A/N part 1: I have mentioned this on my last A/N, but for those of you who haven't read it, this and at least the next two "chapters" will not be proper chapters of this fic. I have been pretty stuck with my writing so I decided to write this sleepover bit of the plot in different characters' perspectives as a short related to the main fic. While there are many fics out there with multiple perspectives, I have no intention to turn this fic into one of them, especially this late into the story, so this is just a one-time thing to hopefully help me get out of my writer's block and to give you something while the main fic is still Harry's story. It's not crucial to read this short but I hope that you'd be invested enough in the fic to enjoy this.

Albus had messed up again. This was his first sleepover at the Malfoy Manor and it was supposed to be perfect. Both Scorpius and he had really looked forward to this since they had first heard about it on the platform. Things had started out well… no, the whole day had been pretty great up until the end.

He had debated whether he should bring his essay over but it turned out to be the right decision not only because he would have to spend at least twice as much time to finish it without Scorpius' help, but also because of how finishing the essay made his friend happy and proud. Binns might be his Professor in the subject but Scorpius had always been his real History teacher. The writing had taken a bit longer than expected as they had constantly been distracted by his friend's new pets (the pink one joined them following breakfast despite his protest and much to his annoyance) but Scorpius was beaming the moment he finished reading the completed essay.

"Oh Merlin! You've gotten so good, Albus!"

He would have shrugged it off but could not help smiling at Scorpius' excitement. "It's okay, I suppose."

"It's really good, Albus, especially because I know how you used to struggle before. It's amazing how you had gotten so good in both flying and History!"

"Well, with you as a friend, I can't see how I could not get better in History. You know what, this class would be a hundred times more interesting if Professor McGonagall would hire you to replace Binns. You're so good I bet you're already much better than the N.E.W.T. students… "

"I'm very glad to be of help to you, Albus, but Professor Binns isn't that bad, he's so knowledgeable and you would be able to learn so much if you try to listen to him for real."

Scorpius was perhaps the only person Albus knew who would call the ghost Professor Binns off class and his friend could somehow always see the good in everyone, including the most boring ghost and some schoolmates who had never been nice to them.

"Why should I when you could teach it so much better for me? Seriously, remember my dad's Dumbledore's Army? Imagine if you start a student group to teach others history, I don't believe that people would actually care enough about History to join but just imagine for the sake of it. I like keeping my secret weapon to myself but if you teach the school History, I bet every student will pass History in the O.W.L. How could Dumbledore and McGonagall keep Binns for so long when less than half of the students could pass their O.W.L.s for what, forty years?"

Albus was aware that he was rambling and taking forever to get to the point again, a very common and embarrassing habit of his, but it did not help that Scorpius never seemed to feel annoyed or get impatient at him and would always be able to enjoy Albus' more pathetic attempts in humour.

"That's very flattering, Albus, but I still have so much to learn. I would say this though, if you can keep this up, you could get an Exceeds Expectations in the O.W.L." Scorpius always had this very earnest and open look that Albus could always tell that his friend wanted the best for him, even more so than himself.

For the thousandth time in his life, Albus asked himself how lucky he had been to get to be Scorpius' best friend. Albus always believed that Scorpius, being the intelligent, funny and kind person he was, would "get the pick of anyone he wanted" as Rose had put it on the Hogwarts Express (of course, she had used it for Albus and herself) if he had not been a Malfoy. Scorpius never deserved all the crap he had gotten because of his last name but a selfish part of Albus had always felt grateful that his friend was a Malfoy because he had never believed that Scorpius would have chosen him, the biggest loser in their year, to be his best friend had Scorpius had other options. Scorpius was so kind and good that he might still befriend Albus but Albus would likely be a regular friend instead of his best friend.

"An Exceeds Expectations in History of Magic? Oh, how will I live that down?" he deadpanned.

Albus could not care less if he could pass History as there was no way he would continue the subject or pick any job remotely related to History in the future but it could not hurt to get one more O.W.L. in addition to proving to James, who had been so smug about getting at least an Exceeds Expectations in every subject, that he could be as good as his perfect brother had been in what had used to be his weakest subject besides Flying. Also, Scorpius would have felt so proud of him if he could indeed do well in History.

Scorpius had shoved him with his elbow then that they ended up messing around for a while before going to the greenhouse to take care of Astoria's plants.

Albus had been to the greenhouse with Scorpius back on Christmas day when his friend had asked his help in picking out the flowers for his gift bouquets but they had not had much time then. This time Scorpius could really take the time to show off his flowers to him, to introduce each of them by name and type and to explain all the languages of each type of flower. It honestly felt absurd to Albus that the same type of flowers like roses and lilies would have so many different meanings in different colours but of course Scorpius would know all of them by heart and was fascinated by that. It always blew Albus' mind how much random information Scorpius could memorise, he sometimes imagined that Scorpius' brain capacity would be large enough to hold every single page of every book in the Hogwarts library. It also amused Albus to wonder about how Scorpius' grandfather would feel to know that his pureblood grandson would care so much about trivial Muggle information like the language of flowers had he been alive.

Despite Albus' occasional annoyance at the Pygmy Puffs which Scorpius had insisted to bring, listening to Scorpius' flower lecture was fun enough because his friend was so passionate about the plants, which was the attitude Scorpius had towards all kinds of knowledge, but hearing Scorpius precious memories and stories from his childhood with his mum was what stood out to him the most during the time they spent there.

"Mum could have watered all of the plants and flowers all at once with a wave of her wand but she always talked about how they would grow better if they're treated with love and care so she preferred to take the time to water them and talk to them pot-by-pot. She knew all about the needs of the different kinds of plants, both magical and non-magical, and she taught me all about how to take care of them since I was very young, at the time the watering pot was like twice as big as my head. Come to think of it, my mum was really my first Herbology teacher. Of course Professor Longbottom is absolutely wonderful and he's my favourite professor but I'm biased that I like my mum's teaching just a little more."

Since that day in the library, Scorpius had gradually talked more and more about his mother, sometimes by direct encouragement in Albus' part. Scorpius mentioned this strange theory of his mum's that a person was likely to be good when he cared about plants and animals. Albus would have argued that Voldemort cared about Nagini but that sounded like the wrong thing to say when his friend was talking so affectionately about his late mother. He supposed she meant caring about plants and animals in general instead of just one specific creature. He wondered if he would be considered as good by Astoria's standard, while he liked his owl, Amber, a lot, he could never bring himself to care much about other animals (such as a certain Pygmy Puff) and plants and he had been a pretty terrible friend to Scorpius before.

Towards the end when they had almost done watering the flowers, Albus had noticed that Scorpius had seemed more fidgety than usual and he had averted his gaze quite a few times when Scorpius noticed Albus looking at him, which puzzled him a great deal. Scorpius was always so careful and did everything perfectly in Herbology class but unexpectedly, he dropped his water bottle and accidentally clipped off a large flower bud that would certainly blossom into a gorgeous flower. In the end, Albus could not resist asking after Scorpius got pricked by a rose thorn.

"What's wrong, Scorpius?" Albus had impatiently waited to ask after his friend had treated the finger with a potion stored in a cabinet at one corner of the greenhouse.

"W-What? Nothing's wrong, I'm just a bit clumsy like usual. Remember the time I fell headfirst down the stairs just two months ago. Why would you ask?"

"I know you, Scorpius, I can tell that something is bothering you, you've been so happy all morning but suddenly you started messing up left and right and you haven't even smiled at all for the past ten minutes. Sure you could be clumsy sometimes, but never when taking care of plants… You can tell me… or not, I mean, I-I don't want to pressure you or anything... but you're worrying me and these two days would feel so weird if you continue to act like that but pretend that nothing is wrong… I know I may not be able to help you even if you tell me but I don't know, maybe there is something I could… I don't even know what I'm trying to say..."

Albus wondered if he was so untrustworthy that even now, Scorpius could not trust him enough to confide in him like he had not talked to him at all about Astoria and his grief before that day in the library. He was suddenly acutely aware that he had rambled the way his awkward dad had done a lot lately and felt his cheeks warmed. He tried to comfort himself that there could be many reasons why his friend could not tell him his troubles. Afterall, he had not been completely honest to Scorpius himself regarding his own nightmares either, even though he trusted Scorpius unconditionally.

"I-I…" Albus saw his friend take a deep breath, "So we've been talking about my mum just now."

"Yes?"

"That got me thinking… Well, Albus, y-you don't have to agree on this if you don't want to. Honestly, it's totally fine if you say no."

"Okay?"

"Did I tell you that I'd visit my mum's grave every day when I'm home?"

"I think you said that you'd visit her a lot and your father had turned the land surrounding the grave into a beautiful garden with the house-elves' help. I'm not sure if you've said every day though."

"Right… So I haven't visited her today yet and maybe I should have done that before you arrived but us talking about her got me thinking, she had always liked you and I think she'd love seeing you…" Scorpius stole a look at Albus before looking down and continuing, "so, hmm... would you mind visiting her grave with me today?"

Albus sighed in relief, he had imagined something terrible had happened. "Of course I will visit her with you! I wouldn't mind spending the rest of the day there if that's what you want."

The boy had thought more about death over the past six months than he had ever done so in his entire life that he could not say he would love visiting any grave but he could not imagine answering this any other way for his best friend.

Scorpius' eyes sparkled in delight the moment he agreed. His friend rushed over, picked up his right hand with both of his hands and squeezed it hard. "You would do that, Albus? Really? Oh, thank you so much! Mum would be so happy to see you."

As a wizard, of course Albus knew that there was some sort of afterlife but he had always doubted that the dead would just hang around all day near their graves or they could somehow hear or see everything happening in front of their graves so he could never talk this way as if a deceased loved one was alive and could "see" him even though he would never share this with Scorpius, who seemed to have found so much comfort in visiting Astoria's grave regularly. Albus had, however, wondered if visiting a grave could bring him some peace and comfort. This reminded Albus of his dad's suggestion for the two of them to visit Godric's Hollow together, which he had not given a definite answer yet despite it being on his mind every day.

"Is this why you've been acting so nervous? Did you think that I'd say no? What kind of friend would I be to say no to that?"

Because you're a terrible, the most terrible, friend. Scorpius' words echoed in Albus' mind as he felt stabbed yet again. They were perhaps the most painful words he had heard in his life, even worse than his dad's words before the start of the year. If only there was a way for him to block them out.

Now Scorpius' face had turned completely red, "Well, I just thought that it'd be such a downer to suggest doing that during a sleepover… I've never asked before because you never visited for more than a few hours at a time before… and of course we never talked about my mum before that I wouldn't think about asking it. It's not that I think you'd say no… it's more like I thought you'd think me weird to ask…"

Then Scorpius looked him right in the eyes and said, "And you're the best friend in the world!"

No, I'm not. "That's nice but I've been your only friend for years, well, before Rose at least, so I don't really have much competition. But I could never think of you as weird, Scorpius."

"I meant you're the most wonderful friend in the world, the best in the world, not my best, Albus, because you're the only one who could immediately accept a weird nerd like me."

"Said the boy who accepted the Slytherin Sq-" Albus amended immediately upon seeing the pout forming on his friend's face, "I mean, a dumb loser like me."

"You were never dumb, Albus, you just lacked confidence. And it was our classmates' loss to not know how great you're."

"Well, you have to admit that you don't really have a big sampling size here so you're very biased. Even if you count Rose and the few other boys you talk to in class now, I could at best be the best in like five people, not the world."

"I'm sure you'd be the best even if all our classmates are my friends because I know that none of them is as amazing as you are." Scorpius pouted while shaking his head, "Why is it so hard for you to take a compliment, Albus?"

Because I don't deserve it. "Well, if you insist."

Scorpius was about to smile when he interrupted, "But I'd argue that you're definitely a much better friend in the world than me, so you're obviously wrong."

That's when Scorpius got so annoyed at him that he set Severus loose on him. Albus was liking Lavender quite a lot but Severus was quite the rascal and subjectively, he just could not like a Pygmy Puff with the same name as his, even if it was just his middle name.

It would have been more direct to visit Mrs Malfoy's grave then but Scorpius had insisted to return to the house so they could have lunch with Mr Malfoy before heading to the grave. Scorpius had said that they could technically pick up a basket to have a picnic at the garden but he wanted to eat with his dad. Of course Albus could never say no to Scorpius.

A/N part 2: Thank you to everyone who has commented. Honestly, I have been extremely busy and have barely written anything since the last update. A version of this whole chapter has been lying around the whole time because I originally wanted to have the bulk of this short figured out before publishing anything since it's something relatively different but this has been a long enough wait as is.

(May delete later) I have never mentioned it before but I live in Hong Kong. I won't say anything personal and political but life has been surreal, crazy and incredibly saddening the past two months. Not only am I busy and have been stuck with the fic, lately I'm feeling exhausted and don't really have any mood to write at all. I love the fic and all your support means so much to me but update will continue to be slow for a while, I'm sorry.