Chapter 8: Ridiculous Unrequited Crushes

AN: Just to avoid confusion, this chapter begins at the start of the same day of the last chapter,

Al was more than a little alarmed when he woke up to silver-grey eyes a mere inch from his own. He cried out in surprise and flung himself backwards, consequently slamming his head against the bed head.

"Good morning, Sunshine," grinned Scorpius, bouncing up and down on Al's legs with an enthusiasm not appropriate for the early hour.

"Ge' off me," groaned Al, pushing at Scorpius blindly.

Scorpius obliged, rolling off Al's bed (and legs) in one fluid motion. His grace was punctured only by falling to the ground with a loud thud. Al snuggled his face back into his pillow, ready to resume sleeping. Scorpius wasn't having that though and from his position sitting on the floor, reached out and yanked the covers from Al's bed, causing them to fall off the bed and onto Scorpius.

Scorpius wrestled his way out from under the blankets with as much dignity as he could muster and stood up. By the time he was done Al was sitting up on his bed, legs dangling over the edge as he stared irritably at Scorpius, arms crossed over his bare chest.

"I'm glad I decided to put clothes on," he commented dryly.

Scorpius raised an eyebrow as his eyes travelled over Al's mostly naked body, taking in the silver and green boxer shorts which apparently amounted to 'clothing' in Al's eyes. "Somewhat," he answered.

"Perve," said Al, with a roll of his eyes, as he slid off his bed.

Scorpius just winked before Al ushered him beyond the boundaries of his bed so that he could pull the curtains shut around him.

"You'd better not go back to sleep!" warned Scorpius as the curtains closed in front of him. Al didn't reply but Scorpius could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "We're in for a smashing good time today, Albus; first day of classes," Scorpius continued as he pulled on his own clothes. "Jolly good fun!"

All he received in reply was a sound from Al that could only be described as something between a grunt and a snort. A sgrunt.

"Buck up, Old Chap!" called Scorpius, as he adjusted his tie.

Al's head poked through the curtains, his expression unamused. "Can you stop talking like that?" he asked.

Scorpius smiled, the picture of innocence. "Like what?" he asked.

Al stared at him for a few moments. Possibly debating whether it was too early to summon the energy for a good hex, or maybe questioning why Scorpius was wearing his tie when he hadn't even put a shirt on yet.

Whatever the reason was, Al settled on simply answering, "Like my grandfather," before disappearing back behind his curtain.

Scorpius did manage to make his way into a shirt before they left for breakfast. He didn't bother to do it up though, merely letting it, along with his cloak, hang open at the sides. A group of third year girls giggled and pointed as they made their way through the common room.

"Oh for Merlin's sake," snapped Al, as a fourth year walked into a wall for staring. "Could you put some clothes on? You're causing a fuss."

Scorpius smirked. "My gift for the masses," he explained as they exited the common room.

They made their way down to the Great Hall with little incident. Scorpius made a big show of doing up his buttons ("if it makes you feel better, Albus…" and "I understand that you're threatened by my superior masculinity…") while Al ignored him, mentally running through his plans for Quidditch practice that night. He'd gone down early the night before in order to book the pitch before James had the chance to do so. He hoped his team wouldn't mind that he'd booked them in for every night that week.

His mind was still on Quidditch when they entered the Great Hall and headed for the Slytherin table. They'd just reached it when someone grabbed a hold of Al's arm. "Albus Potter, you fucking maniac," said Sam Davis -fifth year and Al's fellow chaser- with a grin and a shake of his head. "What's this I hear about training every night this week? I'm going to kill you, I really am."

Apparently they did mind.

Sam continued in the same cheery voice. "But on an unrelated note, if I don't kill you, McLaggen will. He's on the war path after last time," the last bit he added in a hushed voice while looking around cautiously, as if it mentioning a highly sensitive topic (which really, in these parts, he was).

Al's bad mood was increased by this piece of news. How could he have forgotten about McLaggen? He'd completely forgotten to factor in his ongoing anger at Al and what the other Slytherin might possibly do to get back at him when planning this week's practice sessions. He mentally started making changes to his plans.

McLaggen was Al's extremely talented, yet extremely aggravating Seeker. A seventh year who wasn't at all happy that Al, a sixth year, had been given the role of Captain over himself, McLaggen had been further outraged over Slytherin's loss against Gryffindor before Christmas. He'd blamed it on Al's supposedly "lousy" captaining skills, of course. Al gritted his teeth in frustration at the mere thought of the Seeker, whose skills unfortunately he could not afford to go without.

"Death threats before breakfast," smirked Scorpius, as they slid into a free spot a little further down the table. "Quite an achievement if I may say so myself."

Al merely grunted.

"Don't be like that," said Scorpius cheerfully, as he buttered his toast.

Al was sure Scorpius couldn't genuinely be that cheerful. He surely acted that way purely to annoy Al.

"The sun is shining, the birds are chirping. Today is a good day."

Yeah, that couldn't be natural.

"On the contrary," replied Al miserably, glancing up at the enchanted ceiling above them. "It's gloomy, grey, and I have Arithmancy first period.

"At least you have an attractive companion," said Scorpius through a mouthful of toast. Apparently pureblood manners hadn't made too deep an impact on this Malfoy.

Al's face was a mixture of disgust and confusion. "Uh, who?"

"Me, of course."

Al looked at him. "…Right."

"Do not use that tone with me," scorned Scorpius, sounding scarily like Al's mother for a moment there. "You cannot deny that you find me extremely attractive." He paused for a moment. "You are only human, after all."

Less like Al's mother.

"I can," replied Al, "I have, and I will continue to do so."

"Oh Albie!" whined Scorpius dramatically. "You break my heart!"

Al glanced around him. Now this was why people so often assumed they were dating. To Scorpius he simply replied. "Don't be ridiculous. You don't have a heart."

"Hostility is often used to mask sexual attraction," stated Scorpius matter-of-factly as he reached for another piece of toast.

"And I'm sure that explains why most people you come in contact with appear to hate you then?"

"It's the only logical explanation."

Al rolled his eyes. "You think everybody wants to shag you."

"Well, they do."

Al just looked at him.

"Fine," admitted Scorpius with a loud sigh. "Not everyone does." At this his eyes shot, almost involuntarily, across the Hall. Al followed his gaze curiously, but didn't catch where he'd looked. Scorpius looked back at Al and grinned. "Just the vast majority."

Al laughed. Scorpius looked pleased –for a moment at least- before he spotted someone approaching and his face darkened.

"This is my cue," he said, sparing a last scanning look towards the other three house tables before getting up and making for the door, ruffling Al's hair as he went. He spared a curt nod for Jez Zabini as they passed each other; Jez heading for Al, Scorpius away from.


During lunch hour of that day Louis dragged Lorcan Scamander, fellow Ravenclaw from the year below, down to the shores of the Black Lake with him, in the hope of soaking up the rare rays of sunshine and of avoiding the repercussions of agreeing to Al's stupid bet or dare, whatever it was. He didn't know what he'd been thinking when he agreed. To be completely honest, he hadn't been thinking. So much for Ravenclaw. He just couldn't avoid a challenge, especially coming from his infuriating cousin. He complained to Lorcan, who was his closest (and probably only) friend, about the Slytherin as they sat in the partial shade of a tree. Lorcan sat cross-legged, staring down at the daisy he'd just picked as he twirled it around and around in his hand.

After realising he hadn't been responded to once, Louis turned to his friend. "Lorcan, are you even listening to me?" He asked.

"No."

Louis stared at him for a moment. "…Well, at least you're honest," he replied, before sitting up and looking at Lorcan, concerned. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Lorcan shrugged, still staring blankly down at the daisy. Then his light brown eyebrows pulled together and he spoke as if they were in the middle of a conversation. Which, Louis was sure, they had not been.

"Lysander says she'd never give me the time of day."

"Who?"

Lorcan looked up at Louis, eyes wide and serious. "Lysander –my brother- he's a Gryffindor-"

"Yes, I know who your brother is."

It came out a bit harsher than Louis had intended and Lorcan reeled back, blue eyes wide and sad. Louis automatically felt bad. Snapping at Lorcan was like kicking a kitten.

He ran his hand through his hair in agitation, took a deep breathe and tried again. "I'm sorry, Lorcan," he said, trying to keep his tone as calm as possible. "I meant who's the girl?"

It was like nothing had even happened. Lorcan's face brightened and he smiled wistfully. "Lucy," he answered. "I love Lucy."


Lucy was on the warpath.

She may not have had the Weasley-red hair and the fiery disposition to match, but that didn't mean she couldn't get mad.

She'd stormed through the castle, muttering death threats under her breath while stamping her feet a lot, all things she was pretty sure you were meant to do when you're angry. But it really is hard to keep up a fit of rage over a substantial period of time, and since she was having so much trouble locating the target of her fury, her anger had eventually just fizzled down and she was left feeling rather foolish. And annoyed. Don't forget annoyed.

Louis was going to pay. That was, if she ever found him.

Eventually she headed outside and towards the lake in search of her evasive cousin. It had grown a bit warmer as the day had gone on and it was unlike Louis to waste any rays of sunshine, as rare as they were. He was practically part cat. Lucy squinted towards the trees that she knew lined the lake's shore, in the hope of seeing him under one of them, but everything was just a blur without the aid of the glasses she was supposed to wear.

A squeal of laughter from her right caught her attention. Turning, she caught sight of a small group of girls who had to be around thirteen. Third years, probably. Hardly believing that she was resorting to this measure, she walked towards them. They fell silent as she approached, the scary sixth year that she was.

"Have any of you seen Louis Weasley around here anywhere?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest to hide the fact that she was nervous about approaching a group of people she didn't know.

They erupted into giggles. Lucy almost rolled her eyes. She wished she could say she was surprised, when one of the girls spoke up, saying "Yes, he's over there," but honestly nothing surprised her anymore when it came to the popularity of her cousins.

"Thanks," Lucy replied, before turning and walking off in the direction the girl had pointed, towards the trees on the left shore of the lake.

Lucy was pretty sure, as she approached her cousin, that she'd had some sort of elaborate speech planned for once she'd found him, but she'd forgotten it entirely in the far too long amount of time that it had taken to do so. She was pretty sure it had started with a death threat, though, so she decided to begin there and make the rest up as she went along.

"LOUIS WEASLEY," she yelled, once she was close enough. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

She was disappointed to see that Louis didn't even have the grace to look alarmed, instead appearing simply confused, which irritated Lucy further.

"Err, why?" he asked.

For a second there it almost seemed that Lucy didn't know herself as she hesitated, but then the memory came back to her. She knew she should probably yell some more, but she wasn't fiery and passionate like Lily or Rose and angry didn't come easily to her, so she just flopped to the ground beside a very wide-eyed Lorcan Scamander and began pulling grass up in annoyed tuffs. "Because you're a giant prat," she replied to Louis. "Is it true you're going to Hogsmede with Rorie?"

"Yeah."

The look Lucy gave him was more than quizzical. "Why?"

"Because I like her…?" Louis replied, for some reason trailing of until it sounded like a question.

"Since when?"

"Umm… always?"

Lucy looked at him sternly. "I am not buying that."

Louis tried again. "A while?"

"Seriously Louis. She actually really likes you, so you'd better not be messing her around."

Louis paled considerably and nodded somewhat forcibly. Apparently that wasn't an acceptable response for Lucy narrowed her eyes at him until he answered, "I'm not."

"Good," replied Lucy, getting to her feet. "You'd better not. I hate to sound cliché but if you hurt her then I hurt you."

Lucy turned away and started to walk off, leaving Louis to wonder what on Earth he was getting himself into.

She was only a few feet away when she heard a voice coming from behind her, calling her name. She spun around, confused, to see Lorcan running towards her. He stopped in front of her, looking like he barely knew why he was there.

For a few moments he just stared at her, wide-eyed. Then he shoved something towards her. "This is for you," he said hurriedly, avoiding eye contact.

She took it and looked down to see a small daisy, petals spinning as if by an invisible breeze. She looked up, confused, but Lorcan had gone.


Dinner time came and Louis sat at the Ravenclaw table next to Lorcan, pushing his food around idly on his plate. About ten minutes into the meal an enchanted ball of paper came flying across the Great Hall. It hit Louis square in the face before falling into his mashed potato. Louis glanced around cautiously then picked it up by the very edges, as if overly cautious of any potential danger it may contain. This was sensible seeing as it appeared to have come from the direction of the Slytherin table.

He pulled it open carefully, managing not to lose any fingers or have it blow up in his face, which was more than he could've hoped for. Written upon the parchment in elegant, if overly swirly handwriting was a note. It read:

Cat,

I've never worked with a Ravenclaw before but I'm trying to act appropriately, so please be patient with me. I'm guessing you'll be wanting to start work on our joint assignment as soon as possible. I'm free tonight, if you're interested.

Love Scorpius xoxo

Louis wasn't all sure how he was meant to react to that. He bit down on his lip and reread the note. He glanced up curiously to see that Scorpius was definitely looking at him. He looked back down before turning the paper over and scribbling a reply, using the quill he always had present with him. He wrote:

Malfoy,

Stereotypes; how cute. I suppose I'm in if you are, though.

Louis

P.S. …Am I Cat?

The parchment returned with a horrendously drawn illustration of (what Louis assumed to be) a cat upon the branch of a tree, rather like the one the two of them had sat in earlier in the day (in that it was also a tree).

Louis decided to take that as a yes.


Al stomped his way through the castle angrily, leaving a trail of muddy footprints and puddles of water in his wake. He really didn't care though. To say Quidditch practice had gone badly would be an understatement. He'd almost be glad if old Filtch caught him and fed him to the skrewts or whatever he did to misbehaving students who dared to besmirch his precious floors.

To say they were abysmal was probably too harsh, but Al was pretty sure he'd see a troll dancing the ballet before he saw his team win the Cup.

The thing was that they were all excellent fliers and quite good players. They were just so young. Young and inexperienced.

Slytherin had had an amazing team the last few years and had even managed to beat Gryffindor for the Quidditch Cup the year before, but most of them had graduated now and Al had been left with the position of captain and barely a team to hold together.

Actually, not even enough to constitute a team. So Al had had to build a team up from nothing but himself -a chaser with the captaining position-, a Keeper and an extremely reluctant, unhelpful, jealous and quite simply malicious Seeker.

A Seeker who seemed to spend the entire practice session doing everything but Seek. He bossed the other players around, confused their orders, made snide remarks about and to Al and basically tried his best to ruin the training. Al had no doubt that he was trying to sabotage the team in order to show the school what an awful captain Al really was, in the hope of getting the role for himself.

The news from earlier in the day had been right, McLaggen was out to kill. It just seemed that in true Slytherin fashion he was going for a slow, subtle, painful kill rather than outright attack.

This of course, made Al inexplicably mad. And Al was not only a Potter, but a Weasley and he'd inherited a killer temper himself from both sides of his family. He'd managed to reel it in pretty well, but McLaggen was going to pay in the long run. Who did he think he was?

They were Al's team and they had potential and Al had potential and he would show everyone what they could do -what he could do- no matter what.

Upon reaching their dormitory Al swung the door open with a flourish before throwing himself face first onto his bed, sodden Quidditch robes and all.

His Keeper, Parker Trench, followed him through, looking nearly as annoyed and just as wet. Scorpius looked up from his Charms essay as Trench kicked off his muddy boots.

"Practice went well then?" he asked, eyes glinting playfully.

Trench fixed his moody look on him. "Brilliantly," he answered, voice dripping with sarcasm, before disappearing behind the curtain around his bed.

Scorpius glanced over at Al who hadn't bothered to take his shoes off and now lay with his arms over his head and face buried in his pillow, looking the picture of pathetic. Scorpius climbed of his own bed and jumped onto Al's, sprawling out beside him.

"Are you all right?" he asked, poking Al's ear with his wand.

Al mumbled a muffled reply that could be roughly translated to "Go away."

Scorpius twirled a strand of Al's dark hair around his wand and Al buried his head deeper under his arms.

"Would you like to snuggle?" asked Scorpius. "Would that make you feel better?"

Al raised his head lazily to glare half-heartedly at Scorpius "Would you like me to curse you into the next century?" he asked, voice sickly sweet.

"You wouldn't," replied Scorpius, pushing himself up onto his knees. "You love me."

"I'd love if you moved onto your own bed," Al retorted.

Scorpius cast a fearful glance across the room. "It's awfully cold out there," he replied, shivering slightly for the effect. Al ignored him. "Rather like your heart, Albus," he continued, "I'm sure you could relate."

Al rolled his eyes "Oh, well, I wouldn't want you to freeze to death out there in the big bad dormitory."

His tone was extremely sarcastic but Scorpius seemed to take it as an acceptance of his request and lay down fully on the bed next to Al. Al shuffled over begrudgingly and Scorpius lay his head on the pillow next to Al's.

"So…" he said, after a few moments of silence, "are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

Al stared at him straight in the eye. "My team sucks," he said, straight-faced.

"Hey!" Trench called from across the room.

Scorpius cast the Muffliato charm then turned back to Al. "You were saying?" he prompted.

That was just how it was with them. Scorpius would listen when Al talked, ranted, complained, whatever, and in return Al let Scorpius annoy and tease him as he liked. It was a strange, unspoken agreement, yet it worked for them.

So Al ranted about his disastrous practice session and his team while Scorpius listened, adding the appropriate exclamations, scathing remarks and advice when necessary.

Eventually Al grew tired of the subject and turned to Scorpius. "What about you?" he asked. "How are you doing with… whatever it is that you do?"

Scorpius quirked an eyebrow. "Whatever it is that I do?" he repeated in mock offense. "I do a lot you know. It's not easy being so flawless."

Al ignored the last bit. "You do a lot?" he repeated, skeptically. "Like what? Sport ridiculous unrequited crushes?"

"Ridiculous unrequited crushes? What are you talking about?"

"Don't deny it. Come on, 'fess up. Who is it this time?"

"Excuse me, I'm still denying the first point."

Al just looked at him. "Are you really?"

"Prove it," demanded Scorpius.

Al didn't even pause to think. "When we were in first year; the seventh year Quidditch Captain. You were obsessed. They practically had you pulled in front of the Wizengamott for stalking."

Scorpius sighed in reminiscence. "The more she yelled at me, the happier I was."

Al looked at him sceptically. "Didn't she have some sort of complete breakdown?"

"I still stand by that that was not my fault."

"You were banned from the sport for life!"

Scorpius ignored this. "Give me another example."

"The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher we had in third year."

"What about him?"

"You were infatuated. He was like fifty! It was weird."

"He was thirty," objected Scorpius. "And he had an impressive collection of novelty ties."

Al snorted. "You mean he had a nice arse."

"So you agree?"

Al ignored this. "What about last year, when you proposed to that first year?"

"She loved me!"

Al snorted. "She was terrified! You made her cry!"

Scorpius crossed his arm and stuck his nose up haughtily. "I call for a change of subject."

Al sat up and reached towards his beside table. "Help me with these game plans?" he asked.

"Only if we can snuggle."

Al slapped him over the head with his notes. "I'll take notes for you in History of Magic?"

Scorpius sighed dramatically. "Fine, we have a deal."