Frustrating

Rice Parker seemed to have made it his personal mission to befriend Scorpius Malfoy. Scorpius Malfoy was not amused.

Despite the impression he supposed he'd made at the feast, he didn't have a problem with Muggleborns. His father had raised him better than that. However, he also knew that most Slytherins were what had once been called "pure-blood," though the term was mostly obsolete now. And so, he knew his father would get a kick out of hearing that the first boy Scorpius had ever spoken to in Slytherin was a Muggleborn.

It wasn't Rice's blood that Scorpius minded. It was the boy's insatiable curiosity. He supposed it wasn't his fault; he was raised a Muggle after all, so he didn't have a lot of magical knowledge. But his incessant questions and awe at everything he saw around him was about to drive Scorpius off a cliff.

"Wait, so the portraits move? Like, the people in them can move around and stuff?" he'd asked yesterday, staring up at a portrait in the common room open-mouthed.

"How do they do that?" he'd asked, looking over at Scorpius. He had literally stared at the Muggleborn boy for almost a minute, shocked at his naiveté.

"It's magic," he'd managed at last, feeling stupid for even having to say it.

Rice's face had flushed instantly. "Right." And he'd walked away very fast.

Today wasn't going much better.

"Wait," Rice said, grabbing his arm. Scorpius took a deep breath, steeling himself for another stupid question. "So this game, Quidditch, you play it on brooms? Flying brooms? Like, in the air?"

"Yes," he answered, walking forward again. Rice stood there and stared into space for a moment before realizing he'd been left behind. He ran to catch up.

"Flying broomsticks? What makes them fly? How can they hold a person up?" he demanded. Scorpius gave him what he had now dubbed the 'Are you stupid?' look.

"Magic," Scorpius answered, for the thousandth time. Honestly, what other answer did the boy expect?

"But how-?"

"Look here," Scorpius interrupted, annoyed. "We are wizards, right? We have magic wands. We perform spells and charms and hexes and enchantments. We are magical. The whole world around us is magical. Quit asking me how things work. It's all the same: magic."

Rice's expression did not crumple as Scorpius had expected it to. Instead, he just stood there thoughtfully. After a long pause he looked back at Scorpius.

"I just can't believe it's real," he said. Sixteen, Scorpius checked off another imaginary tally mark in his head. Sixteen was the number of times Rice had said that same sentence since breakfast.

"Where's Albus?" he asked grumpily, hoping to pawn the overly curious Muggleborn off. Rice shrugged.

"Said something about visiting...Harvard? Hamgrid? I dunno. Whatever that means."

"Hagrid," Scorpius corrected. "He's the gamekeeper."

"Is he the giant man that brought us across the lake?" Rice asked, his face registering in awe.

Scorpius was glad he remembered something at least. "Yes," he answered shortly.

"Can we go visit him too?"

"You can," Scorpius said, hoping the boy would take the hint.

"Oh, you don't want to come?"

"Uh, no. I'm not...feeling well," Scorpius decided, bringing a hand to his stomach and attempting to look woozy. "I think I might go lay down for a bit. You should go find Albus."

Rice looked instantly concerned. "Are you alright?" Then his face brightened eagerly. "Do you have some magical illness?"

"No," Scorpius snapped. "Not every stomach ache is magic-related."

And with that he turned and walked away, not even bothering to hold his stomach anymore. Rice wouldn't notice anyway.

-o-

Scorpius relished in the empty dormitory as he lay on his bed staring up at the dark green, silver-embroidered hangings.

Hogwarts numbers had soared some five years ago or so, and as such Scorpius found himself sharing his dormitory with ten other boys. The room's size was not a problem - it was long and quite spacious (he couldn't imagine living in one of the circular tower dormitories like Gryffindor or Ravenclaw; he had no idea how they'd make those roomy enough). However, it got quite noisy at times, and it was nice to lay there in complete and utter silence for once.

Scorpius was very much looking forward to the start of classes the next day. He hoped they would have Defense Against the Dark Arts first, even though he was slightly afraid of Professor Wickham. He was said to be the toughest teacher in Hogwarts. However, Scorpius had heard from several older Slytherins that as Wickham was head of their house, they had much better chances of getting on his good side. He hoped they were right.

Hogwarts had changed a lot from the time his father had been there. For one thing, almost all of the professors who had once taught there had been replaced. From what Scorpius could observe, Professors McGonagall and Flitwick were the only ones left over from the "old days." He supposed Hagrid was still there as well, though it was strange to think of him teaching anything.

-o-

"Scorpius!"

Scorpius bit back a groan. He forced a smile onto his face as Rice came running up to him, Albus trailing behind. He should have known it wouldn't be safe to leave the common room, but he'd been so bored and had wanted to search out a few of classrooms before the next morning.

"Hey, Rice," he greeted as the brown-haired boy skidded to halt beside him. He had a huge grin on his face.

"Scorpius, guess what?"

"What?" he sighed. Over Rice's head, he glanced at Albus, who had caught up and was watching with obvious amusement in his face.

"I saw something weird sticking up out of the lake, so Albus and I went to see what it was and it was a tentacle! There's a giant squid in the lake!" Rice exclaimed, practically hopping in his excitement. Scorpius wasn't sure why this was so interesting.

"Well everyone knows that," he scoffed, barely able to keep himself from rolling his eyes.

"I didn't. It's so cool!" Rice said, not at all put off by Scorpius's less than enthusiastic welcome.

"You know where I think you need to visit, Rice?" Scorpius asked, slinging an arm around the boy's shoulders and steering him in the direction of the marble staircase. Rice looked up at him expectantly.

"I think you need to visit the library. There are these things called books, see, and they can tell you anything you need to know about magic, Hogwarts, giant squids, moving portraits, Quidditch, and anything else you don't know about. Why don't we go there?"

"The library? Why didn't I think of that?" Rice said happily, allowing Scorpius to lead him up staircases.

Scorpius honestly wasn't sure where the library was. He thought it was either on the fourth or fifth floor, and he had passed it once on one of his explorations of the castle, but he didn't remember its exact location.

"Did that suit of armor just move?" Rice asked hopefully, craning his head around as they passed the suit of armor in question. Scorpius glanced at it; it probably had, but he didn't really care.

"It's faster this way," Albus suddenly spoke up. Scorpius had forgotten he was even with them. He looked back to see the boy had paused beside the base of a staircase that had been hidden by a thick tapestry.

"Whoa, secret passageway!" Rice said excitedly, breaking away from Scorpius and hurrying back to Albus. Scorpius shrugged and followed.

Albus was right; the passageway let out almost directly across from the library. How he'd known that was beyond Scorpius, who had been exploring the castle for nearly two full days and still hadn't discovered more than two secret passageways. Maybe Albus's brother had told him.

The boys went into the library to have a look around. Albus pulled them both behind a bookshelf quickly as soon as the librarian looked up.

"My brother says she's crazy," he whispered. As though to demonstrate this, the sound of rapid footsteps came toward them, and a moment later a vulture-like woman rounded the end of the bookshelf.

"What are you three up to?" she asked suspiciously.

"Just here to look around," Rice replied good-naturedly, giving her a bright smile. She glared at him. "I've never seen a library so huge before!"

"Well don't make a racket and don't make a mess. I shall know if you do," she threatened. She very reluctantly left them, eyeing them distrustfully all the way back to her desk.

Scorpius had to agree with Rice. The library was enormous. Bookshelves towered above them in all directions, and off to the left was a winding staircase that led to an upper level balcony containing even more books and several study desks that were unoccupied.

The boys moved around, not touching anything, simply looking about them in awe. As they reached the south wall, sunlight streamed in through large windows overlooking the lake below.

Tables and chairs were scattered all over in little clumps, along with comfortable-looking armchairs. At the moment, all the chairs and tables were completely abandoned, as no one had any reason to be in the library before classes had even started, except perhaps a few over-achieving Ravenclaws.

Scorpius browsed some of the books curiously. The Malfoys had a rather large library of course - and his grandparents had an even bigger one - but he had never seen so many books in one place in his life. He realized he was in the Quidditch section after a cursory glance at some of the titles.

"Here, Rice," he called, pulling three books off the shelf: Quidditch Through the Ages, 3rd Edition; Modern Quidditch; and So You Want to Play Quidditch. He handed them to Rice, who took them all eagerly.

"And here," Albus added, appearing from around another shelf. He handed Rice two more books.

"A Modern History of Hogwarts," Rice read, taking the first one. It was enormous. The second book was entitled Magic: A Muggle's Perspective.

Rice immediately sat down in the nearest armchair and began reading. Scorpius looked at Albus, wondering what they should do.

Albus shrugged and wandered off between the shelves, still looking around. Scorpius, left with little else to do, followed.

Scorpius would not call Albus and Rice his friends. In fact, if not for Rice, Scorpius doubted he'd have even had a conversation with Albus Potter yet. As it was, the two of them still hadn't spoken more than ten words to each other at any given moment. Scorpius wondered if Albus found Rice as annoying as he did, but thought it would be rude to ask.

"He's like a child," Albus's voice suddenly spoke up from ahead of him. He was leaning on a windowsill, looking out over the lake. He looked up at Scorpius as he approached.

"Rice?" Scorpius asked, just to be sure they were on the same page. Albus nodded.

"He's worse than a child," Scorpius said, keeping his voice low. "At least they take it all for granted. I never questioned why portraits move or how broomsticks fly. I just knew they did. In fact, I didn't even know Muggles thought that was weird until I was six or seven."

"Exactly. He's just so..." Albus trailed off, looking for the right adjective.

"Frustrating?" Scorpius suggested.

"Yeah... I mean, I like him well enough. He's nice and all. I just wish he didn't ask so many questions."

Scorpius agreed. He appreciated Rice's persistence in trying to make friends and even agreed with his desire to explore the castle. If he didn't ask so many questions, Scorpius would like him a lot more.

"Maybe the books will help," Scorpius said hopefully.

-o-

The books, if anything, made things worse. Rice went from asking endless questions to spouting off endless bits of useless knowledge that Scorpius and Albus had known for years.

"Did you know that in the 1994 Quidditch World Cup, Bulgaria caught the Golden Snitch but Ireland still won? Isn't that insane?" he said one day over lunch. Scorpius, who had his nose in his potions book, didn't look up. Albus grunted acknowledgement of this fact but otherwise said nothing.

"And did you know leprechaun gold disappears? At the 1994 Quidditch World Cup, leprechauns showered everyone in gold and everyone was really excited, but then a few hours later it was all gone!" Rice continued, staring down at the fifth book he'd gone through this week concerning Quidditch, entitled Notable Quidditch World Cups Throughout History. His obsession was growing irritating.

"Fascinating," Scorpius intoned, just so the boy wouldn't feel ignored. He was just grateful Rice hadn't exclaimed over the existence of leprechauns again. Scorpius had never even given more than a few seconds' thought to leprechauns. Like everything else he'd learned as a child, he'd just accepted them without blinking.

"Ten minutes till Potions," Albus said. "I have to run to the dormitory to grab my book. See you there."

Scorpius gave him a halfhearted wave, wishing he had an excuse to leave the table as well. Instead, he continued to sit there while Rice spouted more random facts.

Scorpius had gotten used to the strange relationship he shared with Albus and Rice over the last few days. Rice continued to be in awe at everything magical, though he learned quickly and asked fewer questions as the days went on. He read an awful lot, though Scorpius dearly wished he'd do so without exclaiming over every new fact he found interesting.

Albus was quiet most of the time, but he had a dry sense of humor that reminded Scorpius of his father, and if nothing else, he really loved Quidditch. He probably knew more useless trivia than Rice did, though he had the good sense to realize no one really wanted to hear about it. He never talked about his family, other than the odd comment about something his brother had said once, which he usually referred to as being stupid or insensible. Scorpius got the distinct feeling the brothers didn't get along too well.

He still wouldn't exactly call them friends, despite Rice's obvious fondness for both him and Albus. He didn't feel any sort of real attachment to either of them and wouldn't have minded one bit if they had both suddenly decided he wasn't worth their time. He was an only child; he was used to being alone.

"C'mon Scorpius, we'll be late," Rice was saying now, closing his book and shoving it into his bag. He carried his bookbag everywhere, always pulling out reading material any time they had a break between classes.

Scorpius stood, closing his Potions textbook as he did so. He followed Rice out of the Great Hall and down the staircase leading to the dungeons. He didn't know what it was about the kid, but he was sure good at making people do what he wanted. Maybe he was just too good-natured for his own good. He'd been dragging Scorpius and Albus around the castle for days, and neither of them had ever thought twice about arguing with his wishes.

-o-

Potions was supposed to be Scorpius's best class. Both of his parents had excelled in the subject and had taken N.E.W.T. level classes. His father often brewed complex (and usually strange-smelling) concoctions at home just because he was bored, and he was always telling Scorpius how much he enjoyed the art of potion-making.

Scorpius hated Potions.

Professor Ivers was nice enough, and she was an excellent teacher and potioneer. She explained everything very well, and Scorpius perfectly understood the process of making the potion she'd just described.

He was just really bad at actually making it.

Frustrated, he pushed his hair out of his eyes and stared at his potion hopelessly. It was supposed to be a light green color, but his was a dark, ugly green and smelled strongly of bad eggs. He had no idea what he'd done wrong.

"Did you stir it clockwise before you added the lacewing flies?" Rice asked, peering into his cauldron with a wrinkled nose. Scorpius was sure he had.

"Did you take it off the flames before adding the crushed beetle eyes?" Rice asked.

Scorpius felt his face flush. He had indeed taken the cauldron off the flames, but the beetle eyes he'd added had not been crushed.

"Oh, my," Professor Ivers said with concern, looking down at Scorpius's potion. "Do you know what went wrong?"

"I forgot to crush my beetle eyes," he mumbled, embarrassed.

Professor Ivers on the other hand, smiled brightly. "Five points to Slytherin for finding your mistake," she said, taking him and half the classroom by surprise. As he stared at her, she turned to the rest of the room.

"Potion-making is an extremely subtle art. I don't expect you all to get it perfect your first go, students. Realizing you've made a mistake and recognizing that mistake is very important in elementary potion-making. Good work, Scorpius."

Scorpius worked hard the rest of class to try to remedy his mistake. By the end of the period, he had a concoction that was almost the correct color, though he hadn't been able to get rid of the smell.

He supposed Potions simply wasn't his gift. On the other hand, he'd just earned five points for Slytherin.

"Scorpius, wait up!"

He sighed inwardly. There was no escaping him.

A/N: That was way longer than I meant it to be, but I got on a roll and just couldn't stop. So now we've met Scorpius. We're going to take a break from Albus and co. for a few chapters to revisit James and his friends, but don't worry, we'll come back and find out just what happened to change Scorpius's opinion of Rice and Albus.

By the way, Scorpius got it wrong: there are several other teachers and staff memebers left over from the canon Harry Potter era, including Professors Vector, Sinistra and Babbling - teachers of Arithmancy, Astronomy and Study of Ancient Runes, respectively. Also, Trelawney still lurks up in her tower and Firenze continues to teach in his ground floor classroom, sharing the Divination classes between the two of them. Madams Pomfrey and Pince also still inhabit Hogwarts. If you were paying attention last chapter, you noticed I replaced Filch though. He's too awful for me.