join them. It was incredibly frustrating. Albus just didn't understand why Scorpius had to be so possessive of Hayley. And more than that, he didn't understand why Hayley let him boss her around like she did.

But Albus didn't give up. And then, one day in potions class, the fates smiled upon him.

"Alright class," Professor Abbott-Longbottom called the first years to order. "As you know, today we're going to be brewing the wideye potion. And to keep things interesting, I'm going to assign you each a partner that isn't your regular desk partner because I want to see how you work with people you don't necessarily know as well."

There was a great deal of complaining that followed this announcement. Albus was disappointed. He and Rose worked really well together. What if he got stuck with someone who was terrible at potions? He'd have to spend the whole lesson watching them over their shoulder to make sure they didn't mess up his grade. But then, Professor Abbott-Longbottom began to announce the partners, and said the best thing Albus had heard possibly in his entire life.

He was partnered with Hayley.

Immediately, he twisted around in his seat to exchange a smile with the Slytherin girl and as he did, he saw Scorpius glaring murderously at him. But there was nothing Scorpius could do. Professor Abbott-Longbottom had spoken. To challenge her now would be foolish. Scorpius wouldn't get the partners switched and would succeed only in making him look like a complainer. Albus smirked.

As soon as Professor Abbott-Longbottom finished listing the pairs, Albus got up and made a beeline straight for Hayley and Scorpius' workstation.

"So I guess we're partners," he said to Hayley.

"Yeah, I guess so," she smiled back.

Scorpius huffed. "It's one potions assignment," he muttered to Albus. "Don't go getting any ideas."

But Albus was getting all the big ideas. This was a full hour he could spend with Hayley one-on-one and there was nothing Scorpius could do about it.

"So," Albus said while Scorpius went to join his Ravenclaw partner. "How do you want to do this?"

"If you want to get started on the cauldron, I'll get the ingredients," Hayley offered.

Albus nodded. "Sounds good," he agreed readily. He'd have agreed to just about anything at that point. He was so over the moon about being paired with Hayley and needed this hour to be perfect.

While Hayley was gone, Albus was careful to set the cauldron up just right so that there wouldn't be any problems. This wasn't the time for accidents, this was the time to get to know Hayley while showing her that he was a desirable partner to work with in the hopes that she might want to do projects with him in the future instead of with Scorpius.

She returned a couple of minutes later, arms laden with snake fangs, billywig stings, and a ton of wolfsbane, among other things. Albus helped her to unload it all onto the table and spread it out.

"That's a lot of wolfsbane," he commented. They only needed two sprigs, but she'd brought enough to make eight potions.

"I couldn't remember how much the recipe called for," she admitted abashedly.

"No worries," Albus assured her. "This way we'll have some to spare if we make a mistake."

They set to work then getting the base of the potion brewing. Albus got the billywigs stewing while Hayley began to crush up the snake fangs. In no time, they had their potion simmering and they were able to sit back for a moment and rest.

"So," Albus said, knowing that now was the time to strike up a conversation. "Tell me about yourself."

Hayley frowned. "What do you want to know?" she asked.

Everything was the first thing Albus thought, but he didn't want to come off too strong right away. Instead he asked, "what's your favorite color?"

"Green," Hayley answered immediately.

Albus laughed.

"What's yours?" she returned.

Albus thought about answering green. It actually was his favorite color. Not the emerald green of Slytherin house, but the green of the grass in a meadow on a summer's day. But he didn't want Hayley to think he was copying her answer.

"Purple," he answered instead.

It was a neutral enough answer. It wasn't a color associated with any of the Hogwarts houses, and it was a cooler color than, say, orange for example.

"Why purple?" Hayley inquired curiously.

Albus shrugged. "Why green?" he challenged. "Because of your house?"

Hayley shook her head. "Not that kind of green," she said. "More of an ocean-y green."

"The ocean is blue," Albus responded. The ocean water reflected the color of the sky and the sky was most certainly blue.

"Not always," Hayley disagreed. "Sometimes it can be green. It's a blueish kind of green, but it's green all the same."

"Okay," Albus agreed. "Why that green?"

Hayley shrugged. "It's peaceful," she said.

Their potion began to bubble and Albus jumped up to lower the temperature before it boiled over. Meanwhile, Hayley grabbed a thermometer and dunked it into the cauldron to take a reading.

"One hundred and three degrees," Hayley noted. "We can add the second measure of snake fangs."

Albus grabbed the mortar and tipped the prepared powder into the cauldron and Hayley began to stir very slowly while the potion stopped boiling so vigorously and began to settle to a simmer. Albus sat back again and casually began to chop up the wolfsbane.

"So your favorite color is green," he said, returning to their conversation. "What else?"

"Hmm," Hayley frowned. "Well my favorite number is 8. My favorite food are pancakes. My favorite sweet is jelly slugs - "

"Jelly slugs?" Albus interjected. "Really?"

"I know they're not the most popular," Hayley admitted. "But I like them."

"Okay, what else?" Albus inquired. He was hanging on every word Hayley said. Every new piece of information was like a precious gem that he would store away in his mind forever. "What do you do for fun?"

"I dont' know," Hayley shrugged. "Before I started at Hogwarts I used to go flying a lot."

"On a broom?" Albus asked. Though technically witches and wizards weren't supposed to fly on their own until after they'd taken flying lessons at Hogwarts, many children with magical parents learned to fly before starting school. Albus had played around with his parents' brooms from time to time in the last couple of years before starting school.

But Hayley shook her head. "Not on a broom," she said. "My family raises abraxans."

"Abraxans!" Albus exclaimed in surprise. Abraxans weren't rare, but they were expensive. Hayley's family must be pretty well-off.

Hayley nodded. "Mine is named Mellie," she said. "I raised her from a foal. We grew up together really."

"That's really cool," Albus said. He'd never flown on any type of winged beast. He knew his father had ridden a hippogriff on more than one occasion, and had ridden a thestral once, but Harry had always been adamant that his children weren't to follow in his footsteps, at least until they were old enough to know how to ride a winged beast safely. Harry had been lucky, but if a hippogriff or even an abraxan decided that they didn't like you and wanted to buck you off their back a hundred miles high in the air, they'd do it.

"Maybe you'll be able to meet her someday," Hayley said then. "We could go flying together."

Albus' heart practically stopped when she said that. Albus knew she'd probably just said it generically, because they were talking about abraxans and that the offer wasn't an actual concrete offer. But still, she'd said it. She hadn't had to say it. The conversation could have ended there. So Albus had to hope that a part of her actually did want him to one day come visit her at home and meet her abraxan, Mellie, and go flying with her.

"Yeah, that'd be really cool," Albus said, trying not to betray just how excited he was in that moment. If Scorpius could hear their conversation now, Albus knew he'd be livid and would likely be dragging Hayley back to the Slytherin common room as fast as possible.

"Do you have any pets?" Hayley wondered. "My parents each have an owl and then there are the rest of the abraxans we keep, but Mellie's all mine. Oh, and then there's the house-elf."

Albus shook his head. "My parents have an owl," he said. "And we have a house-elf named Kreacher, but he's not a pet, he's more like a member of the family."

"Really?" Hayley asked, seemingly shocked by Albus' statement. "You consider your house-elf family?"

Albus nodded. "My family's a big supporter of elf rights," he said. His Aunt Hermione had been the one to petition the Ministry back in the day to improve working conditions for them. "And my father and Kreacher have been through quite a bit together, back during the war."

Hayley nodded, but Albus could see that she didn't quite understand. He didn't hold it against her. It wasn't her fault that her family had raised her to view house-elves as slaves and not as beings with feelings. Albus wondered if this would prove to be an obstacle they would have to overcome together. If it was, today's potions class was hardly the time to get into a debate about it.

"How much longer until we add the wolfsbane?" Albus asked.

Hayley consulted her textbook. "When the potion turns pink," she said. "What color is it now?"

Albus peered inside. "Would you call this pink or red?" he wondered. If it was red, it was right on the brink of turning pink.

"Let's give it another couple of minutes," Hayley suggested.

By the end of the lesson, Albus and Hayley had produced a perfect wideye potion and Albus was feeling like he was really starting to get to know Hayley. And in turn, he'd told her a bit about himself, which hopefully she'd liked and not hated.

"This was really fun," Hayley said as she bottled some of their potion for grading.

"It was," Albus agreed. "Hopefully we get the chance to work together more in the future."

"Yeah," Hayley said in a faraway voice. Her eyes unfocused and Albus could tell there was something on her mind. Her smile vanished and Albus frowned. "We'll see I guess," she said then. "Maybe Professor Abbott-Longbottom will assign these teams permanently."

Albus knew then that Hayley was thinking about how Scorpius would never let her partner up with Albus unless their professor mandated it. Albus wanted to ask why she let Scorpius make all her decisions, but held himself back. He didn't want to say anything to ruin the tentative friendship that they'd started.

He cleaned up the last of their equipment and Hayley dropped their vial of wideye potion at the front of the room for grading just as Scorpius finished up at his station and appeared at Hayley's side.

"Come on Hayley, let's go," he said in an urgent voice.

Hayley looked at Albus apologetically. "I'll see you around, yeah?" she asked.

Albus nodded. "Absolutely," he agreed. "You can count on it."

Because Albus was done playing by Scorpius' rules. He was playing by his own rules now, and he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that this friendship he'd started with Hayley today didn't fizzle out of existence. It couldn't. She was too special. Albus knew that now more than ever.