Hufflepuff had never been this rough. After escaping a remarkable bludger assault, Albus flew high above the pitch to catch his breath. He knew all of these students off the pitch and they were the nicest, most mild people he knew, but somehow their new captain had turned them into the most aggressive team Albus had faced yet.
He looked down and scanned the field. He'd only caught a brief glimpse of the snitch a while ago, but he'd been busy dodging the beaters and trying to stay out of his own chasers' way. The score wasn't good either. The Hufflepuff keeper had been deflecting all of Slytherin's shots, and they were down by 70.
It took him a while to orient himself, but after a few minutes, Albus descended, scanning the pitch. Faces in the stands came into focus, and in the middle of a crowd of green-clad students he saw Scorpius' platinum blonde head. Even from a distance, he could see that Scropius' attention had followed him, not the rest of the game.
He was just thinking that he needed to make sure he mentioned this later when, in his periphery, Albus saw a flash of gold.
He didn't think, he just followed. The snitch was yards ahead of him, but the sunny day let him follow the gold glimmer at a decent pace. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only person chasing it. In his periphery, Albus saw a streak of yellow, and he lay himself down flat on his broom to gain speed. Specks of green and yellow in the distance neared, and he heard yelling - some from his teammates, and some from voices he didn't even recognize.
Albus didn't process them. He didn't even think about them - he just focused on the snitch, and on the posts as he neared the goals. The snitch was headed straight for them, and he dodged the tallest one as the snitch weaved around it and back towards the one to the right.
He heard his name yelled. He ignored it. Catch the snitch and win the game.
Catch the snitch.
Scorpius pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked through his binoculars. Even if his eyesight were better, he wouldn't be able to see the action all the way at the other end of the arena. He watched as Albus followed the snitch, the Hufflepuff seeker, Greengrass, close behind. He watched as the rest of the teams converged on that end of the pitch, and he watched as Albus dodged the goalpost to chase the snitch around another one.
He watched as Albus' gloved hand reached out to grab the snitch and he heard Maggie Goyle's screech above the rest of the crowd and the players, and he watched as a bludger collided with Albus' shoulder, throwing him from his broom and into the goalpost. The sound of his body hitting the metal reverberated throughout the stadium as a hush fell, but not as quickly as Albus did.
Scorpius couldn't breathe, and time slowed down as he watched Albus' robes whip around him in the air as he fell. He gripped the wooden railing of the stands in fear as he watched Madam Hooch react from her broom above the pitch, slowing Albus' descent so that he came to a survivable halt in the sand below, creating a cloud of dust with the impact.
Scorpius didn't know what to do. He dug his nails into the railing, breathing hard and staring, unblinking as all the players hit the ground hard. He couldn't tell if his heart was racing or if it had stopped, but he knew the sensation well - it was that of being out of place in time, just like using a time turner.
He watched the colors move as the binoculars slipped from his fingers to the floor of the stands. Green figures converged on one of the yellow ones as faculty members raced from their seats to the ground.
McGonagall's voice boomed over the stands, telling students to stay where they were, but Scorpius was already moving, pushing his way through the crowd. The Slytherins let him pass, and he caught Pucey's eye as he pushed his way through.
He must have looked mad or terrified, because Pucey reacted immediately.
"Let us through!"
Pucey, who was a head shorter than both Scorpius and Albus but was stalky and powerful, grabbed Scorpius by the shoulder and together, they pushed through the crowd until they reached a stairwell.
Pucey repeatedly cursed as they rushed down the stairs, his voice echoing in the small space.
"What was he thinking with that bludger? Blimey, Marcus is never playing Quidditch ever again after this."
"Did you see him moving?" Scorpius spoke before he could think to steady his voice. It was shaking nearly as bad as his hands. "Was he moving on the ground? I-I couldn't see."
Pucey stopped and looked up at him from a few steps below. If that much worry was etched across Pucey's face, Scorpius couldn't imagine what his own expression was like. Feeling was flooding back to his fingertips and his face all at once, and he realized his face was damp with tears too late to wipe them away.
"I'm sure he's going to be fine, mate," said Pucey. "But we need to go see for ourselves."
Scorpius nodded and ran with Pucey down the remaining flights of stairs, and they burst through the door that led directly to the grass at the center of the pitch. Pucey took off at a run to cover the distance to the end of the pitch, but Scorpius was faster. Once he was in sight of where Albus lay, his legs moved at a pace he'd never experienced. He was imagining all sorts of injuries - broken arms and legs and ribs and bruises across Albus' face - ones he heal with a simple spell.
He might not even be able to get near him.
McGonagall was standing between three Slytherin players - Goyle included, and the Hufflepuff beater Scorpius assumed was responsible. The tone of her voice was clear - she wanted to hex the Hufflepuff herself, but couldn't just let the Slytherins have him. To his credit, Marcus looked appropriately upset at what had happened.
"I just hit the bludger. There was so much happening - I didn't realize..."
It was all fragments to Scorpius, who pushed past students and faculty alike. He knocked Professor Flitwick over and knew he should apologize, but that intuition was superseded by something far more powerful.
Scorpius shoved his way through the last row of people and finally saw him. Albus lay in the sand; his green robes twisted around his body. A gash in his thigh had soaked his beige pants with blood, and his arm lay at an odd angle, disjointed at the shoulder.
Madam Pomfrey knelt beside Albus and bent over him. Scorpius approached from the other side, cautiously. His heart seemed to slow down, unlike before when it was pounding, and he felt his fingers and ears go numb again.
"Pomona," said Madam Pomfrey, turning to Professor Sprout who leaned on her cane nearby. "Contact the Potters. Tell Ginny and Harry that he'll be okay, but that they need to get here."
Scorpius stared down at Albus and his broken body, feeling eyes on him. His classmates and friends were there, and he had to shove his hands in his pockets as he knelt down beside Albus. It's hard, Scorpius found, to keep your hands to yourself when someone you love is...
Someone you love.
"Albus, can you hear me?"
Albus' breath shuddered, and Scorpius, who had slept in the bed beside Albus' for years, realized that wasn't his unconscious face. His eyes were shut tight in a grimace, and his lips were pressed together hard. Scorpius leaned forward, hovering over him.
"Albus?"
"I can hear you," Albus groaned through gritted teeth. "Unfortunately."
"Just hang in there," Scorpius said quietly. Everyone around them was talking and muttering, and he was sure no one could hear him, but even if they did, what did it matter? Would anyone have expected him not to have run to his best friend's side? He placed his hand on Albus' uninjured shoulder. "I can see them coming with the stretcher now. Just hold on, okay?"
Albus' breathing was labored, but he found the energy to grip Scorpius' arm tight while biting down on his own lip so hard that it bled. Albus' fingers dug into Scorpius' bicep hard enough that he knew he'd have a bruise later, but he didn't care.
Scorpius stayed with Albus, gripping his shoulder and trying not to focus on the blood and pain until Professors Sinistra and Vector arrived with the stretcher levitated between them.
"They're going to have to move you now. It's going to hurt."
"Really?" Albus grunted. He turned his head a bit to look at Scorpius out of the corner of his eye. "Damn, I was hoping this was going to be fun."
"Just like his father," said Professor McGonagall, pulling out her wand. "Move back, Malfoy."
Scorpius gave Albus' shoulder one last squeeze before standing up. McGonagall and Vector raised their wands on either side of Albus and, after just a moment, he began to slowly rise off the ground as if cradled by an invisible net.
Albus let out a noise that Scorpius had never heard, and hoped he'd never hear again. It sounded like his own voice when he'd been under the Cruciatus curse - a sound that sometimes cropped up in his less-than-enjoyable dreams - but deeper and more guttural. Albus silenced himself by gritting his teeth again as they laid him on the stretcher, and Scorpius prayed that he would pass out, but he knew Albus was too stubborn for that.
He moved to follow alongside McGonagall as they took Albus to the hospital wing, but she held up her hand to stop him.
"You better stay here, Malfoy," she said, her voice sympathetic. "Let Madam Pomfrey do her work."
Scorpius tore his eyes from Albus as Professor Vector and Madam Pomfrey levitated him back towards the castle quickly but cautiously.
Scorpius stayed rooted in his spot as the crowd began to dissipate, with Flint and Pucey stalking Marcus as Professor Flitwick escorted him back to the castle.
Albus was in ten kinds of pain, he knew, and even though Madam Pomfrey was the finest healer he'd met, it wasn't enough to take the weight off of his chest. Albus was hurt and there was nothing he could do about it.
This wasn't a problem he could solve with a wave of his wand or some time in the library. It wasn't something he could fix with a time turner - which he'd used the last time he'd been this devastated.
"Scorpius?"
He jumped at the sound of his name, pulled from his reverie. Ainsley Greengrass, Quidditch robes hanging from her arm, was standing beside him.
Scorpius often forgot that Ainsley was his second cousin. Her side of the Greengrass family had held on to the old pureblood ways when Draco and Astoria had divested. Despite being one of the most pureblood witches in the school, Ainsley had been sorted into the house least known for its lineage discrimination - an irony that never escaped Scorpius.
"Ainsley. Hello."
Even his voice sounded distant and stunned. Ainsley frowned with concern, and Scorpius had to look away. She looked just like his Aunt Daphne - which was to say, just like his mother.
"Are you okay? I know you and Albus are close."
"He's my best friend," said Scorpius, shuffling his feet as if trying to break them free from whatever was holding him there. "I'm just concerned is all. And I hate the sight of blood. It makes me queasy."
This was a lie.
"Do you want me to walk with you back to the castle? You look pale. I mean... paler than normal."
Scorpius thought for a moment and then nodded.
"Yeah. Thank you."
She smiled and slipped her arm through his, and it struck him for the first time that maybe Ainsley wasn't like her parents at all. Maybe she was more like his mother, who was kind and open, and who didn't believe in the superiority of bloodlines, and he was all at once ashamed of himself for not having considered once that his cousin was worth getting to know.
As they walked back toward the castle, Scorpius saw a streak of blood in the sand where Albus had fallen, and though he looked away quickly, the bright red smear was burned into his eyes.
