Year 1: More Than a Crush

Chapter 3: November 2017

Now that Albus had talked Hayley into giving him a chance to be her friend, his next challenge would be finding opportunities to spend time with her. Albus was developing a master plan to one day make Hayley fall in love with him, but he couldn't carry any of it out if they never got to know each other properly – more specifically if she never got to know him. And there was one huge problem standing in his way: Scorpius Malfoy.

Even after Hayley called him off and told him that she didn't despise Albus anymore, Scorpius continued to display open animosity towards the Gryffindor. It seemed that Scorpius wasn't so quick to forgiveness and he continued to shadow Hayley, travelling everywhere with her and keeping not only Albus, but everyone, from getting too close.

As the days and weeks passed, Albus could see Hayley getting more and more frustrated with Scorpius' overprotectiveness, but he did not relent. Instead it seemed that he was only more controlling and Albus would sometimes catch Scorpius guiding Hayley from one room to another as if she wasn't even capable of walking on her own.

Something had to be done, and there was one sure-fire way that Albus could think of to force Scorpius to have to let Hayley be, even if just for a short amount of time. He needed to get Hayley partnered with him for a class project.

So far for any activity in class that had required partners, their teachers had allowed them to select their own partners. But Albus knew from his brother and cousins that there would be many projects coming up where the professors would choose the pairs or groups, to encourage intermingling and inter-house teamwork. All Albus had to do was wait for such a project and then convince his professor to pair him with Hayley. It shouldn't be too hard, Albus thought. He had a plan.

It was past the middle of November when Albus finally saw his chance. After two and a half months of learning the basics of transfiguration, Professor Tonks was ready to start teaching them some practical applications. However, with so many options for basic transfiguration spells, she was leaving it up to the students to decide what they started with.

She announced that she would be assigning them all an essay comparing and contrasting a variety of elementary inanimate to inanimate transfiguration spells, at the end of which she wanted them to state which spell they felt would be the best to learn as their first transfiguration spell and that these essays would be written in pairs. At the end of the project, the spell that received the most votes via the conclusions of the essays would be the one they learned first.

The day that she'd announced she would be assigning the partners for the projects, Albus made sure to arrive to class early and he approached his transfiguration professor at her desk, cautiously but also optimistically.

"Albus," Professor Tonks greeted him.

"Professor Tonks," Albus returned. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Go ahead Albus," Professor Tonks nodded.

Albus took a deep breath. This was it; he couldn't mess it up.

"Well I've been thinking about this essay we have coming up," Albus began.

Professor Tonks held up a hand. "If you want to request a specific partner, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to stop you there," she said. "There will be lots of projects and joint essays where I will allow you to work with the partners of your choosing, but sometimes it's important to work with people you don't know as well."

"I understand completely," Albus assured her. It was key that Professor Tonks think that the idea to pair him with Hayley was her own, or else she would intentionally pair him with someone else. "In fact, I think that's really smart."

Professor Tonks did not react to the compliment the way Albus had intended and Albus silently cursed himself, wishing this had started off better.

"I've been thinking about this whole thing," he continued, pressing on, "and I realized that it's a really great opportunity for students in different houses to get to know each other. Since starting at Hogwarts most of us have only really had the chance to meet our housemates, but really we're missing out on befriending three-quarters of our classmates."

"This is true," Professor Tonks said, again not seeming too impressed with Albus. Albus suspected that nothing he'd said was news to her, but he'd at least hoped that she'd be impressed that he'd picked up on it. Apparently not.

"Right, well I was just thinking how nice it would be for me to start meeting some people that aren't in Gryffindor," Albus went on. "And then that got me thinking that this could even be a good chance to bridge some of the natural rifts that have already begun to spring up."

"Rifts?" Professor Tonks asked, looking for clarification. Albus was being intentionally vague. He had to be. If he just came out and said his piece, she would reject him for sure.

Albus bowed his head, all a part of the show. "You know how my father is," he said. "It's no secret that he had quite a bit of conflict back in his day with one hose in particular."

He looked back up at Professor Tonks and her face was unreadable.

"As the Head of Slytherin House, I imagine it's important to you to attempt to dispel the bad reputation your house has gained over the years. Completely false and prejudiced as it is," he said, hurrying to say the last bit before Professor Tonks became defensive or thought he was attacking her house.

She remained silent, her expression urging Albus to just say what he'd come to say.

Albus sighed. "So, I thought that it might be beneficial to pair some of the Gryffindors with Slytherins for this assignment. Because if we can get to know each other, then maybe we can start to judge one another based on our individual personalities instead of the emblems we carry on our robes."

Albus paused and Professor Tonks considered him for a moment. "Is that all you wanted to ask?" she inquired.

"Well…" Albus hesitated. Technically there was more, but he wasn't sure how far to push his luck. He decided to just go all in. What did he have to lose? "I was also thinking, as the son of Harry Potter, pairing me up with someone from Slytherin might send more of a message. For example, if say you partnered Cory Wood with Hayley Sullivan," he named one of his Gryffindor dormmates, "that would be fine. But if I was partnered with Hayley instead, for example, don't you think that would be so much more symbolic?"

Albus finished and waited a heart-stopping moment while Professor Tonks's face remained impassive. Then she slowly started to nod.

"I understand what you're saying," she said in agreement. "And I think you have a point, Albus. Thank you for your suggestion."

Victorious, Albus nodded respectfully at his professor and backed away. He didn't want to risk ruining everything by saying anything else and instead joined Rose where she was saving him a seat at the front of the class.

At this point, the rest of Albus' classmates had arrived and taken their seats and Professor Tonks began the lesson. She began by reminding them that today was the day she would be setting the essay, and she spent most of the lesson going over the spells that she wanted them to research and discuss for their assignment. Albus couldn't help but fidget anxiously the entire lesson, eager for Professor Tonks to just assign the pairs so that he could finally get some one-on-one time with Hayley. Scorpius couldn't begrudge him that if the order to work together had come directly from a teacher.

When there were only ten minutes left to the lesson, Professor Tonks stopped her teaching and began to set the pairs. Albus noticed as she read through the list that there wasn't a single same-house pairing and wondered if that had anything to do with their conversation, or whether it had already been her plan. Seeing as Albus was eleven and a first year, he suspected that Professor Tonks had already realized the benefits of pairing members of different houses together. That hadn't been the purpose of the conversation. The purpose of the conversation had been to plant the idea of pairing him up with Hayley in her head without making it too obvious.

Professor Tonks came to Hayley's name and Albus was on the edge of his seat, already craning in her direction so that when his name was announced as her partner, he could smile widely at her. But then Professor Tonks spoke the second name and it wasn't Albus' name at all, but instead Cory Wood's name.

Albus felt a huge invisible weight crash into him as he fell back against his chair and watched as Hayley turned in Cory's direction and waved nervously. For a moment, all he could hear was ringing and the world swam, a kaleidoscope of colors all swirling together. He regained his grip on the world just in time to hear Professor Tonks state his name and then pair him up with Scorpius Malfoy.

It couldn't be happening. Somehow, something had gone terribly wrong, Albus just didn't understand what that was. How was it that he'd not only not been paired with his true love, but instead with the one person determined to keep her from him? How had Professor Tonks interpreted Albus' request so horribly?

The transfiguration professor finished reading out the names and Albus sat, stunned, as students began to mill around the room and Scorpius made his way in his direction.

"Library," Scorpius barked at him. "Seven o'clock. Be there."

And Scorpius left, dragging Hayley away from Cory by the elbow, barking the same order at him as they departed.

It took Albus a moment to regain the ability to move. The day wasn't done yet. Albus had a history of magic class to get to next and it was far enough away that he didn't have much time to waste dilly-dallying. But he had to talk to Professor Tonks once more, to understand why she'd done what she'd done.

Though Rose encouraged him to let it go, Albus pushed past her and approached his professor's desk.

"Albus," Professor Tonks greeted him. "Thank you for your suggestion."

"My suggestion?" he frowned. "I never suggested you pair me with Scorpius Malfoy. I suggested you pair me with Hayley Sullivan."

"True," Professor Tonks nodded. "But you said it yourself. Pairing the son of Harry Potter with someone from Slytherin would make a bigger statement than pairing just any Gryffindor with someone from Slytherin. So, I took your challenge a step further. What a bigger statement I could make by pairing the son of Harry Potter with the son of his school-day nemesis, Draco Malfoy?"

The way Professor Tonks sat back and smiled at him told Albus all he needed to know. She'd played him. She'd known exactly what he'd wanted when he came to her and she'd only pretended to be playing along to mess with him. She'd seen through his pitiful act. She was never going to pair him with Hayley. In fact, Albus wouldn't be surprised if he was never paired with Hayley in any transfiguration project for the next seven years.

"You got what you wanted, right?" Professor Tonks inquired, cocking her head to the side.

Albus pursed his lips and nodded once. "Right," he agreed. "I guess I have an assignment to work on."

"That you do," Professor Tonks confirmed. "I look forward to reading it."

And with that, knowing that he was beaten, Albus retreated.

"I told you this was all going to backfire in your face," Rose muttered as the two hurried through the corridors to history of magic.

AaAaAaAaAaA

That evening, Albus reluctantly made his way to the library to meet up with Scorpius Malfoy so that they could work on their transfiguration assignments. The one benefit of the whole situation was that since Scorpius refused to leave Hayley's side, he'd arranged for her to meet with Cory Wood in the library at the same time.

When Albus arrived, Hayley and Scorpius were sitting together at one of the larger work tables and Albus approached, a mixture of excitement and nerves.

"Hi Hayley," he said, smiling in her direction. "Scorpius."

"You're here," Scorpius muttered, merely a statement of fact.

Albus nodded. If Scorpius was going to be icy and brusque, Albus would give him the same in return. He was beyond trying to get the Slytherin on his good side. He knew it was never going to happen, and that if he was ever going to spend any time with Hayley, it would be for some other reason.

"Hayley, go sit at the other end of the table," Scorpius ordered.

"Why can't I sit here?" she asked, looking to him imploringly. Albus couldn't help but agree. Why couldn't all four of them work together to write two separate essays?

"I don't need you copying my answers again," Scorpius muttered to her. "When I promised to keep an eye on you, I wasn't promising to help you coast your way through school. You need to do the work for yourself and earn your own marks."

Hayley sighed, and Albus wondered what the story there was. He felt it wasn't the right time to ask though, and instead remained silent.

"Fine," Hayley muttered, gathering her things and pushing them a little way down the table. Cory arrived and went to sit opposite Hayley while Scorpius shot him a death glare.

"Well?" Scorpius asked then, looking to Albus. "Are you going to sit?"

Realizing that he was still standing, Albus pulled out the chair opposite Scorpius and sat down, taking out his transfiguration textbook and notes.

"Let's get this over with, I guess," Albus muttered. He peeked to the left to look at Hayley and fixed his gaze on her for a moment as she started flipping through her textbook. Even just sitting in the library working on her homework, she was beautiful.

"Hey!" Scorpius interrupted Albus' moment. "Stop looking at her."

"I wasn't looking at anyone," Albus muttered. It was a poor defense and he knew it. Both he and Scorpius knew that he was interested in Hayley, though mercifully Scorpius didn't know how deep Albus' feelings ran.

"Just leave her alone and let's do this assignment so that we can be rid of each other," Scorpius muttered. "I don't like you, but it seems I am stuck with you."

And so, the two boys delved in.

As they worked, Albus discovered that there were pros and cons to having been paired with Scorpius. The pro was that Hayley was at least nearby, and occasionally when Scorpius was distracted, he could sneak a glimpse of her and take a moment to just enjoy being this near to her. The downside was that Scorpius was a miserable partner. He thought he was smarter than Albus and kept shooting down any suggestion that Albus made, which was frustrating because Albus was actually really smart, his grades almost as high as those of his cousin.

It had surprised many of his professors at first. They'd likely been expecting mediocre grades like those of his father and brother. But Albus had been best friends with Rose for a while now and her desire to beat her mother's test scores had rubbed off on Albus over the years. The two had prepared for Hogwarts together and Albus was near the top of his class. Scorpius also was near the top of the class though, and he was much more obnoxious about that fact than Albus.

In the end, Albus and Scorpius wrote a pretty decent essay, at least as far as Albus was concerned. Scorpius was still unhappy with it, but he also didn't want to have to meet again to continue working on it, and so the two agreed to leave it as is.

Hayley and Cory hadn't accomplished quite as much as Albus and Scorpius had, and would likely need to meet up again the following day to complete their essay. Albus found a part of himself wishing that he'd dragged things out with Scorpius so that he could have spent a second evening across the table from the most beautiful girl he'd ever met. However, he also recognized that it wasn't as satisfying as he would like, being on opposite ends of the table and unable to talk to each other, so he decided perhaps it would be better not to have to torture himself for two evenings in a row.

As he returned to Gryffindor Tower that night, Albus was full of mixed emotions. His feelings for Hayley hadn't changed in the least, but his optimism in managing to find some time to spend with her was greatly diminished. He was going to have to start a whole new master plan if he was ever going to get her away from Scorpius, even for a few minutes.

But Albus remained determined and he was stubborn. He wasn't ready to give up. Not even close.