Title: Ardor Animorum

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/James Sirius Potter

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

Warnings: original characters; slash, non-consensual situations

To Olive: Thank you for your review! I'm glad my story brightens your day :) Also: Good thing people still get these references. I've recently met a bunch of teenagers who had never heard of the movie and it just made me so, so sad. Like, what is it their parents are even doing?

And thanks to ihrtryoma for reviewing!

Let's get to the next chapters now. Remember how we took a (skipping) step forward in the last one...?

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Chapter 6

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"... and McCarthy just went nuts, nuts I tell you. Threw a dancing jinx around, trying to hit her, but hit Flitwick instead-"

Shrew's tale of a certain Charms lesson caused much more amusement than it should have, which undoubtedly had to do with the tankards of firewhiskey in everyone's hands. The narrator himself wasn't seventeen yet for another three weeks, so they had opted for the old place on the logs near the Shrieking Shack again. This time, there were two kegs of whiskey, because in addition to what Shrew had dubbed 'the original five', there were Brice Parkinson, his even more annoying twin sister Briony, her slightly less annoying Ravenclaw friend Emma Bell, and Constance's hopefully-soon-to-be boyfriend Alfie Ashton, a Ravenclaw who was only in fifth year but already at least a head taller than all the other boys in the round and built like a wardrobe.

Also, this time, there would be no sighting of James Potter and Sarah Halberman walking together like two lovers on the boulevard. Scorpius sipped his whiskey and felt its warmth in his belly, being content with exactly where he was right now.

"You know, I get it now. A little. I think," Mariella suddenly murmured to him while the others were still raptly listening to Shrew. He was just getting started on his Flitwick-under-Tarantallegra- impersonation. Briony Parkinson was already honking with laughter.

"Get what?" Scorpius asked, muttering as well although he didn't know why yet.

"Him," she said. When he looked nonplussed, she added, "You know, him. You and him."

He nodded slightly, just to let her know that he knew who she was talking about, and nipped on his drink again. The warmth got several degrees warmer.

"I'm not drunk yet, you know?" Mariella slapped his leg in a Don't you dare ignore me-fashion. "I'm serious. I think I get it."

Scorpius sighed. He doubted it – both of her statements, actually, given that he had seen a full glass of firewhiskey disappear down her stomach already, and that was only when he'd been looking. Then again, that whole thing with him seemed to be one of those things you only had a chance of 'getting' at all when drunk. So maybe it was worth a shot to get a load of slightly stocious Mariella's wisdom. "What is it, then?"

"It's something I observed during The Lesson," she said philosophically, referring to the one potions lesson Potter had given with audible capital letters. "You know, how he moves, and talks, and stuff he says and how he says it."

He frowned at her. She bumped him with her shoulder.

"Don't get me wrong, I still think it's... like, totally not okay." She mimicked a disgusted shudder and grimaced. "But I can see the logic behind it."

Closely watching the others and making sure that no one was listening in, he said, "Really?"

"Really really," she said gravely. "It's because you're like the first variation of him."

That made him lift an eyebrow. Mariella Evelyn Lawless, using a metaphor from potions? She was obviously a lot more drunk than she thought. "Uhm, how so?"

"Like, you're the first base potion, and he's the finished product," Mariella told him earnestly, gesturing with her free hand. "You already have the same traits and you both would work just fine, same effect and all. So far, so good. But he has the outward appearance and the... the reputation you want. But since you're not entirely stupid, you have come to understand, in your heart, that, only if you mix... uh, mix with him, you'll adopt all the good traits from him and become..." She pondered for a second. "A full-value... potion... and more than you were before."

"Uh-huh," he replied and watched with a slightly forced grin as Shrew fell backwards off his log during his theatre play. The idea that James Potter was the one, the only one, forever, and that no one else would ever do... it made him uneasy inside and made the warmth turn into something more unpleasant.

"I'm serious," Mariella said again, apparently unwilling to let it rest. "You're basically jealous of him but at least you've understood that you need to be with him."

"That sounds somewhat retarded of me," he said tightly.

Mariella grinned smugly. "That's what love is, innit?" She leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed. "If you want to be technical about it, jealousy's only just love that's been infused with anger, really. Blinded by anger so that they think their own house will become as nice as the other dude's when they tear his house down. You want to be him, and that's why you feel you need to be with him, because only when you're with him, you can be like him, savvy? And that's... that's actually quite okay because he's really quite bright, you know? Head full of potion-y stuff, much like you already, can't be blamed for that, I guess. And so polite that it comes across as arrogance, but then he also has that... that poise. And stuff. Good stuff. Still a huge, bloated prick and totally overrated, but there's some substance at least. To, you know, to complement you, and shit."

She sighed again while Scorpius silently wondered why he himself couldn't have phrased all of that any better. Even when sober. Must be a female thing.

Gazing into her tankard, Mariella seemed to realise that she had just complimented James Potter. She grimaced. "Ugh. You know, maybe I am drunk."

"You don't say," he said and laughed quietly.

"'Your equation can vary on both sides and still come out right in the end,'" she quoted, slurring the words a tiny bit, and clicked their tankards together.

For some reason, Scorpius perfectly understood what she meant with that, and it made him a little wistful. "Or at least not wrong," he said and took deep swigs of whiskey until it seemed like a good idea to sing along with Shrew and Prince.

/

"Macmillan!" he barked at the new seeker. "Would you please focus on your task! I can see you twiddling your thumbs up there!"

She probably didn't deserve the harsh tone, especially since she was, by and far, the player who had screwed up the fewest things during this training session so far.

"Sorry, chief!" she called back with her helium-infused voice that belied her physical strength. "We've got ourselves a pair of spies!" He followed the nod of her chin toward the base of the spectators' stands.

From all the way up here, it should have been hard to say who it was down there, huddled in raincoats against the late October rain and wind. But Scorpius had been looking at that pretty, fair hair of hers way too often – she had persistently been sitting next to Potter every morning when he was there at all – so he recognised her.

"It's just Sullivan. Looks like some teacher or prefect is showing her around," he said loudly enough for Tallis Macmillan to hear. "Now get back to your damn task!"

"Aye, chief!" she squeaked and resumed her rounds looking for the golden snitch, although she glanced down at the visitors from time to time.

Scorpius ended the training ten minutes early but added a lengthy tirade about morale and dedication which his team took in with downcast eyes, stony silence and tiny nods. Frustrated and tired, soaked by rain and chilled to the marrow, they all decided to use the showers in the changing rooms instead of hiking back to the castle and catching a cold on the way.

The hot water washed the chief-dom and the harangue away, and soon Scorpius was just a fellow Slytherin again. It was relieving. Being the boss just wasn't really his preferred state, he had realised. But at least it put him in a position to decide not to train using the cones.

"Hey, did you see the two gawkers?" Spencer Creevey, a fourth year who had got Lloyd Christopher's chaser position, asked no one in particular from the stall right next to his.
"Sullivan," Scorpius answered, squirting shampoo into his hair.

"And Weasley," Brice Parkinson answered from the stall on the far side, confirming Scorpius' assumption that it had been a prefect showing the new teacher around. "Spying for the Gryffindorks, no doubt, the little-"

"The only thing she's going to be able to report is that the Slytherins are playing Quidditch as if they'd never done it before in their lives, Parkinson," Scorpius groused. Thankfully, it made Parkinson shut up.

"Sullivan is a pretty little thing, though, isn't she?" Daniel Thomas said from the stall by the door, also not addressing anyone but rather just putting it out there. "Doesn't look like a teacher at all, you know? More like a model or something."

"If you rather want her, you're going to have to move quickly, Dan," came Gemma Reedy's voice through the vent that connected the boys' and the girls' showers.

"That's no- That's not what I meant at all, Gemma!" Thomas called nervously. "You know I- I'd never...!"

"Seriously, though," Parkinson interrupted the start of Daniel Thomas' and Gemma Reedy's relationship crisis. "Sullivan is going out with Potter already. There's none of us that would stand a chance." Then, louder, he added, "You hear that, Reedy? Daniel here totally knows that Sullivan is out of his league. And way too old anyway. It was just an entirely neutral observation!"

Scorpius had stopped scrubbing his hair. Soap suds were running into his eyes and made them burn. "With Potter? She's- uhm, going out with him?"

"Yup," Parkinson answered cheerfully. "Saw them meself, last Sunday in Hogsmeade, just afore we met up with you and Lawless and the rest. Showed her Madam Puddifoot's an' all that. You know it's serious when you take 'em to Madam Puddifoot's."

"Dan, why haven't we ever been to Madam Puddifoot's?" Gemma's voice came through the vent again. Thomas just spluttered.

Scorpius tuned their voices out and hurried to rinse the soap from his body and get out of this room.

Ironically, when he came into the changing room wearing a towel around his waist and his hair still a little soapy, there was a small grey owl sitting squat on his duffel bag. The note in its beak only read 'Come asap. Bring mop & bucket'.

/TBC

'Tie optional.'

On to the next chapter!