A/N: This is a very late chapter. I know, I know. Things have been so hectic with me, and now, finally they calmed down. They should be calm (hopefully amazing!) until the end of the summer. So this short story should soon be done, especially since it really only has 2-3 more parts. I also owe everyone the last chapter of my H/D fic, if you're following that I have not forgotten. I am 90% done with that chapter, but things were really crazy lately, and when I started my new job AND school it became one fanfic or the other. Never again will I do two fanfics at once, that's a big Ravenclawish mistake to make. I really thought I could have both stories done by the end of spring break but then I got a job and now I am sharing too much info, please feel free to scroll along-

But don't forget to review. Thanks everyone!

Part Nine:

After Scorpius left, Albus stayed behind in his cottage for a few moments, idly staring at the wall of signatures. The urge to down both drinks was great. The urge to snoop through Scorpius' things was even greater.

What had Albus said again?

Something about Scorpius being a follower and not a leader. Gods- he had meant it in jest, he had meant to be funny, but as soon as he had said it, he had realized that it was something that someone like Scorpius Malfoy would not find amusing. Scorpius had spent his life trying to be different from everyone else, even if he wouldn't admit that out loud. His father was very to-the-Manor-born, and Scorpius saved lives for a living. Malfoys sorted Slytherin; and Scorpius sorted Gryffindor. Albus had thought that their rebellious streak would be the way they could connect, but it seemed it wasn't-

Scorpius had rebelled by becoming extraordinary in a family slinking back into tradition, and Albus had rebelled by being boring in an extraordinary family.

And yet-

And yet, Scorpius fancied him. Fancied him enough to kiss him. Fancied him enough to snog him more than once; enough to write him all week. Albus had saved the notes. They were silly little things, written on scraps of torn parchment- some were about Lily's party and the decorations and the band, others deviated from the script and went off into Scorpius' day. Sometimes Scorpius would just sign them simply see you tomorrow S. or Floo me when you're at home.

Albus sighed heavily, tearing a hand through his thick, messy mane. He wasn't quite sure what his issue was, exactly. Every sign, every indication pointed to the fact that Albus and Scorpius were building something out of their flirtation. It was what he wanted. It was what he had dreamed about; crawling under his green Slytherin duvet with his pants down; hoarding photos of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team. And yet, Albus felt the need to dig under Scorpius' skin. He didn't know why, but he did. It went beyond the House rivalry facade, and into something else. Something more profound.

Perhaps it was the fact that Albus couldn't shake Scorpius' composure.

Maybe it was that bloody Auror training. But that didn't make sense. Albus could always rile his father with an eye roll, and Jamie with a snide remark; and they were trained to be unflappable. It could be due to the fact that Scorpius was a Pureblood and raised differently; but Albus had been in Slytherin, and he had been able to crack quite a few facades over time. In the end, Scorpius was just different.

It made him maddening. Fascinating. And it also made him a bit suspect. Perhaps that was part of the allure. Someone who was available, but not accessible.

Albus knew instinctively that he should probably leave well enough alone. After his mother died, Albus had piled up his own secrets. The fall out with his father; the months he had stayed with his Aunt Hermione to avoid going home. He had his own wounds that had hadn't healed, from years of toeing the Potter line. Maybe whatever Scorpius spoke in circles around had to do with his family; maybe it had to do with some bloke in the Ministry that he was covering for out of fear of reprisal- either way, Albus knew that he should leave the ward alone.

But he wasn't going to.

If Scorpius was going to be his, Albus wanted to know. And part of knowing meant knowing the competition, even if the competition was an elusive concept.

In the end, Albus looked over Scorpius' sitting room. It was just the sitting room, he reasoned to himself. Albus didn't touch anything much, and he didn't go into the bedroom or outside to the grounds. Just the sitting room.

Scorpius didn't have much in the cottage. No books really. Albus had always sworn growing up that he would never date a wizard who wasn't well read, but that was ridiculous, and of course it tempted Fortuna. The only books on the table were two trashy knut-store fantasy novels, and a Trainee manual written by Uncle Ron- the foreword, of course, by the famed Head Auror Harry Potter.

As if Uncle Ron wasn't capable of writing a Ministry pamphlet on his own.

Albus took a turn around the cottage. There was nothing else left around; the cottage was pristine. A pair of muddy boots. Their drinks. A wireless. The Floo. Albus paused. He ought to leave. The guilt was beginning to burn past his Slytherin curiosity.

Albus gathered himself and strode toward the Floo. But as he made his way there, he paused. Right by the Floo was a small, unobtrusive black banish bin. Albus stared at it. It was madness. Looking through someone's rubbish- the objects they had set aside to banish-

Albus winced. He stopped and strode back again. The bin was empty. The guilt burned through him now like a lance. He had looked through Scorpius' trash like a common thief- like a fishwitch spying on her wayward husband. He had truly lost his mind. Perhaps it was true what they said about Slytherins-

No. There was something there.

Albus reached inside. It was a small glass vial; the kind that his mother used to receive in packages all the time from St. Mungo's. Albus, she used to whisper, her lips cracked from the acidic brews, tell me a story.

Albus sucked in a breath.

S.H. Malfoy the bottle read. For Chronic Pain.

Albus didn't hear from Scorpius the next day. He didn't expect to, considering what he had said in between their snogs, and the way they had parted; but it would have been nice in a ideal, Hufflepuffian paradise. Albus thought of writing Scorpius, but he didn't know what to say. I didn't steal anything from your cottage, sounded funny and like something a cocky Gryffindor might send. I ransacked your sitting room because I've fancied you since I was twelve, was truthful, but it might get his Uncle Ron over to deliver a restraining ordinance. Hello, was too short to convey his feelings; and Albus couldn't say I'm sorry, because he was a Slytherin.

These were the excuses Albus gave himself every time the impulse to write came to him. But of course, he didn't really need an excuse to keep him from putting nub to parchment. Doing so would admit culpability, and that was something that a Slytherin only did upon pain of death.

So Albus didn't write. Albus didn't write anything at all that morning, actually. He didn't write the tailors to ask why his dress robes weren't ready for his fitting. He didn't write the Herbalist back to see about the flower arraignments, and Albus didn't certainly didn't write or Floo that Seer that Scorpius kept insisting would be a great diversion for the party.

Instead of handling his life like a responsible wizard, and salvaging his chance for a relationship with Scorpius Malfoy, Albus went for a walk. He took as long a walk as he could in the wizard park nearby his flat, which wasn't very far indeed. Halfway through his walk, Albus getting up the idea to jog, when a photographer from the Prophet snapped his arse as he bent over to do up his trainer's laces with his wand. Which meant that Albus' bum would be in the society column. Albus wouldn't mind, really- if the bloody, sodding, shagging paper would print one of his stories. Just one.

But why print a story when a photo was worth a thousand words, Albus thought grimly.

Albus was about to walk right back home- to not working and not writing Scorpius Malfoy, but being photographed unaware propelled his mind from his state of inaction to a state of action. Slytherins always worked the best against an impossible force, and Albus Potter was no exception. Instead, Albus walked right home. He was going to tidy his flat, and then he was going to the green grocer, and he was going to buy something suitable for human consumption. Then he was going to cook it, and if Scorpius wasn't busy he was going to spend the meal trying his hand at wit-

Albus looked up at the sun. It was high in the afternoon sky; hidden behind a thin film of clouds. For London, it was pretty much the equivalent of a perfect, sunny day, despite the cold weather. Albus wasn't an optimist, but he felt better already. He Apparated back.

Albus had really only planned to slide through his wards, and quickly grab a small sack of gold that he kept hidden away for use on errands. Instead, his eyes fell on a thick note on Ministry vellum.

Al-

I haven't written. I'm such a git sometimes. Can you Floo through the Ministry? I've got to ask you a favor and I can't come by myself later tonight- Jamie and I are going to see the Quidditch quarter-finals.

SHM.

PS- You should have your dad do up your wards, they're shit.

The ceiling was humming. Albus ignored the urge to look up. When he was a child, he had been fascinated by the way that the parchment birds took flight with the slightest of charms, carrying messages across the Ministry. Sometimes, when he had been especially tolerant of James' insults and Lily's pranks, his mum would let him go to work with his dad. While Jamie was busy trying to out-duel the trainees, and Lily was trying on the high heels of the witches who worked in the front desk, Albus would fold his father's paper cranes. James found it boring, and Lily was too small to get the creases right, but Al loved it.

He got to read everything, and his father didn't care. His father encouraged him, and was proud. Once in a while, even Uncle Ron came in to see Albus, still at his desk; folding nearly-identical birds with the precision of a Muggle machine.

"He'd make a better Auror then the lot of us," Uncle Ron muttered once, proudly. "At least his scrolls would be handed in on time."

Albus couldn't remember his father's response, but what he could recollect was the sensation of warmth- like hot cocoa sipped on the coldest of days. So it must have been something positive.

The doors of the lift slid open, and a few witches slid out. A draft of cold air blasted the tiny, rising room, dispelling the memory. Albus tensed, his lip curling. He had very few positive memories about his childhood with his father. And they all had to do with before.

Before his mother had- had-

The doors of the lift opened again. This was Albus' floor. He stepped off and his whole body seemed to tense. Everyone was either dressed in red robes, or in the long, body-hugging practice uniform that was fashioned out of black cotton, and weathered dragon-hide. They all looked the same, whether they were trainees, or Albus' own family members. Aurors all seemed to have that same sort of tense, narrowed-eyed expression-that hawk-like gaze that attempted to see where scrying could not. The air was always frantic here. Albus loathed the feeling of it all.

The floor opened from a long hallway of administrative offices to a circular set of small offices, cubicles really, which surrounded the bullpen where everyone seemed to continuously filter for exercise. Albus wondered how anyone concentrated in their offices when the noise of the bullpen was not charmed out in any way.

Perhaps that was some of the allure, Albus thought grimly, wincing as someone moaned, falling to their knees in defeat. That sounded like something else, entirely.

"Albus Potter," A voice chirped into Albus' thoughts and he tensed again. "Remember me?"

Albus didn't. It was a pleasant enough looking witch, dressed in burgundy dress robes, accompanied with a white lace collar. She was young; she even looked too young to be a Ministry official in any sense of the phrase, but obviously she was. Why was it that every single Potter obsessive thought that Albus recognized him from the days his mum levitated him around next to Lily? Or was she another of Jamie's desperate little flings-

"I-" Albus had no idea how to let witches down gently. He winced. Was the day getting better? Merlin, he felt as though he was being tortured by an overly precise Ravenclaw.

"Oh look-" the anonymous witch cried. "Here comes your dad! Auror Potter, sir! Auror Potter, sir!"

"You don't have to do that," Albus hissed, horrified. Somewhere in this sea of admittedly attractive, straight wizards- who were, of course, employed by his father- was Scorpius. Albus suddenly felt sixteen all over again, although he could no longer affect the precise cool that Albus tried for in Slytherin. Now Albus had gotten to close now to the source of it all, and there was no turning back. He knew things he couldn't have imagined six years ago. He knew the way Scorpius yawned when he was really tired, versus the way he yawned when Albus was being a tremendous bore, for example. Albus knew about the wall in Scorpius' cottage, and the pain potion.

He knew the way Scorpius tasted-

"Al," It was his father, walking toward them, with the whole of the Auror department watching as he strode. Harry Potter in the flesh, standing right before me-Albus snorted sarcastically to himself, as though he had a dizzy maiden narrating in his thoughts. Merlin me, fetch me my smelling salts.

And yet, Albus couldn't help but think back to his childhood. When James, Lily, and Albus had been little they had all worshipped at the wreckage of their father's altar, just like everyone else. On the rare days that their dad hadn't worked late at the Ministry; James and Lily would queue up at the front gate, desperate to show off any little talent that they had learned in the last few days. Lily would take out all her dresses, and robes and model them, and Dad would critique, like on the wireless fashion shows. Jamie would always play Auror with Dad, just like the model son he pretended to be. Finally, when their father had exhausted all of his energy on Lily and Jamie, he would shuffle toward Albus' room.

Albus would be reading, usually, and the conversation was always stilted. Sometimes Albus would sit in the darkness staring into space, too resentful to come downstairs.

As Albus got older, his father's trips up the stairs became less and less frequent.

"Oh I know, it's the report," Dad continued, standing close to Albus' side as the conversation flew along without him. Albus glowered- some things never changed. Harry Potter loved to play happy families, but Albus was quite sure that even if they were locked in a room together, they wouldn't have a word to say to one another- good or ill. Deira- whoever she was- tittered inanely, barely forming consonants. Albus bit back the urge to roll his eyes. The girl was saying nothing really, but the way she was tossing her hair, and smoothing her robes spoke volumes. Albus scowled at her. James and Lily had always made short work of whatever bint had tried to stick around their father longer than a week- and whenever the witches tried to befriend Albus out of frustration, he'd simply freeze them out.

Finally the cow left, a little more downtrodden than before.

"Al," Dad said grandly, as if the one word spoken majestically would cover up the fact he had nothing else to say to Albus. "You look good. Been dueling at the new gymnasium? Some of the trainees find it really increases skill- I bet it could do the same for creativity."

Albus narrowed his eyes, though he didn't say anything. His father had said that entire complimentary speech in the way some of Albus' married cousins spoke to him through the Floo. In fact, it was fairly dripping with false brightness and this too shall Apparate.

"I don't fly and I have remarkably little depth perception for someone with perfect vision," Al finally muttered- when his sense of outrage had passed. "Remember? I'm that son."

Something glinted his father's eyes. Check, the smallest part of Albus hissed triumphantly in his mind.

"I know who you are, Al," Dad clipped out a sigh. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Albus smiled evenly, surveying the landscape- if it could be called that. In one corner, a bulky male sparred with a slim witch in a practice uniform. Albus frowned at the disparity in their weights, never mind the fact they were of different sexes- but he was fairly certain that lodging a protest would only make him more unpopular with his family.

Dad raised an eyebrow while narrowing his eyes and Albus continued, "I'm here to see Sc-Malfoy. He wrote me. Something about Lily's party."

The sentences were vague, distant. Curt. Safe. Across the room a few male voices shouted out obscenities in camaraderie, but Albus ignored them. His father was looking him down, carefully. Evenly. As though he was a suspect, Albus couldn't help but huff to himself.

"I heard," Dad continued lightly. "That you were helping Malfoy plan a party for your sister. It's really kind of you, Al. Putting everything aside."

I heard your planning something, Albus interpreted loudly and clearly. He lowered his gaze awkwardly to the ground. One of his shoes, his best brown loafers, was undone. Check, to his father.

"Hello, hello," It was Scorpius. He came striding across the bullpen, and with an Auror's lucky grace, leapt over one of the one of the charmed blocks that had been levitated over by a group of trainees for an obstacle course. Scorpius was wearing Muggle sweats and a t-shirt, instead of a practice uniform. Albus cursed himself. If he hadn't been so callous regarding Scorpius' career before, then he might have felt a bit less flustered admiring the pull of the fabric against Scorpius' chest.

"I'm interrupting something," Scorpius asked Albus' father. Albus tried not to say anything deliberately incendiary- this was Auror territory, and in it, Harry Potter was king. Kings always were addressed first. "Aren't I? I'll go over there and face the wall, erect a muffling charm, and hum very loudly until you're both done."

Dad adjusted his glasses. "Not at all, Malfoy, don't be mad. I'm off to my office since Albus has found you. You owe me parchment before you leave tonight, don't forget to see me before you leave with Jamie. I'll talk you later, Al."

"Everybody owes somebody something," Scorpius hummed to himself. It was part of a hook from a Weird Sisters song- Albus filed that away as new information about Scorpius. Possible Weird Sisters fan. "Hi, Al."

"Hello," Albus felt his cheeks flush. Idiotic bodily reactions. "You said to come."

"And you came," Scorpius grinned, looking Albus' body over in the manner Al hadn't dared. "Well, in the traditional sense."

Albus frowned deeply and Scorpius smiled again-rakishly, as if it would clear away his naughtiness. "I was wondering if you could call up a few venues. For the party. You see, the issue is when a Malfoy gets on the Floo, halls and pubs suddenly find themselves booked with weddings for the next hundred years."

"Of course," Albus nodded. This was a common issue in Slytherin, and the children of the families who had been neutral, or on the light side, often helped the others. For a price, anyway- it was Slytherin, after all.

"Great," Scorpius paused for a moment. Across the bullpen, a group whooped enthusiastically, and Albus flinched at the noise. "About yesterday- I should have Floo'd."

"I could have done as well," For Albus, this was as close to an apology as he ever gave without buying a gift. I went through your things. I don't deserve whatever this is.

"Are you busy tomorrow?" Across the room someone shouted- Malfoy! "Or what about Friday night?"

"Friday," That gave Albus more time to prepare. And hopefully gave Scorpius more time to miss him. "I think you'd better go. Your friends are calling you-"

"They're not my friends," Scorpius laughed carelessly, walking away, then he turned around to walk the rest of the way backwards, to continue talking to Albus. "They're colleagues and wankers. Bye, Al!"

Scorpius winked at him before turning away again; sauntering out of sight. Albus stared, completely knocked off balance.

Checkmate.