Three months later.
Albus rested his head against his fore arms and closed his eyes. He was tired. He's had completely shut himself off from anyone and everyone around him since his best friend and potential lover decided to leave him in the lurch. On the plus side was, his grades had never been higher and he was even impressing himself with his new-found interest in runes. He'd spend days pouring over old texts, in a quiet corner of the library, or in the Gryffindor study nook.
During one pet project, he'd be trying to piece together the formula for imbuing a lighting with a rune to create an offensive weapon that can channel magic like a wand – but during the testing process he'd accidentally zapped a bookshelf and was politely asked to only conduct his tinkering in the presence of a teacher from now on.
His insistence on disobeying that request was how he'd ended up so exhausted and almost falling asleep in the middle of potions. Their new teacher was a bore and he'd been up until 3:00 in the morning working on his stave.
"Come on, Potter. Move." The voice registered somewhere off in the distance and Al raised his head,
"Hummm?"
"Mate, we've been put in pairs. You're with Stu." Al hummed his agreement at one of his nameless classmates and walked over to sit next to Stu. He flopped himself down on the chair tried not to fall asleep for the next forty five minutes.
Stuart, Al had decided, was a nice guy – but by gods was he annoying. Al had suggested that they divide up the workload for their class project and each work in silo – but the other boy had insisted that they work in unison on absolutely everything. It was infuriating and was seriously eating in to Al's self-imposed isolation.
About three weeks into the project, Al had almost completely checked out and was currently doodling a moustache on one of the figures in his textbook whilst Stu rambled on about something or other.
"You're a bit of a prick, you know"... Well, that caught his attention. Al stopped his doodling and just stared at the other boy "I'm really trying over here and you're just sat there doodling. You barely participate and look like you'd literally rather be sucking a dead guys toes than be here." He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, "Am I really that terrible to be around?"
Al shook his head, "No – it's not that. I'm just pre-occupied." Stu reached over the table and put his hand on top of Albus'.
"Look, I know it's been hard for you, not having your best friend here and all, but all you've done this year is mope. Do you not want to have some kind of… I don't know... glow up narrative?" Al shrugged,
"I have no idea what that is." Stu withdrew his hand,
"It's like in those muggle movies when you go through a break up and then you get all attractive and successful to show the other person that you're just fine without them." Al rolled his eyes,
"Already doing that. My grades are the best they're ever been, and it's not that I don't want to be fine, it's just that…" He sighed, "I don't know how to explain it without sounding like a complete tit".
"Well just try. I'm not one of your siblings, and we hardly ever spoke before this so what's the worst that could happen? A relative stranger knows you have emotional baggage. Terrifying." Al snorted,
"It's not just about Scorp. My dad is constantly lying to me, my mum is pretending not to notice, my uncle is a raging prick and if I'm honest, Scorp was the only one helping me get through it. I think I've always felt this way, it was just… less obvious when he was here".
"And how exactly do you feel?" Albus thought about the question, he didn't really have a word for it anymore. At first he was angry at Ron and angry at his dad, but now? now he just felt-
"That's kinda the problem. I don't really feel anything." Stu just stared at him for a moment, nodding slightly and tapping his pencil on the table in front of him.
"Come on. Leave your books, no-one will touch them. Let's go." Stu stood up and began to walk away,
"Wait, where are we going?" Stu just tutted,
"Hurry up and you'll find out".
Stuart led Albus out of their study hub and down a few corridors. It was late enough that there were no students cluttering the halls – leading him outside to the edge of the lake he rolled up his sleeves and undid the top few buttons of his shirt. Albus looked around, "What are we doing here?"
Stuart shrugged, "I'm cheering you up." Albus blinked and looked around,
"With a swim?" The other man shook his head,
"No, with a dance." Picking up a rock off the ground, Stu waved his wand and transfigured it into a gramophone that began blaring a trumpet beat. Swing music? The trumpets continued and morphed with club beats to form a pulsating rhythm.
"What are you…" Stu just raised his hands and began flailing about like a crazy person.
"Stop talking, just dance it out." He continued to move his body in the most ridiculous ways Al had ever seen. He looked like someone popped an inflatable bobo clown – and Al couldn't help but crack a smile. "Ahhhh, he's smiling – it's working! Come on – just start with a little leg" Stu shimmied over to Al and grabbed his hands and spun him around. Al went with it, rolling up his own sleeves, he just burst into dance.
He may be uncoordinated, but Stu was already pulling out moves that made his look like he suffered from involuntary muscle spasms, so whatever he did couldn't be that bad. The music just kept playing and Al just kept moving – honestly, as unlikely as it seemed he was enjoying himself. He felt light- he felt free.
He pulled out every bad dance move he knew: the running man, the sprinkler, the stanky leg – it wasn't until Stu waddled backwards and slipped into the water, falling flat on his ass did Al even stop moving. And that was only because he was laughing so hard, he could barely stand. "Ohh, think that's funny do you?" grinned Stu, before sprinting out of the water and picking Al up by the waist, hauling him into the lake. Both boys splashed around, laughing until the music from the gramophone started to splutter-
"Ahh, it's probably time we got back to the common room." Al nodded in response and began to wade to the shore,
"Thank you for this – it's probably the first time I haven't felt like a sack of shit in a few months". The taller boy raised an eyebrow
"Any time. You'd be surprised how much torment a quick dance can solve…." He paused, "on a more serious note though- if this didn't work and you still feel completely numb, promise me you'll go speak to Madamme Pomfrey. You may be an ass, but I don't want something bad to happen to you. I still need my potions partner." Al thought about it for a second before he answered,
"You know… suddenly, things actually don't seem so bad. And I'm sorry for being such a grumpy asshole. I promise I'll try to do better." Stu waved his wand and dried them both off,
"See? The magic of dance." Laughing, the pair made their way back into the common room.