Here's another edition of Possession! This time you see a bit more of Scorpius! Now who doesn't love that!? Nobody I know.

Enjoy xo

Chapter 3: The sliding panel

Albus had shared bedrooms with several different people; he found it was inevitable when one had a large family like he did. Christmases at the Burrow were chaotic with kids practically sleeping on top of one another, even the adults had to share sometimes, no one got any privacy, but none of them would have had it any other way. So Albus had endured his fair share of snorers, violent sleepers, sleep talking and sleep walking, but none of thathad been as terrible as Hugh Daines, the fifth year Ravenclaw boy sleeping in the bed opposite him. He was surprised the boy could breathe at all the way he snored; in fact, he was surprised the whole manor hadn't crumbled down around them from the vibrations.

He had been trying to fall back to sleep for nearly twenty minutes before he gave in and decided sleeping in the garden would be better than trying to sleep here. Albus crawled out of bed and padded quietly to the door, clutching his pillow to his chest, to see if he could find somewhere more peaceful to sleep. He was out in the hallway before he realised he had been followed.

"That boy sounds like a dying troll," Scorpius announced sounding amused, once they were outside of the room.

"Um, yeah," Albus blinked, he was a bit surprised that Scorpius had followed him out and he didn't really know what to say. He hugged his pillow tighter as he noticed that Scorpius was only clad in a very thin pair of dark green pyjama bottoms and he fought not to look bashful at the blonde's state of undress.

"I'm sorry; did you want to be alone?" Scorpius asked, almost snapping, he was clearly pissed off that Albus hadn't responded more positively to his friendly comment.

"What? No, I, um, you can stay," Albus stammered, starting to panic that he'd said the wrong thing again.

Scorpius took a deep breath and ran his hand through his heavenly locks. "I was thinking that we should talk. I mean we are 'buddies', we should as least try to get along, don't you think?" he said, staring firmly at the ground, as though he thought Albus might refuse.

"Uh, sure," Albus agreed, not really sure what the boy wanted to talk about, but willing all the same. "Did you mean now?"

"Well, I doubt either of us will be sleeping any time soon," Scorpius joked.

"Of course, shall we go to the common area?" Albus suggested and with a quick nod from Scorpius the two boys made their way to the collection of soft couches and chairs set up for the students to socialise together. Neither said a word as they walked both remaining silent in their anxiety.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Albus apologised, breaking the silence. "I really didn't mean it. Sometimes when I say things they come out wrong, you have to understand I'd never mean to hurt you."

"Wouldn't you?" Scorpius asked skeptically.

"No! I would never!" he replied viciously defending the gentle nature he was so proud of.

"I've often wondered what you thought of me," Scorpius admitted. The room was dimly lit under the glow of three single candles and Scorpius found it much easier to talk in the dark; he could pretend he was alone.

Albus blushed, but thankfully his crush couldn't see. "I haven't ever really thought about you," Albus lied. "You don't say much, you're so quiet in class unless you're called upon and we've never worked together on anything so..."

"I like to keep a low profile, most of the Slytherins do, especially kids like me," he said.

"What do you mean kids like you?" Albus asked genuinely confused.

"Kids from – from-" Scorpius sounded like he was having difficulty speaking.

"What?" Albus questioned softly.

"-from – dark families," Scorpius finished.

"Oh," Albus breathed finally understanding why Scorpius had so much trouble confessing that piece of information – although Albus already knew, everybody knew.

"Yeah, we get enough negative attention as it is, it's easier just to become part of the scenery," Scorpius explained.

"I see," Albus said, his wide eyes reflecting the soft glow of the candlelight. He felt like he should confess something back so that they were even, but he wasn't sure what to say.

"So you don't hate me then?"

"No, I don't hate you," Albus assured him. "My father, he always told me that I should judge people as I find them, not as others find them, or because they come from a particular place or a particular family."

"I'm sure your father wasn't referring to me when he said that," Scorpius scoffed. "Your father and my father were enemies at school, they hated each other."

"He was talking about everyone when he said that! Even you," Albus told the Slytherin firmly. "My father may have hated yours in school, but that doesn't mean he still does and it doesn't mean he hates you or wants me to hate you. I wouldn't even if he did!"

"You wouldn't?"

"No."

"Why not?" Scorpius asked curiously, surprised that Albus suggested he would go so far as to defy his father if it was necessary, just to not hate him even though he knew nothing about him.

"Did your father tell you to hate me?" Albus countered, not really wanting to explain his attraction to the beautiful blonde.

"He told me to watch out for you," Scorpius answered honestly. "He explained what I should expect when I came to Hogwarts, he told me what people would think of me and said that you and your family might be particularly cruel."

"Why would he say that?" Albus asked, shocked that someone would think his family cruel.

"He said he and your father and your uncle and aunt were rivals, he said he teased them and when he was a – a – when he worked for – um, yeah – well, he said he hurt your family the most out of everyone," Scorpius whispered painfully into the still night air. He was clearly ashamed of his father's past mistakes and Albus' heart warmed to him even more. "He thought you might take it out on me and he wanted me to be prepared."

"I never would have done that," Albus replied quietly. "James might have, he spent a lot of time with Uncle George especially the last few years, my Uncles aren't as compassionate as my father, they see things in black and white mostly."

"And how do you see things?" Scorpius asked curiously. He was starting to feel much better about having Albus Potter as his partner for this field trip; he thought it might be difficult because of their parents' past, but apparently not.

"Shades of grey," Albus answered simply and Scorpius nodded his understanding. "What shall we do about Daines' snoring? At this rate we will never get a good night's sleep."

"Smother him with a pillow?"

"Why are you two so grumpy this morning?" Hugh Daines asked as both Albus and Scorpius shot him killer glares the next morning. "If you're not looking forward to cleaning out those Doxies you should never have had a silly argument over a stupid plate," he reprimanded them.

"You hold him down and I'll strangle him until he stops moving," Scorpius said dryly looking over to Albus.

"What?" Hugh huffed.

"Neither of us got a wink of sleep last night. You snore like a – what did you call him?" Albus asked looked back to Scorpius.

"A dying troll," Scorpius replied helpfully.

"Yes, a dying troll," Albus repeated. "A troll dying a very slow and painful death, but a death that, unfortunately for the rest of us, doesn't affect your lung capacity."

"Alright, I get it!" Hugh whined. "I snore!"

"You need to stop or I'm going to smother you with my pillow," Scorpius threatened. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night and his body ached from exhaustion making him more on edge than usual.

"Why don't you cast a Silencing Bubble charm that would create a perimeter around my bed and contain my snoring?" Hugh suggested.

"Fuckin' Ravenclaws," Scorpius muttered before stalking off to breakfast; he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of that himself.

Albus cringed inside his own protective bubble as he shook the heavy curtains once more. Scorpius was armed with a spray gun full of Doxycide that he was using to douse the little monsters as they hid up in the curtains. It was Albus' job to shake them out of the drapes if they didn't fall freely and collect their frozen bodies and place them inside the cages before they unfroze. Professor Faulkner was going to milk them of their venom for Professor Gibson the Potions Master to use as ingredients, before he 'disposed of them'.

They had been at this painful task for nearly an hour and Albus was almost positive that they'd gotten all they were going to get out of the curtains and they would now have to search the room for the ones that escaped the gassing Scorpius was giving them.

"That's enough here, don't you think?" Albus said after he'd collected four little bodies from the ground and placed them inside the metal cage. "I think we'll have more luck under the desk and behind the bookshelves." Scorpius nodded in agreement and they began work on other areas of the study.

The room was very large and elegantly decorated – at least it would have been back in its day – and Scorpius suggested it was likely to be one of the manors main studies; whoever used this room was an important member of the family that lived here. There was a large desk by the window that was covered in dust, it had several grooves in the top which once looked to secure an ink pot and several quills, and there were two chests of drawers, one on either side of the desk's occupant, with four draws in each. Bookshelves wrapped around the room from floor to ceiling and they were stocked wall to wall, except three, which instead displayed small trinkets and yellowed photos that didn't move.

Albus had to crawl down on his hands and knees to reach under the desk and retrieve the frozen Doxies, which he did successfully, but while he was down there he noticed something odd about one of the wall panels. The walls were painted cream from waist-height up, but the lower half was decorated with square wall panels just over a metre high.

"Scorpius!" Albus called the Slytherin over. "Look at this."

Scorpius came over to the wall and knelt down to get a better look at what Albus was showing him. "I don't get it, it's only some scratches," he said, raising his eyebrows quizzically.

Albus ran his finger over the deep, long horizontal scratches in the wall panel; there were hundreds of them, some deeper than others and they dented the panel all down its left side. "How do you think it happened?" he curiously asked Scorpius' opinion.

"Who cares?" the Slytherin shrugged. He got back up on to his feet to cross the room and retrieve his Doxy poison. "Let's do behind the bookshelves then go have some lunch. The ones we missed will hide back up in the curtains again and we can get them this afternoon."

Albus didn't move from his position on the floor. "I think it moves," he said, almost to himself, but Scorpius overheard.

"What?"

"I think this panel moves," Albus repeated a little louder. "Come and see. If this panel to the left of the scratches moved over this damaged one, it could have made those deep scrapes."

"Look, not to dampen your fascination or anything, but seriously, who cares?" Scorpius insisted, looking over what the Gryffindor showed him carelessly. "Can't we just finish this and go get something to eat?"

Albus barely heard him as he focused on this unusual find. He placed both his hands flat on the wall panel to the left of the long marks and seemingly tried to push it to the right. The panel didn't move and from the frustrated look on Albus' face, clearly he expected it to, and so he tried again.

"What the hell are you doing?" Scorpius demanded.

"Don't you see?" Albus huffed in aggravation. "This moves. It opens."

"What do you mean it opens?" Scorpius asked warily.

"I mean this panel slides over and opens on to something, I'm sure of it," Albus declared, his green eyes bright with curiosity and excitement.

"All the more reason to leave it alone," Scorpius warned him cautiously. "You don't know what's behind there."

"I'm sure it's nothing dangerous," Albus said as he waved off Scorpius' concern. "The family that lived here wasn't dark, I doubt Professor McGonagall would have allowed us to explore the manor if they were. Aren't you curious?"

"Not as curious as you are," Scorpius smirked. "Dark or not, it's been two hundred years or more since anyone has been in there, anything could have happened in that time."

"I just want to see if I can open it, I won't go inside or anything," Albus said seriously. "I bet it's locked by magic, wouldn't it be cool if we could crack the spells keeping it locked. We could unlock it and then get Professor Faulkner to see if we can explore it."

Scorpius sighed. "Potter," he protested tiredly.

"Come on, lighten up, I'm not suggesting we do anything dangerous, just something fun," Albus reasoned. "I bet the others have been doing cool stuff all day while we've been stuck in here spraying Doxies."

"Where would we even start?" Scorpius asked doubtfully.

"My Uncle George taught me this spell last summer to detect what was protecting an item or a door," Albus explained as he pulled out his wand. "Guardenium Relevelio."

"Why would your Uncle teach you that spell? We aren't even allowed to use magic over the summer," Scorpius reminded him incredulously.

"Well, James had stolen my journal and-"

"Potter, that panel is glowing blue," Scorpius gasped in shock.

"Blue. Okay," Albus whispered thoughtfully. "What was blue again? Oh right, a password!" he declared.

"A password?"

"Oh damn, a password," Albus sighed. "They're the hardest to crack; you practically have to get the person who set the password to reveal what it is because it could be anything."

"And I'm guessing that person is long dead by now," Scorpius shrugged. "Sorry, Potter, I guess you'll never know."

"I guess not," Albus sighed in disappointment.

"Can we get on with clearing these Doxies now?" Scorpius requested. "I wanted to finish spraying behind the bookshelves before we head off to lunch. We're already going to be in here doing this again tomorrow."

"Okay, sure," Albus nodded as he got up from his position in front of the mystery wall panel.

He knew it was impossible to crack that password and open the secret door, but he knew the possibilities of what lay behind there would be on his mind for the rest of the night.

Anybody else pondering what might be behind that door? I'd love to hear some theories!

Until next time x