Albus was sure that Astoria was not a ghost and he had little faith that she was truly here yet he still found himself feeling unexpectedly nervous as he followed his friend towards her grave. He wondered if she, wherever she was, would have witnessed his fight with Scorpius in the alternate universe. He had only met Mrs Malfoy a handful of times but she had always greeted him with the most sincere and friendliest smile. Would she have been heartbroken had she heard Scorpius' tearful words? I'm still the child of Voldemort, without a mother, giving sympathy to the boy who doesn't ever give anything back.
He hoped that Scorpius would not expect him to say anything out loud to her because he was the kind of person who could never know what to say at these times. Now that Albus thought about it, he was not even sure if he had said anything to comfort Scorpius at all during the funeral. Sure he had been there next to him the whole time except after all the guests had left when his friend had asked to stay behind on his own but the ceremony itself had been a complete blur that he could not even remember something so distinctable as a swan on the headstone.
"Good afternoon, mum, I'm sorry for being a bit late today. Do you remember Albus?" Scorpius paused a second before laughing, "Haha, what was I thinking? Of course you would remember Albus when I talk about him every day, what I meant was do you recognise him."
Surely there would not be an answer, Albus felt like he should be saying something but this could not feel any more awkward to him, "Um… go-good afternoon, Mrs Malfoy."
Scorpius' eyes widened as he looked at him, Albus could tell Scorpius was pleasantly surprised that he would actually say something voluntarily that he felt obliged to continue talking. "Y-You have a beautiful garden here… you must love it here." His mind was a blank then that he somehow just could not utter another word despite desperately wanting to continue.
After an uncomfortable ten seconds of silence for Albus, Scorpius gave him an understanding smile before turning towards the grave and said, "Do you think Albus has grown a lot, mum? He must have grown at least five inches since you last saw him. It has been what… was it two years since you last saw him?"
Five inches may not be a lot for a lot of people but Albus had always looked smaller and shorter for his age that it had been quite a lot for him.
The swan statue turned towards Scorpius and gazed at him with its intense black eyes, Albus had no idea if the eyes had been coloured in or craved especially with black marble. He wondered if the swan could understand Scorpius or if Astoria was listening through it.
"I'm sorry, Scorpius, but I don't remember there was a swan on Mrs Malfoy's grave at all."
"Oh, did I tell you before, Albus? My mum's Patronus was a swan."
"I...I didn't know."
Maybe it was his imagination or maybe it was really Astoria, but Albus thought the way the swan looked at them was particularly kind and motherly. He knew that he had never heard about this but he was surprised more because he believed he had heard before that Draco could not conjure a Patronus. Of course Astoria had not been Draco but for some reason he had assumed that she had not been able to conjure a Patronus as well.
So far James was the only one among the siblings to be able to conjure a Patronus, a lion, that he had bragged for months about being a natural Gryffindor, Albus wondered if he and Scorpius would ever be able to conjure a Patronus and if they could, what would their Patronuses be. Would his Patronus be a Slytherin snake? A stag like his father's? Or something completely unremarkable like a garden rat?
"Thankfully, she never had any real reason to perform the charm but she did conjure it once in front of me because I had been begging for weeks. I only saw it for ten seconds tops but it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life and something I vividly remember even though it was perhaps eight years ago. Of course she wasn't too weak at the time as you know it was such a draining spell to perform. But that reminds me, I still can't believe that I've seen Snape's doe Patronus with my own eyes! It was literally my light in the darkness at that moment of utter hopelessness. I hope that... changing the past could undo the k-kisses for them and make this the only reality… not that Snape's death in history wasn't horrific but having your soul ripped apart was still way worse… it was the most terrible thing I've ever witnessed. I could never wish that upon my worst enemy including Delphi and probably even Voldemort, let alone the three of them of all people."
Albus believed himself to be quite used to the way his friends talking non-stop for minutes, expressing his emotions and feelings strongly and in waves but how Scorpius had just reminisced his loving memory of his mum, then excitedly relate yet again meeting Snape in his flesh then became all solemn and sad thinking about Snape, Ron and Hermione's sacrifice in the alternate universe all within two minutes still felt a bit too much for him. Scorpius's eyes were looking a bit bright and red now that Albus had to turn away without looking at them properly.
He had, of course, thought about this a hundred times over how he, Albus Potter, was the one who had dragged Scorpius into that nightmare of the world, gotten his dad killed and himself disappeared, leaving sweet, innocent Scorpius be the one to sort out the worst mess there could ever be in the whole universe. The recollections, which had thankfully been less frequent lately, brought him so much shame and made him so uncomfortable even when Scorpius recalled the happier parts in that horrible time that he had rarely responded in words.
"I wish I could have been there beside you."
Scorpius walked around to stand right in front of him to stare straight into his eyes before slowly saying, "But you were there, in my mind, my memories. It was your existence that brought Snape to my side and helped me to defy the dementors. I could never have done it without you."
Albus looked away as he felt his eyes burnt. Scorpius had banned him from thanking or apologising to Scorpius or blaming himself about the incidents so there had been very few words he could say. He could feel both his friend and the marble swan looking at him. After half a minute, he took the cowardly way out to change the topic.
"I have seen my parents' Patronuses maybe once or twice but James' at least a dozen times."
Thankfully, Scorpius played along with it. "It's a 'Gryffindor' lion, I know… I think James is pretty cool, he's even been quite friendly and kind to me recently."
"Well, I guess he's not too bad… But you're right, he's been nicer lately."
Scorpius had now sat on the grass and motioned Albus to do the same. While he was sitting down, Scorpius had carefully placed the Pygmy Puffs in front of him to let them roll around then he reached into his pocket for some sweets. He handed Albus a piece, which was of course a Pepper Imp. Even though Albus took the sweet immediately, he frowned looking at it as Pepper Imp with its smoke seemed to be a disrespectable sweet to eat in front of someone's grave.
Scorpius, however, popped one into his mouth without a second thought that Albus decided it was safe after all and followed, of course smoke buzzed out of both of their ears soon enough. Scorpius gave him a toothy smile even though he was still sucking the sweet.
"Have I told you before that Pepper Imp was mum's favourite sweet as well?"
Albus did not want to remind Scorpius of how little he had talked to him about Astoria before last Halloween, so he simply said, "No, you didn't… I gotta say, I can't exactly imagine Mrs Malfoy eating Pepper Imps."
"Oh, she loved it so much, especially eating in front of dad! She actually quite enjoyed making my dad uncomfortable, even in the months when she had to stay in bed all day." Scorpius laughed.
That reminded Albus a lot of how his mum teased his dad all the time, Mr and Mrs Malfoy had always looked so elegant and formal in front of him that tried as he might, he could not even picture them interacting in ways remotely similar to his parents.
"Have you tried eating Pepper Imps in front of Mr Malfoy?"
"Never! Dad always seems so serious that I'd never dared eating in front of him."
"I wonder if he'll scold you for acting inappropriate or would he like being reminded of Mrs Malfoy."
"Well, my dad has never scolded me in my entire life… he probably had after we had gotten out of the lake but I guess I was too happy to be back to consider that as scolding, it was more like a serious talk. And he was crying that night when we had returned from Godric's Hollow… I don't think dad would ever be mad at me over something as trivial as Pepper Imp… Come to think of it, he might actually like it..." The boys exchanged a look and Scorpius gave him such an uncharacteristically mischievous smile that Albus hoped he had not accidentally gotten his friend into trouble.
"Do you think dad would like that, mum? Me eating Pepper Imps in front of him?" Scorpius asked as if he had not stopped talking to Astoria at all. Albus, however, was taken aback as he had almost forgotten that they had been talking to her.
"Albus is sleeping over tonight, mum, but there's so much we can do together we should start watering." Scorpius stood up before extending a hand to Albus, "Would you mind helping me to water the flowers, Albus?"
"Of course not." He answered automatically but he must have sounded rather unconvincing as all he thought about was how many hours it would take to water the whole garden.
As if reading his mind, Scorpius laughed, "Don't worry, Albus, we don't have to water everything, I always try to greet everyone here but even I never water everything, Cody always takes care of all plants so carefully and lovingly so they are in good hands. I just try to help however much I want each day."
Albus remembered Scorpius having told him before that Cody was the house-elf "in-charge" with the garden even though the Malfoy house-elves would all have to be familiar with the tasks involved in different areas of the Manor.
"That's good to know."
"But first, we need some music."
Scorpius promptly moved towards the shelf under the gazebo and picked out a record, which he proceeded to play on the gramophone. Albus was expecting some soft instrumental music that would match the atmosphere of the gorgeous magical garden that he was rather taken aback to hear his mum's favorite song by Weird Sisters seemingly blasted out from all around the garden even though there was no visible speaker except the gramophone.
Albus had never been a fan of the wizard rock band but he must have listened to the song a thousand times growing up that the moment Scorpius started singing along, he could immediately tell he was a little bit pitchy, which was not a surprise when Scorpius often was pitchy squealing words while just talking normally. Although Scorpius did singsong occasionally at Hogwarts, it was more his friend singing to himself quietly than seemingly performing for a large audience the way he did now. Scorpius had just handed him a water bottle then picked one up for himself, then he proceeded to play air-guitar on the water bottle while continuing to happily sing at the top of his lungs that Albus could not help laughing heartily at its endearing ridiculousness.
Suddenly Scorpius turned towards Albus as if just noticing that his friend, he blushed a little and asked, "You wouldn't mind me singing, would you, Albus? This is my favourite song of the Weird Sisters, my mum used to be such a big fan of theirs."
"By all means."
Scorpius was in an excellent mood the following hour as he led Albus on a tour to introduce each part of the garden, occasionally talking to his mum, while watering the plants as they went. While there were some rather impressive displays like an unicorn or a doe made of flowers, Albus' favourite had to be the row of trees of pink flowers which turned out to be Japanese cherry blossoms. Scorpius happily explained to him that the flower would only bloom for a week in the entire year but Draco had used magic to make sure that it would be in full bloom for at least a whole season. All the while, the Best Hits of the Weird Sisters were playing on the gramophone. Albus could not help imagining a world in which his mum had become good friends with Astoria and they would go to concerts together.
Visiting the garden and especially the grave was not what Albus had been expecting to do during the sleepover but he was finding it rather enjoyable when the sky suddenly turned gray, then started thundering and rain started pouring heavily within half a minute. To Albus' surprise, there was a sort of invisible shield over the garden but it was not like glass to completely block out all rain, instead it seemed to have filtered the heavy downpour into lighter rain which all the plants could make use of without risking damages while all the lightnings and wind seemed to have been absorbed by the shield.
Scorpius gave him a sheepish smile while they were both watching the sky from under the gazebo, "So much for watering the garden."
Even though Albus did not care much either way whether they could water the plants, he was unexpectedly disappointed watching the fifth lightning within the past three minutes as he realised it would not be a good idea for them to fly at the Malfoy's garden in this weather, which was their original plan after the visit to Astoria's grave. He could not help remembering his dad's recollections of some of his worst Quidditch practices in the most terrible weather.
"I guess you won't get to try my Nimbus 2000 until tomorrow then." A part of Albus was yearning to finally try Scorpius' Firebolt Supreme, which he had never tried over the past few years because he had only just learned to fly, but he tried to mask his disappointment by making it about the Nimbus 2000, which Scorpius did seem excited about earlier, and sounding as casual about it as he could.
"Oh right, I was really looking forward to it." Scorpius was now pouting and he did look quite disappointed. Albus knew he should appear sympathetic for Scorpius but he had to literally cover his mouth and pretend to cough in order to suppress an urge to laugh as he saw the two pathetic-looking Pygmy Puffs, which were about a mere one-third of their normal size because they had gotten all wet from the rain, perched on the shoulders of his friend, who of course did not mind the slightest how wet his pets were. The creatures had been playing freely by themselves that it took a while to find them when it had started raining so they had gotten all soaked despite the lighter filtered rain.
"Hm… what should we be doing instead? Why don't we play with the stuff you bought from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes? You know I never get to play with those despite it being a family business."
Albus always pretended to find the joke's shop's products lame because what was the point for him to show how cool he found some products to be when he could barely buy anything with his own savings. Of course, some of the products were truly lame though.
"That sounds nice and we should totally do that but would you mind trying to bake with me, Albus?"
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who commented, this meant so much to me to know that some of you are still out there after the very long break. I've been writing slightly better lately but only the short for now, which has gotten out of control like most other things I've written to become much longer as I had originally expected. Things have been terrible everywhere, hope everyone is doing okay.