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

/

Hey guys, welcome back for the second to last update! Sorry for being so late today. I had so much stuff to do and wasn't near a computer.

Thanks to anonmum and sine13 for following this story, even though there's really not that much to follow left now... anyway, thanks for reading! Also, thanks to sine13 and HenriaSownbinder for favving!
(Weird Guest: I quite liked the symmetry of Brice Parkinson cockblocking Scorpius while Pansy did the same to Draco... ^^; Poor Malfoy men. I am not a nice person. Thank you for reading and reviewing, dear!)

~Chapter 16~

~6 to 2 days left

Scorpius decided on Sunday morning during breakfast – when Albus Potter sat down on the other side of the table and four seats to the left which irritated and ridiculously hurt him even though the rational part of his brain told him that Al clearly hadn't had any intention – to dive into his school work, especially into DADA stuff. There was still a bad mark to cancel out and an individual test to prepare for.

He holed himself up at the far side of the library and was glad that he didn't see a soul for hours. Immersed in swotting, he even forgot the time and missed lunch, which led him to the kitchen. While he ate a bowl of hearty soup, prepared by a young-looking elf who watched his every move and every little expression while wringing her hands and bouncing on the tips of her toes, he attempted to sort out his feelings enough to possibly put them onto parchment to write a letter to his mother.

In the end he gave up. He didn't even know what the question was. Everything was so confusing.

And anyway, his mother would only write back that a) he should definitely wait until the end of the week to avert the danger of fulfilling his destiny after all and that b) he should man up and speak to 'her'. Get 'her' to tell him what 'she' really felt and wanted, get 'her' to reveal 'her' true self.

"So which of the Albuses is the real one?" he heard himself ask. "The indifferent one, the one who jumped to lend a hand, the one with the smouldering look who almost kissed me, or the stone-cold liar who apparently thought it was all a joke?"

He suddenly lost appetite and spent the following half an hour reassuring the poor little house-elf that it wasn't her fault and to stop grating her forehead. The following three hours he also spent in the kitchen, telling himself that he liked the busy sounds and the smells and the service (so much butterbeer) and was definitely not actually hiding.

When he got back to the dungeon, night had already fallen. There was an Albus-shaped mound on Albus' bed and a shimmery sheen of a silencing spell around it. Shrew told him that he had finally gone to see Pomfrey about his finger which had swollen to the size of a grape around the middle joint during the day and she had dosed him with some sort of sledgehammer-equivalent anti-sprain-anti-swelling-potion that required lots of sleep so he'd be completely fine again tomorrow morning.

Scorpius tried not to sigh in relief.

The next morning started at 5 again, with a cold shower, again, and breakfast that was basically inhaled so he could speak to Professor Flitwick before class in pursuit of scholarly betterment. He also spoke to the Professors Smith and Sinistra and a piece of additional assignment each that, if completed to satisfaction, would raise his grades considerably. Thus, Monday passed by.

Tuesday morning's Herbology lesson took place in a classroom up in Ravenclaw tower for a change which Scorpius used as an excuse to leave the breakfast table basically the minute Albus sat down next to him, and which also enabled him to evade both Amanda and Rose by sitting right in the front row – that way, he would only have seen them if he had turned around and craned his neck (and he didn't). In History (third period) he had the chance to do his assignments for Runes (from second period), and in DADA, Professor Finnigan had them paired up in threes according to alphabet. Scorpius ended up with Mariella Lawless and Patrick Niles and in the end decided not to go to study group. Mariella glowered but nodded.

"Fine by me," she grumbled. "That way, maybe Potter will pay proper attention again instead of checking you out all the time. We've mainly got DADA stuff to catch up on anyway and you just reminded us that you're basically hopeless at that..."

Before he could even get a 'what?' out, she was already out the door.

The rest of the evening he spent firing Bludgers at Patil and Reedy again in the room of requirement (with a bit more force than necessary, and standing quite a distance away from them at all times). When the three of them returned to the dungeon, the common room was already empty and the dorms full of snoring. As he fell asleep, Scorpius promised himself to finally talk to Albus – really talk to him – tomorrow. Wednesday.

Problem was that Albus suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth right after Astronomy and didn't turn up for lunch or at any point after that. It took Scorpius a full hour of brooding in Care to work out the reason: Rose's going away party. He had entirely forgotten about it. Rose would be gone by Friday morning, so Thursday evening was the last possible opportunity for celebrating, and Wednesday the last possible chance for a Weasley-Potter-and-Friends organisational gathering.

Said gathering lasted until late in the night. Until after eleven, to be exact, because Scorpius heard and saw Albus tiptoe into bed at eleven nineteen.

When Al glanced into his direction, Scorpius reflexively screwed his eyes shut, and kept them shut until – hours and hours later, or so it seemed – Al finally started snoring softly.

Tomorrow, he promised – perhaps Al, perhaps himself – and tried to sleep.

Naturally, he slept in. Naturally, Albus shook him awake rather roughly just fifteen minutes before first period would start. First period was Potions, and Professor Smith was in a lousy mood (naturally), sending him out to the grounds with a thawing potion and a little reaping hook to collect a bunch of Icicle Snowdrops as punishment for being tardy.

Detention had never hurt that much. Even though he hurried back to the common room afterwards, Albus had already left. Gone wherever Rose's going away party was happening. He wasn't invited, so he didn't know.

That night, Al came back at ten after midnight, with the smell of firewhiskey delicately wafting around him.

Scorpius closed his eyes again.

For a second, the smell seemed to be getting stronger.

The next second, Al was flat on his back with his cloak still on, snoring louder than even Prince.

/

~1 day left

All Weasleys and Potters and even some close friends of Rose's were freed from the first two periods to see her off at ten past nine at Hogsmeade Station. Even though this meant that only Albus was missing from the classes which Scorpius attended on that day (Transfiguration was the only one, because second period was Runes for himself and Arithmancy for Al), the classroom seemed to be weirdly empty. The chair next to him was like a missing tooth.

That morning, Al had slept straight through the usual morning commotion in the dorm, not even moving an eyelid. When all the others had gone, Scorpius had taken his own alarm clock, set it to eight and put it next to Albus' bed on the floor. Onto the bedside table he had put the last dose of Hang-O-Vermouth he could find in his own drawer, a scrap of paper onto which he had scribbled DRINK ME, a sugar cube to help the nasty sobering potion go down, and a tall glass of water. Lastly, he had taken the blanket from his bed, because Al was lying on his own blanket like Smaug was lying on his golden treasure, and spread it over him as best he could without waking him up.

He figured that it was all he could do for him. After all, he had been in a haste, almost been too late for Transfiguration.

Sitting in Runes class, he looked out the window and into the dreary February morning, wondering whether Al had been on time, dreading to think about how glum he would be if he had missed the departure somehow. In that case, he would even feel sad for Rose, he was surprised to find. Not getting to say good-bye properly before leaving for a month and a half was really rather tough.

He was on his way to the Runes classroom (in safe distance from Briony Parkinson and Constance Bagman – who seemed to be whispering behind their hands and kept glancing back at him, or did he just imagine it?) when a call made him turn.

Albus was running up to him. Even from further away, he could see the wide grin on his face which still looked somewhat wan and hungover. So much for worrying, he supposed.

Al stopped an arm's length in front of him and put his hands on his knees, gasping for air for a moment, before he managed, "Scorp! Thank you!"

And then he pulled him into a bear hug.

"You're, like, the bestest best friend, did you know that?" he mumbled behind his back, his voice rumbling against his chest.

Oh, Scorpius thought. Not hungover. Rather, still drunk.

"There, there." He patted him on the back. "Maybe the Hang-O-Vermouth was not such a good idea, eh?"

Depending on what exactly Al had drunk yesterday and how much, the potion might have the opposite effect – or so he had read in Witch Weekly once. He had always assumed it was an urban myth. Maybe it wasn't, after all.

"I fucked up so bad and you're still so considerate." Albus sighed happily, leaning his whole weight on his shoulder. "I've been trying to make good all this time and you totally didn't owe me anything and still you're so thoughtful and I know you disprove... I mean, disapprove of me drinking and stuff-"

At this point, he was already rocking Scorpius sideways a little, and the sight was obviously hilarious judging by Constance and Briony's giggling from the end of the corridor.

But Scorpius didn't feel like laughing. Instead, he felt icy cold.

"Uhm, Al." He disentangled himself from his friend's clumsy embrace. "What do you mean, 'trying to make good'?"

Al frowned as he picked up on the serious tone and searched his face, bemused. "You know," he mumbled, shooting a look over his shoulder at the two girls who were still tittering and then looking back at him with a squint as if he were nearsighted. "The thing. The thing I said and all those things that happened and I... gah." He grimaced. "My tongue is all furry. That potion on the table was guh-ross."

Finally it dawned on Scorpius. The most obvious, most typically Albus, most dreadfully simple and stupid truth of all. He almost laughed at just how obvious it was, in hindsight, and at how dumb he had been to never consider it.

Doing that – 'the thing' – had simply been Albus' way of repenting. Of saying sorry and making it up to him, making the 'reparations' he had mentioned in that bathroom all those weeks ago.

In his head, a slide show of all that had happened swept past. He remembered what he had said, and how he had said it.

Albus had bloody blamed himself. For the misunderstanding with Rose, for not telling him off properly, for unknowingly making it worse – and then, by extension, for everything. For the necessity of the curse Rose's father had put on him, and for the ordeal that followed.

Guilt. That's what had driven Albus Potter into... service. Scorpius felt his windpipe constrict and his stomach sink.

"Scorp, are you okay? You look kind of pasty."

"I'll be late for Runes," he said, then turned and walked away.

"Scorp?" Albus asked, bewildered by the sudden change of climate, and not drunk enough any more to not notice that something was wrong. But Scorpius didn't stop. "Alright," he called after him. "See you in fourth period, then!"

He lifted his hand to wave backwards over his shoulder, but then rubbed his eyes vehemently instead. Bagman and Parkinson snorted with laughter when he passed, still caught up on the spectacle of drunk Albus.

Both he and the two girls ended up too late for Runes, but the girls came in even half a minute later than he and so only they got detention. Any other day, Scorpius would have been full of schadenfreude. Any other day.

/

~0 days left

Hogwarts was a huge castle. After centuries of pupils, teachers, house-elves and ghosts living there (or, in the case of the latter, haunting it), there were still corridors that had never been walked at all, rooms that had never been entered, nooks and crannies that even the Weasley twins had never laid eyes on because they didn't seem to be of any interest. There were hundreds or maybe thousands of ways to get lost in it.

But there seemed to be not even one way for Scorpius Malfoy to hide from Albus Severus Potter.

He knew it was childish to do it. Childish to pretend to still be sleeping at ten in the morning when his empty stomach grumbled so loudly it hurt and Prince and Shrew had had a shouting match that probably even woke the girls in the girl's dorm, childish to go down to the kitchen for lunch instead of joining everyone else in the Great Hall after Albus had finally ceased his deathwatch, and then somewhat ridiculous to avoid the common room for the rest of the day.

It became really infantile when he jumped up from his library chair, heart thumping like mad, when he spotted Al coming toward him.

"Scorpius," Albus said when he arrived at Scorpius' table, quickly taking in what was happening. "I think we need to talk."

"About what?" he asked as he crammed his History book into his bag and got ready to flee.

"Everything, I think," Al replied, and then called, "Scorpius, wait!" when Scorpius slipped by him.

Scorpius thought he had given him the slip, especially since Al got stopped by Madam Pince and scolded for being louder than a mouse coughing in her holy halls. But then, ten minutes later, he turned a corner in the dungeon – on the way to the dorm, to get his broom and somehow escape through the air – and basically barrelled into him.

For a full second he only stared in wonder. How had he made it here so fast? And how had he known where he was going?

Then he noticed that Al was holding him by the shoulders to steady them both.

That really reminded him of his dream last night.

"Scorp, please," Al said. "Something's wrong and I really want to make it right."

"Not again," he mumbled to himself, quickly stepping out of Al's reach. "There's nothing to 'make right', Al. You haven't done anything wrong."

And he hadn't. That was the worst part of it. The shame was wholly in Scorpius' court.

"Then what's going on? Why are you running away from me?"

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are," he interrupted impatiently. "Yesterday, too, ever since I got back to the castle from Hogsmeade, right before second period. And then in DADA in fourth, you sat on the other side of the room, between the bloody Hufflepuffs, for Mordred's sake." The Hufflepuffs had been positively petrified, too. "Scorp, talk to me."

He had made zero progress on the how-to-express-it- front since last Sunday when he unwittingly drove a house-elf to self-mutilation. If anything, he had been regress, due to that exact moment Al had just mentioned. Funny thing was that Albus himself probably didn't even remember what he had said.

Oh, and then there was the dream he just kept remembering and remembering...

Somewhere in the dungeon maze, a door opened. Voices wafted toward them.

Al huffed in annoyance, then grabbed Scorpius by the upper arm and pulled him along. Just like he had that day during Quidditch practice. Scorpius remembered it vividly and was too stumped to even fight back.

"Bathroom. Now," Albus grumbled, pulling him toward a door near the stairs and shoving him into the room.

/

/TBC (tomorrow)

Sorry, I really like recurring motifs.
Also: Did you enjoy that Mariella moment, BKstories? :D