DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling.
4 years ago
"You know, Potter, even if you stare at me for a whole afternoon, my Potions essay will not Transfigure into yours in the morning."
"Thank you for worrying about me, but I have my own essay source."
"That wasn't what I meant, Potter."
"Do you like my last name? You seem to be saying it a lot."
"I wouldn't like your last name even if it could save my life."
"You seem very passionate. It's okay though, Dad says passion is important."
"Get on with it, Potter, what do you want?"
Albus tilts his head, considering.
"You are Scorpius Malfoy."
And so, Albus Potter speaks to Scorpius Malfoy for the first time one afternoon in the Hogwarts library.
The boy facing him sneers unpleasantly, "I should like to think that I know my own name, Potter. Tell me what you want or leave."
The first thing that Albus notices about Scorpius Malfoy is that he sneers, a lot. Albus has never particularly liked to smile with one side of his mouth, it feels strange and He never does it, but then again, perhaps Scorpius Malfoy finds convoluting his face enjoyable. Albus ponders for a moment on this rather unique feature of the boy in front of him, who by now has lifted his eyes off the parchment and is staring at him with one raised eyebrow.
Albus sees that he has awfully deep trench-lines on his forehead that are even more pronounced than His.
On second thought, looking at his eyes, the first thing that Albus notices about Scorpius Malfoy is how washed-out he is.
Everything about Scorpius Malfoy is pale, from his white hair that is too light to be called white-blond to his waxy skin to his eyes that would be referred to as silver in polite conversation if not for their striking resemblance to muggle tin-foil that Uncle Dudley wraps leftover cake in. It is as if all of the colour has been bleached out of the tips of his hair and toes, leaving behind a faded imprint of tints and shades.
He looks, muses Albus, as if he's been washed with soap one too many times.
"Five seconds, Potter, or I'm calling Pince."
Albus knows that's a lie. There is no one in Hogwarts, least of all crabby librarians, who would go out of their way to help Scorpius Malfoy, especially not from Albus Potter.
"I think that my staying here benefits both of us," Albus looks at Scorpius Malfoy's eyes, like the way He always does whenever He talks.
"Oh? Enlighten me then," and he gives another twitch-smile.
Albus tilts his head, considering his answer. He would have to be careful with Scorpius Malfoy and his sneers.
"I want to be left alone and you don't. It's perfect."
There is no response at first, and Albus is tempted to repeat himself. Perhaps Scorpius Malfoy hasn't heard him.
Then, to Albus' surprise, Scorpius Malfoy slides back his chair with a harsh squeak and bolts up, slamming his palm on the desk with controlled anger.
"And what makes you think that you, Potter, know what I want?" He pulls his face close, and Albus automatically leans back into his chair. Scorpius Malfoy is angry, and Albus can feel it from his clenched teeth and not-as-slicked-back hair.
Albus doesn't understand, because it's true that Scorpius Malfoy doesn't get much company and that Albus gets a little too much of it.
"This is a pointless conversation and I am fine with being left alone," Scorpius Malfoy turns away and walks towards the door in a swirl of robes that somehow look impressive with his twelve-year-old frame.
Albus can never do that.
And he blurts out the reason of his conversation, because he doesn't want him to go, because even if Scorpius Malfoy is unpleasant, he is similar.
And it's hard to find similar people.
"You are like your father."
It fascinates him, although Albus has only seen Draco Malfoy twice, once at King's Cross and once at Diagon Alley. It's uncanny how similar Scorpius Malfoy is to his father. Not simply in appearance, but in demeanour too. They walked the same way, sounded the same, and even looked at others the same way with a mixture of haughtiness and suspicion.
Albus doesn't particularly like the way Scorpius Malfoy does it, but he admits that Scorpius Malfoy is far more successful at it than he is. Albus can never act so much like Him, not in behaviour. Not like Him who was so outstanding within the same walls he is in, though perhaps not outstanding exactly, more like, attention grabbing.
Or rather, visible.
Yes, visible, that's it.
"Conjunctivitis!"
Albus barely registers the burst of pain that implodes in his eyes as Scorpius Malfoy whirls around with alarming speed with his wand pointed, casting a spell that a second-year shouldn't know.
Perhaps his spell-damaged vision is playing tricks, because through the blur and the pain, Scorpius Malfoy almost looks hurt.
Which is utterly ridiculous since Albus is the one who has been hexed with a spell that supposedly causes pink eye symptoms but really produces the impression that acid-needles are imbedded into one's eyes.
"And I find them like this! The library is a place of quiet and peace, Poppy, and these hooligans dare to..!"
"Now, now, Irma, you're creating a disruption in the hospital wing, which is also a place of quiet and peace," Madam Pomfrey replies drily, dabbing some sort of cold-cool gel on Albus' eyes. Albus involuntarily squeezes his eyelids.
"Don't twitch, boy. I do wonder sometimes, if this attachment to the hospital wing runs in your family, Mr. Potter," finishing applying the ointment, Madam Pomfrey wipes her hands on her almost-thread-bare apron.
"I must say, Malfoy," the matron turns to the figure standing beside Pince, the librarian firmly gripping him by the neck of his robe, "that was an impressive spell you cast there. I've lifted the hex but it'll take at least an hour for the after-effects to vanish. I'd prefer that you stay here for the time being, Potter, so that I can keep an eye on you. You can never be too careful with eyes."
Albus blinks, squinting his eyes to adjust to the too-bright light of the infirmary. It is an order, not a question; there is no need for him to reply.
"Twenty-five points from Slytherin, I think," Pince gives the fabric in her hand a firm shake, "and detention for a week."
Scorpius Malfoy squirms in Pince's hold, twisting sideways and around, "Potter started it."
"I did not!" Albus shoots up. No matter how similar Scorpius Malfoy is, Albus won't forgive him for slander. He once said that blaming others is a characteristic of the cowardly, and He is the bravest person that Albus knows. Albus doesn't want Scorpius Malfoy to be cowardly; it's not a nice trait.
"Sit down, Potter!" Madam Pomfrey barks. Albus shrinks back, her voice grating the inside of his eyelids. "Now, Malfoy, care to explain how Potter started this even though he's the one that's been hexed?"
Albus watches Scorpius Malfoy's mouth open and close several times, giving him an uncanny resemblance to an out-of-water fish, a really pale, deep-ocean fish.
He stays like that for several seconds and then violently jerks his head towards the direction of the infirmary entrance, away from Albus, "I don't want to."
Albus sits down; there isn't anything to be done then. Scorpius Malfoy's tone has made that clear, short, final, and nothing like His.
Pince, however, must have missed the message, because her features have contorted into a mask of irritation, though not a mask precisely, since it doesn't do much in terms of hiding anything. "Impertinent boy," she crows, spitting the 'p', "answer when a question has been asked for your benefit!"
Scorpius Malfoy isn't listening, Albus can see. He seems to be occupied in trying to turn his head like an owl, away from Pince and Albus.
Madam Pomfrey smoothes her hair from her part and does that funny little thing with her eyebrows and nose that grown-ups do, a raise of eyebrows followed by a widening of eyes and a simultaneous flaring of nostrils.
Exasperation, Rose says it is.
Albus isn't sure what exasperation means, but if Rose says so then he won't contradict it. It's in this way that Rose reminds Albus of Him. They're both absolute to him, Rose because of her brains and Him because, well, Albus doesn't know. It's His compassion perhaps, the warmth that radiates off him that makes it impossible for Him to be argued against.
Scorpius Malfoy catches the grown-up look, and he tilts his head so that he is looking in the direction of Madam Pomfrey, Albus and Madam Promfrey. He's stopped moving and is staring straight ahead, not at the elderly woman but at Albus instead.
Albus shifts his chair ever so slightly, sideways, to avoid Scorpius Malfoy's gaze; it's uncomfortable. But it follows him, so Albus glances up at his eyes.
If Albus ever believed that eyes can speak, then he would have stopped believing it that instant when he sees Scorpius Malfoy's.
They are clear and blank, completely devoid of any emotion that books claim eyes can hold. Nothing stands out about them, they are just there. If it weren't for his expression of coiled-anger, Albus would never have felt that scared-discomfort that he is feeling.
Scorpius Malfoy doesn't have his wand, so he can't hurt him. Albus knows that, but he also knows, even if he doesn't really know, that every muscle of Scorpius Malfoy is taunt, that every fibre of him feels anger against Albus for no reason that Albus can make out.
Scorpius Malfoy is a coiled snake with carefully bred anger right before striking.
"Don't look at me like that, old hag."
Albus moves back because some primal part of his brain is screaming at him to, even though his logic tells him that it's a twelve-year-old standing in front of him with no means to attack.
"If Potter were standing in my shoes, there wouldn't even be this problem."
Albus sees His eyes, so bright and warm, always looking ahead. He would never shirk away like Albus if He were here.
"I can have privacy to my thoughts if I so wish."
He would not be scared to continue something He started. He would not be backing away from a situation He initiated like Albus is.
"I don't have to explain myself for every single thing that I do, if I say something then you should at least consider it."
Albus is sure that He would never be so afraid of someone so similar to Him. But maybe he is wrong, perhaps Scorpius Malfoy isn't as similar to him as he thinks.
"You'd take Potter at his word in a heartbeat."
The first time Albus saw Scorpius Malfoy, he was so sure that they were similar, scraps of boys beside towering fathers, one warm-cool and one dark-pale.
"Do you not trust me? Have I done anything dishonest, have I ever told any of you a lie these two years?"
When they first entered the Great Hall, no, even before that, people already knew them both, really knew them. Albus felt the warmth surrounding him and saw the coldness around Scorpius Malfoy.
"I've never broken a rule until now but you all look at me like I'm some problem."
Albus heard the whispers around Hogwarts, pleasant and unpleasant. Pleasant about him, not so pleasant about Scorpius Malfoy. But they were similar even then, because they were both apostrophe-d additions after their fathers, Harry Potter's son and Draco Malfoy's boy.
"It's because I'm a Malfoy, isn't it? None of you can get over the fact that I look like my father."
Albus saw the distance between Scorpius Malfoy and other people. It was an invisible cage. No one went out of their way to bother him, but neither did they go out of their way to approach him. Albus was in there with him, surrounded by admiration for Him, because even if people loved his father, Albus was not, and can never be, Him.
"So what if my surname is Malfoy? So what if I look like my father? "
Perhaps that's why Albus approached Scorpius Malfoy. They are children cast as extensions of their fathers' shadows and that is enough similarity for Albus.
"Just because my father was the way he was in school doesn't mean I will turn out like him! I'm not him in opinion or in personality. I'm not the Draco Malfoy you knew!"
One is not close enough; the other is not far away enough.
"I'm not 'Malfoy's son' or 'traitor's spawn'. I'm my own person and all of you should start to treat me like myself and not like Draco Malfoy!"
The infirmary turns needle-drop silent for a few breath-catching moments.
Then Madam Pomfrey takes out her handkerchief and wipes her forehead.
"Madam Pince, if you could take Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy to the Headmistress's Office."
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