Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter

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

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

/

Hello, hello, hello again! (*cue that obnoxious song by The Cars I'll have stuck in my head for the rest of the week*)

Thanks to Guest (how many of you are there now? Are you the "Another Guest" who reviewed chapter 6?) for reviewing :) I chuckled mightily at "his problem has been fixed" *evil laugh* Yeah, I never let my protagonists off the hook that easily... *evil laugh continues*

So. That thing has happened. We still have 5 chapters to go. One might ask oneself what else the author could possibly inflict upon those characters. Well... only one way to find out!

~Chapter 12~

~14 days left

It was a beautiful day.

Scorpius woke at 9 a.m., refreshed and ready for the day, took a leisurely shower and had a big Saturday breakfast accompanied by a letter from his dad that boiled down to 'I'm actually surprised it took you 6 years to fall asleep in Binns' class and get caught, I've done that in 3. Shame on the window, though. Try to prop yourself up properly next time so you won't hurt yourself. And maybe don't get caught again. Love, Dad.' The weather was wonderful, the sky crisp and blue, the sun bright, making all the snow and ice glitter and sparkle.

"Perfect training weather," Lloyd remarked as he unlocked the door to the locker rooms, showers and equipment chambers. "Calls for a perfect training." He looked at Scorpius when he said it, and Scorpius looked right back at him with clenched teeth thinking Just you wait.

He was ready. He was determined. He was prepared to wear a goddamned jockstrap if that was what it would take.

And the circumstances were different now. He was healed. Tuesday night, Albus Potter had healed him.

They changed into training gear in near silence – Scorpius went to the equipment room for some more grease, then to the bathroom to put on the jockstrap he had just taken from the equipment room; it was exactly as uncomfortable as he had expected and made him look like the most well-endowed sixteen year old boy on planet Earth so he was glad for the leather gear that hid all that –, readied their various pieces of Quidditch gaming devices and carried their brooms out onto the pitch. The only thing missing was a heroic instrumental sound track.

Lloyd made his speech, a bit more aggressive and specific than last time. Apparently, he had spied on the Gryffindor training, and the Gryffindors were apparently preparing for war. The logical conclusion was that his team would be preparing for an even meaner war.

Eventually, they leapt onto their brooms and took off.

There was a moment of pure elation. Scorpius pressed himself onto his broom and accelerated, nothing but the blue sky above him, and his teammates around him. The wind raked his hair.

Everything was perfect.

For fifteen minutes or so at least.

Ten minutes of breakneck manoeuvres and of racing Al around the pitch for warm-up, weaving through the spectators' stands and the hoop poles. Five minutes of passing time training Bludgers back and forth. His face was starting to hurt from a perpetual grin.

Then, while he climbed up toward the outer edge of the dome, a feeling sparked under his belly button. It grew a little, and then expanded rapidly, and as it did, it got very uncomfortable very quickly. This time, it felt as if his private bits had been sprayed with cayenne pepper, or maybe dragon's breath.

He cursed and put his feet onto his crossbars again to lift himself up from his broom, which made the feeling subside almost immediately, then tried to maintain his speed and direction and get a little higher. Out of the others' sight, or of Lloyd's, in any case.

He came to a halt and started to un- and re-wrap the strap on his bat around his wrist. He had to use his teeth because he couldn't let go of the broom with his other hand. It was a reasonable precaution, given that he couldn't hold the bat with two hands any more from here on in when hitting, and it also gave him something to do for a moment. And he needed a moment to think.

What do I do? His brain was working feverishly. What happened? Everything had worked out so well before. What did I do wrong?

He saw Albus hovering twenty metres below. He was looking up at him. Their eyes met.

Albus shook his head a little and seemed to mumbled something to himself, then pointed down with his index finger – to the locker rooms – in a clear command for him to fly down to it, then gave his broom handle a push and dove. Towards Lloyd.

Scorpius' breath caught in his throat. What would he be telling him?

He wouldn't... ?!

No. He shook his head. Albus wouldn't embarrass him. Ever.

But what would he tell him? That he was injured? Ill? Had some sort of problem with his broom? What would Lloyd say about that?

Scorpius spiralled downwards over the locker rooms, touching down near the entrance, all the while looking up at Albus who was still hovering near the captain, talking to him. Eventually, he saw Albus pull his wand from his holster and point it at the training Bludgers which promptly followed him in his descent towards Scorpius.

"I'm sorry," Scorpius burst out once he was in hearing range. "It- I can't help it." Then, feeling increasingly desperate, "Maybe we should bring in McDonough instead. Or Collins. She did an okay job at the try-outs, I'm sure you could talk Lloyd into-"

"Shut up," Albus interrupted him almost absent-mindedly, steered the Bludgers to rest on the ground and dropped his broom as well, leaving it to hover half a foot in the air. Next, he took him roughly by the upper arm and pulled him into the tunnel.

"We've got ten minutes, maybe fifteen," he said, talking really fast. "We need to come up with some cool beater trick. Any inspiration? From the Danes, maybe?"

"Ow, Al, slow down," Scorpius complained as he was dragged along. Albus didn't decelerate one bit, neither in terms of walking nor talking, and he didn't ease up on the grip, either. "Where are we going? What's going on?"

"I'm thinking about the double fork prongs, like Iversen and Ostergaard used to do them, actually," he said as if he hadn't spoken, "just diagonally and lengthwise instead of side-by-side and front-to-back, just like we accidentally did that one time last summer in that match against Hufflepuff. Remember that?"

"Uh, yes," Scorpius said. Incidentally, the original move had been one of the "Top 20 Game Changers" in the issue of Quidditch Today he had been reading the day when Rose's parents came to the Manor. It had been one of only four moves for beaters on that list, so naturally, Scorpius had practically drooled all over it (much to Albus' chagrin who firmly rooted for the Irish and regarded his fascination with the Danish team as betrayal of his British roots). And of course he remembered that game against Hufflepuff. He had unseated Mary Anne Spinnet that day with a clean shot to the shoulder. "But- Al, what are we doing?"

Half pushed, half pulled, he stumbled into the empty locker room.

"We're talking strategy in private, and we're coming up with this super-duper new move that happens to look just like the double fork prongs," Albus informed him. "I hope you've been paying attention."

He locked the door from the inside, then turned around to him.

"Lloyd doesn't exactly approve, but what the hell. I told him I'd need the flip chart and a bit of peace and quiet and all that. Bought us ten minutes or so."

Out of the fifteen questions Scorpius had, the one that made it out first was, "Al, why did you just lock the door?"

Albus looked at him, sighed, and then said, "Pull down your trousers."

/

"I. Um." Nothing else.

Al frowned. "We can go to the bathroom again, if you prefer-"

"Albus, I..."

His friend looked at him – not straight in the eye, but slightly to the side, he noted – and actually waited for him to continue that sentence, or maybe to drop his pants as commanded. Scorpius did neither, hence, a very awkward silence fell.

"Ever since..." Albus eventually started, then couldn't get it out and changed course. "Since Tuesday night, you seemed normal again. More relaxed. So I think there's a chance that... it might have a positive effect. Now. Save you from that, uh, bad feeling."

Your touch has healed me, Scorpius thought and chewed on his tongue. It had sounded stupid, and the 'remedy' had only withstood provocation for a quarter of an hour, but what if he was right?

What if he just needed another dose?

Al shrugged. "I mean, it's worth a try, I think." Then, a little more quietly, he said, "Don't make me watch you go through a training session like that again. Please. It was just painful to look at. And we already talked about the McDonough thing. I don't want to fly with anyone else."

It would have been easier, not to mention more dignified, to just call it quits. To tell Lloyd that he was indisposed for the next two weeks, somehow bear with Lars McDonough as his substitute no matter how big of a baby Albus wanted to be about it. To hope that Lloyd would let him play the other games of the season yet somehow survive if he decided against it. Come next year's try-outs, he would rock everyone's socks again and get his spot back, guaranteed.

But he really wanted to play. Now.

And-

And he also kind of, sort of wanted...

There was another type of warmth under his belly button now, to match the one that started creeping up his neck and into his face.

He blew out some air through his nose, then turned and walked to the bathroom.

Albus followed him without another word, but Scorpius could almost feel that grim determination radiating from him, warming his back.

The stall was barely half as big as the one in the dungeon bathroom. The limited space required bending over the toilet to get the inward-swinging door shut when they were both inside. Eventually, the door was closed, and the two of them were locked in together.

The space was really cramped. Scorpius shuffled around to face the wall. His right heel touched against the toes of Albus' left foot.

While Albus took off his glove, Scorpius fumbled with the leather bits of his gear, peeled the tight trousers down to mid-thigh, and finally pulled the plastic cup out of the jockstrap. Still holding on to it because there was nowhere he could easily put it, he braced himself against the wall just like last time. Closed his eyes. Waited.

They flew open again despite himself at first skin contact, when Albus' fingertips slid beneath the waistband of that jockstrap.

"Am I hurting you?" Albus asked, just like he had the first time. He must have felt the ripple that had gone through his body.

"Ah, no." Scorpius shook his head. He braced himself, tensing the muscles in his abdomen so they wouldn't hitch again. "Go on."

Al breathed. "Alright," he mumbled. "I'll, ah. I'll go slow..."

Scorpius still flinched yet again when his palm slid over him. "Hah," he half-breathed, half-laughed through his nose. "Your hand is really warm."

And then no one said another word for several minutes. The only sounds were Scorpius' increasingly ragged, shallow breathing, the rustle of fabric, and that rhythmic, slick sound. Skin against skin.

Even though it shouldn't be possible, it felt even better than Tuesday night. Scorpius pressed his lips together as hard as he could to keep from making sounds, especially when Albus did that thing with his fingers, on the tip-

"Shit," he hissed when he did exactly that thing twice and every muscle in his body wanted to twitch in unison.

"What?" He stopped mid-movement.

Scorpius gasped. "No. No, it's good. You're- it's really good." He almost cried out with relief when he continued. "Good," he repeated, and then Albus repeated that thing again, and he whispered, in spite of himself, "Fucking good."

He did it twice more. The second time, Scorpius looked down to see the movement of his fingers, the outline of his knuckles straining against the white fabric, a wet spot darkening it, and his thoughts started to reel and unravel. He clenched his teeth. "Albus-"

And then he threw his head back and groaned as the world became immensely unimportant for a bit.

While the carousel slowly stopped spinning, Albus offered him toilet paper again. He took it, and felt the same sort of shame he had the last time. Is this becoming a ritual? he almost asked, Because if it is, I could start at commenting at execution, to, you know, improve the experience, and let me tell you, that moment of hesitation in the middle there always just about kills me but then he didn't because it might sound like he was seriously expecting that it would happen again. Maybe even regularly.

Suddenly, he couldn't be in Albus Potter's vicinity any more. The closeness lead to an acute risk of having to look him in the eye and he didn't know what might happen.

"I'm, uh... I need more space to get dressed again. I'll have to- get out," he said instead while stupidly trying to pull up his trousers with one hand. He still had the jock cup in the other. During the past few minutes he had clenched down on it so hard that his fingers and his palm hurt a little where the edge had pressed into his skin.

Albus nodded and stammered back something that mostly sounded like 'yes, of course' and 'go ahead' and 'I'll have to use the, uh, toilet anyway' as Scorpius, hunched over a little in a protective posture, bodily pushed past him and out the door.

He tried to get his clothes and his thoughts back in order in the locker room. The former was easier to accomplish than the latter.

When he checked himself in the mirror, his reflection cast a very suspicious glance at him that lingered especially on his slightly sweaty and blotchy face, so long that he almost wanted to snap something like "I just got another hand job from my best friend, so shut the fuck up!" at it.

Said best friend came storming out of the bathroom now, rearranging his glove in obvious hurry. "Alright, so, fork prongs, and any other nifty moves we can come up with. If it doesn't... doesn't work, you'll fake a migraine or something and we'll think of something else. Got it?" he asked as if the previous eight minutes hadn't really taken place at all. He also avoided his eyes. And his face matched Scorpius' in blotchiness.

Scorpius blinked, momentarily confused about everything, and reflexively answered, "Uh, got it," just as he remembered that this was all about Quidditch and finding an alibi for randomly leaving the training for ten minutes.

Albus looked at him for a split second and opened his mouth, but closed it again without having said anything, then nodded curtly and brushed past him out the door and onto the corridor. Scorpius followed his half-running step as if pulled by a rip tide, trying not to stare at the gloved right hand clenched to a fist by his thigh that drew his eyes like a magnet.

/

The rest of the practice session was eventful in its uneventfulness. They both got yelled at for taking so long, then leapt on their brooms and rose up into the air in sync as if they had been born to do just that. The quasi-fork prongs which they had to demonstrate shortly after met with very little enthusiasm, but it appeased Lloyd and that was enough.

Scorpius waited for a re-emergence of that feeling or any type of magically enhanced discomfort but apart from the chafe and pinch of the jockstrap, nothing happened.

The only noticeably weird feeling he got was that short stutter of his breath, like a fluttering of bird wings, whenever saw Albus Potter watching him so very closely.

Not looking at me, he thought. Only looking after me.

He hit the Bludgers with all the force he had.

/

/TBC (tomorrow)