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 (recently interrupted; therefore the additional warning of "Unresolved Sexual Tension" applies), original characters (recycled although we hate one of them so much right now)

/

Thanks to ChiffonShock for following this story (better late then never, eh? :D) and to Grrrrrr-the-artist-formerly-known-as-Gahhh for reviewing and, once again, showing me that my cliffhanger game is still going strong :) Strong enough to change usernames. I mean, woah. Also, thanks to the Weird Guest reviewer for reviewing ^^; (I didn't mean to make anyone like Rose, either. If anything, it's worse that she's dangling this in front of Scorpius *now*, isn't it? Or maybe that was just... *finger wriggles*... destiny.)

Alright. So. Which idiot disturbs a budding romance? Find out below.

~Chapter 15~

"Potter? Malfoy?"

Scorpius felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on him. All at once he was very aware of his state of half-undress, and of the lingering wetness on his skin – everywhere, only most of it sweat – and of the fact that he was standing almost body to body with another boy who had just jerked him off and almost kissed him and whom he had almost just kissed back in a bloody Quidditch locker room toilet stall.

"Parkinson," Albus said loudly, startling Scorpius. He could feel his voice in his chest, they were so close.

And then, sheer panic. He widened his eyes at him in a desperate, non-verbal What the fuck are you doing?!

Albus just pulled up an eyebrow, almost nonchalantly.

A curious chill went through Scorpius.

"Potter," Brice called. "I thought you and Malfoy wanted to put in another short training before the warm-up?"

"Yeah," Albus said, but nothing more.

"Where's Malfoy? His stuff is in the locker room and all."

Albus said, "He's in here, too."

Scorpius choked on a breath.

Albus' hand left its place in his neck and came to rest heavily against his mouth, half-stifling his coughs, ensuring that he certainly wouldn't say anything. Also, incidentally, ensuring that he wouldn't move a hair.

His fingers were very warm and soft and sweaty as they pressed against his lips.

"Uhm," Brice's voice rang out, more than a little curious and baffled. "You're both in the same stall? At the... like, same time? Uh. Why?"

Al's mouth twitched upward in a corner. "Idiot thought it particularly clever to take candy from my bag. Turned out to be one of my uncle's newest creations."

Wow, Scorpius thought. Lying was even rarer an occurrence than giving orders, and yet he did it with obvious ease. And happily.

"Ohhh," Brice went, understanding almost at once. "Vomitoffee?"

"Something like that," Al nodded as if Brice could see him. "I'm holding his hair back and reminding him to keep breathing. Figure I owe him," he added with a mumble.

As if on cue, Scorpius couldn't help but cough again.

"Right," Brice said as if it was only obvious.

Then, "Why'd you lock up?"

Al glanced sideways, hesitated, then pulled his hand away from Scorpius' mouth and reached out to flick the knob back to 'free'. "Habit," he said lightly.

Scorpius felt cold sweat break out all over his body, and his stomach seemed to curl up on itself.

The longest three seconds in Scorpius' life passed. He waited for the stall door to open, for Brice's face to appear, for hell to break loose, for himself to be swallowed by the earth itself. His pants were still down. His recently flaccid penis was still out, for Mordred's sake. Vomitoffee probably didn't exist (yet), but Scorpius still felt like he had eaten a handful of them right now.

"Ah," Brice uttered stupidly. He had audibly stayed right where he had been.

A contented smile spread over Albus' face.

"So you'll be a'ight?" Brice asked. "Warm-up's in twenty."

"Yep," Albus said. "He'll be done throwing up in a few minutes."

"Okay," Brice said with a chuckle, and then the door creaked open again and closed again as he left.

Scorpius sagged against the wall, dizzy, breathless. He pulled up his pants to give his hands something to do even though they were shaking too wildly for the task, really, arranging his extremities as he did that, and failed to thread the leather strap into the belt buckle again on account of his incompetent fingers.

Al's fingers nudged his aside. "Here, let me..."

Scorpius felt his heartbeat accelerating again, but there were noises in the locker room now and the moment had been broken. It wasn't the same. Also, he still felt ill.

"Lucky it was Parkinson," Albus suddenly muttered, done with his belt and currently busy wiping his hand with toilet paper. "Dumb as a bag of hammers, that one."

Scorpius gave a weak laugh.

"You okay?" Al asked, giving him and them himself a quick, efficient once-over.

"Not really," he yearned to say. "I'm confused. Did you just lie through your teeth? Could that mean- Is there a chance that you've been pretending all the time? I'm so confused. It's like I don't know you. Do you want me? Why are you doing this? I don't understand it. I don't understand any of this. Confused." And unkissed. "I might be sick."

Instead, he only nodded.

"Okay, then. Let's go kick some Gryffindor butt," he quipped and left the toilet stall, quickly washing his hands on the way out.

Scorpius only followed when the bathroom door had fallen shut several minutes ago, standing there, breathing and swearing under his breath, glad that he hadn't clapped him on the shoulder in parting or something.

The story of his little thievery and the instant karma had spread quickly. He didn't have to try very hard to seem somewhat shaken.

/

They did end up kicking Gryffindor butt, which was doubly fortunate for Scorpius since his parents surprisingly happened to be in attendance. Albus had spotted them sitting in the parents' stand between the Shrewsburys and the Parkinsons (all six of them, something especially his father seemed to take a dim view of) and shouted it over to him just before the starting whistle. It served to focus him for the next one hour and eighteen minutes, which was how long it took until Jane Crowell won the diving duel against Iris Jordan and plucked the Snitch out of the air.

Lloyd, bleeding from his mouth after a run-in with Gryffindor beater Dale O'Brian and missing a front tooth, even praised both Scorpius and Albus (who had his pinky finger put in a splint in minute 5) for "very solid work" during the post-match huddle.

Scorpius and Albus glanced at each other with a pleased smirk, still glowing from the adrenaline of the game and the victory euphoria.

Scorpius didn't see that Albus' glance lasted several seconds longer than his. He heard his mother's voice calling his name and looked up to see his parents waiting near the foot of the stand. His mother waved, smiling broadly. She was wearing a two feet high, slightly lopsided clip-on mohawk in Slytherin colours. The sight made him smile. He excused himself and went over to them.

Albus watched him go.

/

"So the next game will only be in March? That's unfortunate. Far as I can tell, you are on a roll," his mother said after his father and he had finished their lengthy in-depth analysis of the best moves and goals of the game.

He shrugged. "Training will resume two weeks from now. I don't think we'll lose it until then."

Astoria smiled broadly. "You and Albus work really well together," she said, even though she had zero idea whatsoever about Quidditch in general or beaters in particular.

Scorpius still winced a little. "Uh, yes," he agreed just as his father turned away with ostentation.

Obviously, this was exactly what his mother had intended. She grinned a little wickedly.

"Come on, darling. I'll walk you to the locker rooms. You should take a shower ASAP."

She took off the mohawk and handed it over to her husband – thumping him in the chest with it, really, which made him go "Ouff!" – and took Scorpius by the shoulder. "I'll be right back. Look, dear, Pansy seems to much desire to speak with you," she said by the way of farewell to Draco, leaving him standing there, looking for some way, any way at all, to evade Pansy Parkinson.

"Poor dad," Scorpius commented once they were out of earshot. "What did he do?"

"Oh, nothing," his mother replied with pointed airiness.

He was too afraid to ask any further. His father probably also didn't know exactly what he'd done wrong this time. Women could be so scary and difficult.

"So that Gryffindor keeper," Astoria began after a moment of silence. "That was Rose Weasley, wasn't she?"

"Yes," he said neutrally.

"She's a really good keeper," she said.

"Yes," he repeated. "Best of all four houses by a margin."

"So... How are you doing?" She didn't specify whether she meant the you in singular or plural form.

Scorpius almost took the easy way out, answering a meaningless 'I'm fine', because, really, there was no plural form 'you' that included himself and Rose Weasley any more anyway. But then he remembered that short moment a few hours before and wondered for a split second.

"She's leaving next Friday, isn't she?" his mother kept asking before he had made up his mind for an answer of the previous question.

"Far as I know." He nodded.

"Mmh," she made. "You don't seem sad about that at all. That's good, I guess."

He glanced at her, but she didn't look at him.

"Too glad that the spell's wearing off for me to be sad," he murmured and almost laughed at how weird his priorities were now, and how absurd the whole situation was, and how miserable the next seven days would be. It gets worse before it gets better seemed to be another one of those corny adages that might prove itself right before long.

Out of nowhere, the thought crossed his mind that he could pretend that the spell hadn't worn off – given that it actually would wear off, which was still not guaranteed.

Then today wouldn't have been the last time.

He wondered whether he would be able to deceive his friend like that, even hypothetically. After that scene before the game, it was obvious that Albus was the master of dissimulation. And he had said, weeks ago in that talk they had after DADA, that he was "not fantastically hard to figure out, really."

"I'm proud that you've taking this in stride, darling," his mother was saying. "Apart from that incident in History... Let's just say that your father and I expected more... disruption. Because it is a long time and certainly a major incision in your... well, day-to-day life-"

"Mum," Scorpius mumbled, feeling himself go red in the face. In stride? Uh, no. "Please." There were still people around.

His mother stopped and gently took him by the shoulders.

"I'm just saying that I was rather... afraid that this might change you. Make you desperate or aggressive or... I don't know. Corrupt you. I had such terrible visions of losing you. Your heart."

Just like coming into their children's room without knocking, saying kitschy things with utmost sincerity and not being laughed at for it was another one of the privileges of a mother, he figured.

Scorpius allowed her a quick hug, mumbling something about being sweaty and dirty that got ignored.

"I'm so glad you passed this trial, my darling," Astoria said with a hushed voice.

He bit his lip. Just like in most DADA tests of his school career, he'd had plenty of help with that. He had no doubts that, if it hadn't been for Albus, things would have gone very differently.

And also, it wasn't over yet.

Except that, for Albus, it is...

Unless I pretend-

As if suddenly realizing that she was being embarrassing, his mother suddenly let him go and shooed him toward the locker rooms for a well-deserved clean-up.

"And- oh Merlin, the portkey's due in half an hour already, too. Oh dear, I'm afraid there's really no time for you and your father to properly say good-bye..."

She apologized for timing everything so badly, and Scorpius told her that it was fine in several different variations, eventually sending her off with a subtle plea to make up with his dad and give him his regards.

When he went to the shower room ten minutes later, Albus came his way. His hair was wet, he was wearing nothing but the towel around his waist. Intently fiddling with the makeshift splint, he didn't even notice him until Scorpius spoke up.

"How's the finger?" he asked.

"Don't know, really," he murmured back. "Don't think it's broken, though. Maybe sprained." He shrugged. "I'll live. How's the parents?"

"Temporarily not on speaking terms," Scorpius sighed. "But fine, seen individually. Dad almost admitted that your shot at Tate was the best move of the game, but then his Potterphobia got the better of him and he changed his mind."

"Runner-up, then! My, what an honour," Al grinned lopsidedly, then frowned a little. "Hope Tate's nose is going to be fine, though."

Scorpius made a hand gesture that signified something like Literally no one cares, least of all Tate himself.

An easy silence fell.

"So, uh," Scorpius started and looked around as if searching for something to say and meaning to find it in the locker room. Unexpectedly, he did find it there, in a way. "Where are the others? Already done?"

Especially Parkinson normally was such a slowcoach, taking forever in the shower. And Patil, Crowell and Reedy were usually loud enough to be heard through the entire building after a victory (their way of rubbing it in), but there was only a low hum of a far-off conversation and nothing else.

"Yes, they wanted to take the trip to Hogsmeade, so they really hurried. Lloyd has promised to buy. You know, to celebrate the great triumph."

Scorpius grunted. "Did he specify what exactly he'd buy, though?"

"Nah," Al answered with a nod. "I bet he's going to buy them tap water again."

He grunted again. "What a tight-arse."

"Totally," Al concurred. "But some people never learn. So maybe they deserve it."

They exchanged a gleeful grin.

Scorpius wanted to ask him exactly why he had taken so long – normally, Albus was the one who was under and out of the shower and back in his everyday clothes before Scorpius had even peeled himself out of his boots. All he said, however, was, "I better get showering now", feeling the cold draft on his clammy skin and an urgent need to get out of his clingy underpants.

Also, Albus was almost naked. Which had happened quite often in the almost seven years of knowing him, but now it was a little different. Distracting.

"Yes, you better," Albus concurred again after an odd little pause and cleared the doorway like a gentleman.

As Scorpius turned up the water and let it patter onto his head, he couldn't help but imagine Albus not getting dressed and maybe coming into the shower with him instead and then-

He rubbed his face vigorously, spraying water everywhere, then turned the tap to 'cold'.

Perhaps his mother had been wrong, perhaps he had been corrupted. And perhaps he had lost his heart.

When he came back to the locker room several minutes later, Albus was gone.

/

/TBC (tomorrow)