Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter (kind of...)

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (later on), original characters (recycled because I like them)

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Hey Ringil111, Lee Talennyn, BKstories and MattyMasquerade! Thanks for reading and/or stalking and/or reviewing and/or favving this story!

Thanks to my weird guest reviewer for two increasingly weird reviews :P I'm sorry, I cannot and absolutely will not promise that Rose isn't totally obnoxious throughout this fic. (*cough*... chapter below...) While writing, this fic kinda became the anti-fic to those mountains (and mountains! and mountains!) of Scorpius/Rose fics and their Romeo/Juliet-connotations (Oh Scorpius, Scorpius! Wherefore art though Scorpius...? ... A Rose by any other name... gah). Also, I regularly destroy the "usual female counterpart" in my stories with varying degrees of cruelty. It's a habit ^^; Dunno what that says about me.

Alright, guys, gals. We need to have The Other Talk. In a bathroom because, d'uh, that's the title of this story. Enjoy!

~Chapter 5~

Having locked the door twice, put a silencing spell on it, locked and soundproofed the windows, checked every stall including the toilets in them as if a fellow student might have curled up in there, his security measures may have been a little overdone, but he figured that it was always better to err on the side of caution.

Albus watched him go about this business with a profoundly sceptical look on his face but otherwise without a comment. Only when he seemed done going through the room did he speak up.

"Scorp, what are you- What's going on? What's this about?" Study group would start in twenty minutes, so he was justifiably anxious to get to the library. Mariella hated it when people were late. Plus, he had planned to swing by the kitchen before.

Scorpius turned toward him, looking at him somewhat darkly, huffed once and said, "Rose."

"Ahhh," Albus went with a sage, knowing nod, then, "What about her?"

"Don't act like you don't know," Scorpius accused, miffed.

"What do I not know?" he asked, and then went on, "Don't tell me. Arendell's in deep, deep, deep, deep snow? God damn, Lily made me watch this damn movie with her ten times in three days, I think my brain might be haemorrhaging-"

"Al!" Scorpius interrupted, pissed off because other people forgetting that he was in the room with them appeared to be becoming a trend. "Rose broke up with me!"

A short, open-mouthed silence.

"You were together?" Al was seriously bewildered and more than a little shocked. "When did that happen?"

"It didn't! That's the point! God!" Scorpius yelled, and his voice echoed from the bathroom tiles, informing him that he sounded a little batshit.

Thankfully, Albus was too mystified by his exclamation to respond, so he had the time to take a breath, put his thoughts in order and try again.

"I really, really like Rose, yeah?" he explained, speaking slowly so neither he nor Albus would get confused. "The last three months, I spent every free second with her or near her because I really, really like her. And I... I proceeded on the assumption that, because she never objected against us spending time together and talking, she liked me, too. Yeah?"

"Yeah?" Albus repeated in the same tone, still visibly not getting it but anxious to hear the end of this so he might make sense of it.

Scorpius briefly debated omitting the entire pregnancy-prophecy-business, but then decided that the narrative wouldn't make much sense without it. Rather, he wanted to touch upon it only very briefly so as to not distract Al from the main point of this conversation.

"But then an oracle read her palm and said that she was fated to become preggers with my child on her birthday party and now she sort of chickens out on me, but not only that, no – she acquaintance-zones me and tells me that she never thought of me like that in the first place and that I should stay away from her because she doesn't want me to get the wrong idea, but really, you telling me to go slow and stuff and wait for her to break up with Macmillan really gave me the wrong idea so I really don't know what to believe here, so care to explain yourself maybe?" He breathed in mightily, then crossed his arms in front of his chest and waited.

Albus' mouth stood open for quite some time, and he didn't even blink.

When he unfroze with a jerk, the first word he uttered, with a strangely distant-sounding voice, was "Preggers?"

Scorpius sighed, mumbled "I knew you'd get stuck on that part," and told him the abridged version of the story, leaving out the specifics at the end that involved a work stoppage of an essential body appendage and magically repellent ladybits.

"So, uhm." Albus had gone to half lean, half sit on the rim of one of the washbasins when Scorpius had come to the part where, according to a fortune teller, he was destined to become first cousin once removed of a child fathered by his best friend within the year. "And you don't think that all of... that...," he gestured vaguely, "sort of lead to Rose turning you down?"

Scorpius was grateful that he had decided to stay on topic. "I thought it might, but, man, she really didn't sound like it." He leaned his head back against one of the stall doors and looked up at the bleak greyish expanse of the ceiling. "She just told me straight up that I was just an 'acquaintance'," he airquoted blindly, "and that she didn't think of me that way even though she thinks I'm 'likeable'," he airquoted again, "whatever that means, and, given all that, she was really surprised about this prophecy and was absolutely all for not letting that happen. Apparently, the best way to do that, in her opinion, was to tell me that we shouldn't be Herbology partners any more and generally just keep lots of air between us, all the while making it very clear that she won't mind. At all."

That thing that had quietly and painfully died inside of him when she had told him this morning was resurrected shortly, only to die once more. Definitely dead this time.

"Man. That's... harsh," Albus said calmly. There was actual empathy in his voice which only served to remind Scorpius that he was angry with him.

"You know what's really harsh, though?" he asked and didn't wait for an answer. "Telling your best friend that it's okay for him to make a pass at your cousin and to try and impress her and flirt with her, and even giving him advice on how to best go about doing that, and at no point telling him that she only hangs out with him on a nearly daily basis because she's apparently got nothing better to do or just wants to be nice or whatever. That's harsh."

In his head, he kept on whining. Three months. All the time and money he had invested. More importantly, the emotional investment. Most importantly – now – the fact that he had been obvious and public about it – at Hogwarts, not at home – and that he would now look like a complete dipshit in front of quite a lot of his schoolmates.

But he trusted that Al knew all of this, so that he wouldn't have to make an even more complete dipshit of himself by spelling it out.

"Hey, remember in first year," Albus began all of a sudden, and Scorpius tore his gaze from the ceiling which he had been staring at for some time to look at him. "When Prince told you not to read the note Isobel Smith had written to him, and you did and you even read it out loud and he punched you in the face?"

He did remember it. Prince's punch had been marshmallow soft. They still had ended up in the headmistress' office and on detention for a week – both of them, which Scorpius had thought outrageously unfair. Still, it seemed to be quite non-sequitur to what ha been said before. "What does this-?"

"Or when Professor Longbottom said not to pull out the primviolet, and you did and everyone sneezed like crazy for the rest of the day?"

He also remembered that. All the sneezing had caused his nose to bleed and he had spend the rest of the day with an enchanted cold towel in the neck dripping down his back, courtesy of Madame Pomfrey. All the others similarly afflicted had got a proper blood-staunching spell and a sherbet lemon, which he had thought very suspect and passive-agressive.

"The point is, Scorp – you are a habitual non-conformist. Sometimes you're even bordering on O.D.D., but mostly, you're just a bloody stubborn git who thinks he must prove to everyone that he's smarter. And I honestly say that with love," he added, deadpan. "When someone tells you not to do a thing, it's almost guaranteed that you're gonna go and do that thing."

Scorpius tightened the knot of his crossed arms and started to object, but Albus got up from the basin and talked over him.

"Remember second year, when you were absolutely certain you only wanted to be Seeker, like your dad was, and you absolutely didn't want to try out for or play any other position?"

He also remembered that quite vividly. Those stupid try-outs had almost destroyed their friendship. Luckily they were both naturally competitive and it had all worked out in the end because they had both made the team, side by side.

"Back then, Annabelle Warren was the Slytherin seeker, though, and she was bloody good at it. Much better than you, because she had six years of experience on you, and you were a scrawny second-year know-it-all. You'd never have made the team." He tilted his head. "Except that I told you absolutely not to try out for Beater."

He gaped at him. Albus just shrugged and made a ta-dah-gesture. "And here you are, Slytherin Beater five years in a row. Halfway decent, too."

Pointedly ignoring the jibe at his athletic performance – because they both knew that he was, by a pretty wide margin, the more successful and valued Beater of the team, thank you very much – he squinted. "You... You think you manipulated me into-?"

"I don't think, I know I did, man. Face it, I know you better than you know yourself," Al said without a hint of modesty and shrugged again. "Not that you're so fantastically hard to figure out, really."

He didn't know whether to cry or laugh at that, so he just shook his head and half-chortled, half-huffed. This was not how he had wanted this conversation to go at all. Speaking of which, the reason why they were having this unexpectedly disclosing encounter in a boy's bathroom-

"So when you told me that you liked Rose after last year's Hallowe'en party," Albus went on as he returned to the basin sill and sat down on it, suddenly significantly less cheerful, "and asked me about her – effectively asking me permission – ... what could I have done?"

He folded his hands in his lap, let the question sink in for a second, then answered it himself.

"If I had told you that she's off-limits just because she's my cousin – and, really, we grew up so close that she's practically my sister – and you two together is really kind of... awkward... that would only have solidified your crush. You'd've secretly pined for her from a distance, though, and you'd've hated me for having to do that. I didn't want to do that to you, or to myself. Not to mention that that's really not my call to make. So saying that was out of the question."

Albus sighed as he relived the dilemma of three months ago, apparently both relieved to finally get this off his chest and anxious about what consequences this revelation would entail.

"If I had told you that she told me that you're not her type, you'd have refused to believe me. You'd have suspected other reasons, called me a liar and probably been angry at me, and then you would have completely and utterly focussed on her. Out of spite and habitual defiance, just like you focussed on becoming a Beater in second year after I told you not to. And that would have been shite for all three of us, Rose included, because you're... really just not her type. So that was out of the question as well, even though it would have been the truth, really."

Scorpius listened, open-mouthed. He could hardly believe his ears. This dude... he had never told him any of this. Not even hinted at it (as far as he knew, anyway). He'd had no idea that Al had been carrying all of this around with himself. Maybe I really am blind?

Also, not her type?! Boy, it would have been nice of her to friggin' brief me on this at some point. Just the tiniest heads-up would have been enough. And maybe cut back on the hugging and touching his arm and ruffling his hair and stuff...?

"But you asked me a question, and it's just bad manners not to answer, especially when it's your friend asking sincerely in a matter of the heart, and you were already head over heels with her anyway, so I could hardly have said nothing, either. That would've made me a prick. Therefore, instead of either encouraging or discouraging you, I told you to go slow instead, in the vain hope that this would make you not go at all. I hoped your fascination with her would wear off, or that going slow would not be your thing, or that she'd be fair to you and eventually stop stringing you along like that." He paused, as if to consider whether or not to go on, then said, "I didn't want you to get hurt, you know?"

Of all the stinging things he had said in the past three minutes, that last part there stung the most for some reason. Eyes narrowed, he probed, "What do you mean, 'string me along'?"

This clearly wasn't just 'She told me before that you are not her type so I knew she was faking it all along' – these things can and do change, after all, especially over periods of time as long as three damn months full of flirtatious glances and favours and trips to Hogsmeade and stuff. And maybe, just maybe, she could have told her cousin this to assure him that she wasn't getting together with his best friend, making things, as Albus had mentioned, awkward.

No, this rather sounded like 'I continually knew that she continually didn't really like you – but I continually chose not to tell you.' The thought sent a weird pang through his chest. Anger and disappointment in a weird mix with a dash of something he couldn't put his finger on, except that it made him gnash his teeth.

Aptly, Albus sighed again and looked contrite. "She, uh. When I confronted her – which I did two or three times since Hallowe'en – she sort of beat around the bush a bit and made some noises about how you're a great guy and nice and not half bad for a Malfoy, but I'm afraid that... in the end... it boils down to the fact that you... were... really good for her Potions mark."

Silence.

A leaky water tap went drip drip drip.

"Wow." There was nothing more that Scorpius could say, really. Nothing else came to mind, at least nothing that didn't involve swearwords better not uttered in front of her cousin/quasi-brother. (Connor Thicknesse had called Lily Luna a 'ugly warthog' some months ago when she started wearing glasses and he had ended up dangling headfirst from one of the Quidditch hoops the day after. No one knew who had done it, Connor absolutely refused to tell, and no one had ever been punished, but Albus and his older brother James Sirius had both seemed rather smug the whole week long.)

"Yeah. She... I'm sorry, Scorpius." The fact that he said his full name lent a gravitas to the message that rested as heavily on Scorpius' shoulder as a warm hand.

"Heh," he made, instead of saying 'thanks' or 'fuck off' or 'it's not your fault' or 'fuck you, too'.

He supposed that he should be almost glad that Rose's rejection really didn't have anything to do with the spell inflicted upon them both by her dad, seeing that it preceded all of the oracle business. If that spell had actually ruined something, it would have been really tragic. But right now, 'glad' was on the far side of a puddle full of disappointment and self-loathing, and he felt like wallowing in that puddle for a day or three. Maybe trying to drown himself in it.

Silence again. Eventually, Albus huffed and got back on his feet.

"If you want to demand... like, reparations of any kind-"

"Shut up, Al," Scorpius grumbled. "Not funny."

"Not joking," he answered. "It was a bad thing to do. I should have told you. Even if I meant well, I really fucked this one up. So..." He trailed off.

Scorpius nodded. Not in agreement, but to acknowledge that he'd been spoken to while not being ready to offer a verbal response.

"I suppose you're not coming to study group now?"

Mariella Lawless, a fellow sixth year Slytherin, had orchestrated a study group at the beginning of the year, a semi-official weekly meeting at which homework assignments and study projects could be discussed and done in cooperative efforts. Attendance was very good and consistent – all sixth year Slytherins were there – due to the actually helpful nature of the group as well as the abrasive personality of its founder who got really pissy really easily when people didn't show.

Scorpius figured that this once, Mariella could just take her angry bleating and shove it. He shook his head 'No, I'm not coming because I rather feel like dying right now' and Albus sighed.

"I'm really sorry, man," he repeated, then shouldered his book bag and left, looking back at him as he closed the door as if he still wanted to say quite a lot but didn't know how, or knew, but also knew that Scorpius didn't want to hear it right now.

The second the door was shut, Scorpius almost wished he would come back, if only to keep him company and distract him from a variety of facts, such as a) that the world was a cruel, cruel place in which people were simply exploited all the time, and b) that Rose Weasley was a heartless cow, and c) that this bathroom really smelled like a bathroom, ugh, and d) that he was officially a gigantic idiot. It was surprisingly disheartening to be a gigantic idiot by himself. It hadn't been quite so awful with Albus Potter there.

Not even ten minutes of sighing and imaginary wallowing-in-puddles later, he decided to go to study group after all, if only to distract himself mainly from facts b) and d) and to escape the smell mentioned in c). While Mariella was biting his head off for being late, Albus moved over to the next seat to make room for him.

The second he was sitting, three people thumped their finished potions assignments down on the table in front of him for proofreading.

Al gave him a contrite side glance that spoke volumes.

Scorpius sighed, figuring that fact a) was simply an inescapable axiom of nature, made a waving gesture at Albus' sheepish expression, and got to work.

/

/TBC (tomorrow)