Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters end up in. Everything else belongs to someone else and that's the way of it.

Potters and Malfoys

When he got his hands on Albus Potter Scorpius planned to wring the damn Gryffindor's scrawny little neck with extreme prejudice and pleasure. What else he was going to do to him, well that changed by the minute these days. Previously it had changed hourly or daily, but as the days went by without him managing to get his hands on the little shit Scorpius's plans for Albus changed and got decidedly more creative and violent. Because really, at this point, it was getting really hard to remember all the reasons why killing the bastard wasn't an option.

Through the students, owls, and faculty, Scorpius had received flowers, candy, toys for Snow, and other thoughtful little gifts that normally he would have appreciated getting from a family member or friend, but since they were from Potter as bait to bribe him into dating him the gifts just sent his blood pressure through the roof. Scorpius felt like a bloody pressure cooker really, one that had yet to let off any steam BECAUSE HE COULDN'T FIND POTTER!

It had been nearly two weeks since the first rose, and Scorpius hadn't seen the other man once. He went to the man's classes, his rooms, looked for him in the hallways and the Great Hall, and yet hadn't once caught more than a glimpse of Albus, the other man gone seconds later before he could grab him. The same went for the Gryffindor's cat, who still came around to play with Snow occasionally and could be seen out and about the castle as usual. His efforts to use the kneazle to kind Albus had proven pointless, not to mention he was pretty sure the damn thing had been leading him on wild goose chases for its own amusement.

The smirks that the creature had aimed in his direction more than once had certainly suggested that. Damn its hide.

Albus was showing up for his classes, Scorpius knew that, but every time he tried to ambush him he wasn't there. The infamous family invisibility cloak coming into play. Especially judging by the giggling and whispering of the students as they pretended ignorance or stated that their teacher had been called away and they were waiting for him to return, the fact that they were lying so obvious they might as well have had liar tattooed on their foreheads.

Oh yeah, the students all seemed to find it so fucking hilarious now that one of their Care of Magical Creatures professors was courting him. At first the majority of them had all just been stunned and disbelieving, no more able to wrap their minds around what Albus was doing than he could. But after nearly two weeks of all this, the students had gotten over their reservations and were now blatantly rooting for Potter. They were volunteering to deliver his gifts in droves, it seemed, and none seemed remotely afraid of him anymore.

And their fellow teachers. They were even a part of this as added insult to the injuries. Even Hagrid and Longbottom had been talked into helping Albus, both delivering free, hard to get potion materials to him with expressions that made it clear that they'd never though they'd find themselves in this situation, but had resigned themselves to helping Albus because they loved him. And were possibly secretly amused by it at this point, like all the others.

How the fuck was this his life?

And as he sat through another breakfast without Albus at the table, the house elves were probably feeding him on the side in time honored Potter and Weasley tradition, Scorpius found a letter in pink stationary ceremoniously dropped off beside his plate, the return address in the corner that of Rita Skeeter.

That could not be good.

At the start of the week he'd heard through the Hogwarts grapevine that Rita Skeeter had apparently gotten wind of Albus's courtship of him, and naturally she'd published an article about it in her bimonthly newsletter, the one she'd started a few years ago after the Prophet had gotten sued one too many times over her shoddy reporting and fired her. According to her Albus's courtship of him was proof that he was living up to his names having been, in Skeeter's opinion, been named after two two faced men who she'd written scathing biographies about. Apparently in the article she'd very heavily hinted that Albus was a dark wizard in disguise, and that the Chosen One had had to bribe the current Headmaster to put Albus in Gryffindor so that no one would know that he was really a treacherous and devious Slytherin in disguise.

To cover her ass, and appease the Potter supporters among her readers, Skeeter had also done some speculating about him having slipped Albus a love potion, with him currently pretending to spurn Potter's advances now so that no one would suspect him later. The rest of the article was a lot of other garbage that Scorpius had been expecting people to say if word of Albus's feelings towards him became known, including a brief summary of numerous crimes attributed to his family, true or completely fabricated ones. Which of course would mean there would be backlash his family would have to suffer through, Scorpius knew, as that was always the case when either war was in the news or facing an anniversary.

And if that wasn't bad enough, two days after the Skeeter article an article had appeared on the front of the Daily Prophet, written by Ginny Potter. The just of said article might have revolved around Mrs. Potter's thought concerning Rita Skeeter and her ability to do her job, as well as her displeasure in how often Skeeter thought she could slander her family, but all that had been followed by the statement that her son could date anyone he wanted to and anyone who didn't like that could go fall down one of the many crevices in the Gringotts vaults. She and her husband apparently wholeheartedly supported Albus's relationship with Scorpius, should he decided to start dating their son, and that was the family's final word on the matter.

Not surprisingly, James hadn't been quoted, and as for Little Potter, well Scorpius figured the evil little redhead would be just fine with it just because Lily Potter had a Weasley's love of chaos and twisted sense of humor.

He hadn't heard through the gossip grapevine about any more articles written by either woman or about him and Albus in any way, but now this one had deliberately been sent to him by one of the most notorious 'reporters' in Long, which his instincts said did not bode well for him.

As more letters dropped down in front of Scorpius, he was getting plenty of mail these days from people who though they had the right to tell him what he should do where Potter was concerned, Scorpius just shuffled them all together with gloved hands and as had become his habit he stuffed all of them into the cloth sack hanging off his chair. He only read the ones from Potter's or his own family, he had more important things to do than the death threats or accusations he had no doubt were scrawled across the many sheets of parchment being sent his way. His family's response had been pretty much what he'd expected, though his mother had spoken for both her and his father so his father was the only one not to personally send him a letter. Potter's family…well the ones that had sent him letters could make it clear that they would accept him dating Albus all they wanted, but he didn't believe it for a minute.

And after reading those letters joined the rest of the mail in the rubbish bin.

But in regards to Skeeter's letter…he would probably read that later, Scorpius decided, just in case the bitch was actually thinking about writing another article about him or worse, was looking for an interview with him. Better to know she was coming than be ambushed.

"If I have to put up with her on top of everything else I don't care if they give me life. I will kill him."

)

Having been informed by nearly the entire faculty that Scorpius had been issuing death threats where he was concerned over breakfast, Albus wisely continued to avoid the blond like dragon pox, though that was getting really annoying for a number of reasons. And that wasn't even factoring in how much he missed Scorpius in general. Add that in and it was a struggle not to start behaving like Scorpius and snapping at everyone he came into contact with. But it wasn't the rest of the world's fault Scorpius wasn't letting him woe him into a relationship, so he was trying to act as normal as possible when he was around other people.

Of course when he was alone, without other people encouraging him, Albus tended to start thinking that Scorpius really wasn't interested, and it wasn't just their family's history and what everyone else would think keeping the blond from giving him a chance. Maybe Scorpius had only been interested in the sex and he was deluding himself into thinking it could be more. Maybe he really was just a convenient piece of arse Scorpius had decided to make use of since he was handy and willing.

And okay, it probably also didn't help that he was currently surrounded by all the fucking mail he'd been getting since that damn Rita Skeeter had written her article about him and Scorpius. A letter count most likely only made ten times worse by his mum's article, since her response had put the backs up of a number of Skeeter's fans. They might be small in numbers, but they were all too much like her when it came to their need to express themselves in writing.

And even overlooking the mail he knew to be from Skeeter's fans, Albus had gotten two Howlers for either 'shaming' or 'injuring his father grievously' by consorting with the son of a Death Eater. From people he'd never met. He had sixty two letters telling him that in their opinion he had no business dating a Malfoy, like they had every right to tell him how to live his life, and most of them had thrown his family in his face repeatedly by reminding him of all they'd suffered and lost and how forcing them to accept Scorpius into their family would be a kind of torture. Torture he would be inflicting on them deliberately by pursuing a Malfoy.

James's letter had been far from encouraging too, though not vicious in nature, but it was still his brother telling him that he'd lost his mind and lecturing him about letting himself be led around by his cock, since obviously he wasn't using his brains.

If he hadn't made his whole family promise that they wouldn't confront or pick fights with Scorpius before he'd spilled the beans Albus didn't even want to think about how much worse this could be. As it was Scorpius had apparently not asked his own family not to get involved, since Albus had received multiple letters from the Malfoy and Greengrass families. Scorpius's paternal grandparents had made it clear that he would never be welcome into their family, and that he should stop maligning their family's name by suggesting that a member of their line would ever get involved with a Potter. Scorpius other grandmother in her letter had been much nicer, in so much as she made it clear he should stop pursuing her grandson for his own good, but at least there was no threats to his person or insults against his character or family. She was doing this for his own good apparently, and at this point Albus wasn't really going to argue with her on that. Her daughter's letter had been much the same.

Draco Malfoy had yet to send him a letter of any sort as far as Albus knew for sure, though his left hand was also currently bandaged up because one of the anonymous letters had been brushed with a powder beforehand and had delivered severe chemical burns when he'd gotten the stuff on his skin. Not being a complete idiot or a glutton for pain he'd had the burns treated, but they still looked pretty nasty and hurt like a bitch without the numbing cream he'd been given.

Albus was pretty sure that his own dad had mentioned that Scorpius's father had been pretty skilled in Potions and Herbology back in the da. And whatever the powder had been, no one here had recognized it.

Running fingertips over the bandages, and wincing at the pain even that faint touch caused him, Albus dropped his hand away in resignation. He was going to have to suffer through putting the cream on soon, before it really started to hurt.

Turning his attention back to reading one of his latest letters, the amount of mail he was getting was starting to go down but there was still a heck of a lot of it, Albus sighed over the fact that the writer was encouraging him to marry Scorpius, but only because that would be the official end to the Malfoy line. Lovely.

Crushing it up in his good hand Albus tossed it in the direction of the already rather full rubbish bin, his throw a little off as he heard the nearby door opening. Since he was being hunted Albus's gaze immediately veered in that direction, though he wasn't worried since he'd barred Scorpius specifically from entering the room. A visiting house elf was far more likely, or Uncle Neville since this was the Room of Requirement he was staying in.

But no…definitely not Uncle Neville.

Lurching to his feet Albus couldn't have picked his jaw up off the ground if he'd had the thought to try, which he didn't since all Albus could seem to do was stare at the sight of Draco Malfoy walking towards him.

Fuck. This couldn't be good.

"Reading your fan mail?"

"More like hate mail." Albus blurted out, his brain more occupied trying to decide if he needed to make a desperate grab for the wand he'd very foolishly left out of reaching distance on a nearby table. But if he threw himself in that general direction he might stand a chance of getting it before Scorpius's father murdered him and then hid his body in what was left of the Room of Hidden Things. That room was as much this man's domain as The Room of Requirement was Neville's.

"That how you hurt your hand?"

Instinctively cradling said hand against his chest, Albus nodded cautiously. "Yeah. Some sort of powder rubbed off on my skin and burned me. I'm probably going to go see a healer at St. Mungo's tomorrow, since no one around here seems to know how to treat it."

"Ah. You got a letter from Dahlia Brown."

"You know her?"

"In a sense." The older man's gaze shifted off to the side, no longer meeting Albus's. "Her daughter, Lavender, was in my year. She dated your Uncle Ron for a while. Greyback killed her during the Battle of Hogwarts. Her mother never got over it and has a…nasty habit of sending hate mail to people she blames for her daughter's death." Moving in closer, Draco lifted up both hands to show off the fact that there were what looked like barely healed burn scars on both hands. "I hadn't gotten one from her in years, ever since she and my wife had a little chat about her little hobby, but hearing that my son had corrupted you and therefore caused harm to the Chosen One had her falling back on old habits, it seems."

"Oh. I'm sorry. That you were hurt because of me."

The silence that followed his words had Albus tempted to fidget, especially since Scorpius's father was looking him straight in the eyes again, but the older man broke the tension before Albus could make a complete idiot of himself by asking him to remove the bandages so that he could see how bad the burns were.

Decades of training and warnings, of being told the stories and warned about what Death Eaters were capable of doing even to children flittered across Albus's mind, only sheer Gryffindor pride keeping him from backing up at even the thought of Draco getting near his wounded hand. Moments ago he'd been entertaining the thought that maybe he had this man and his skill with potions and such to thank for his burned hand after all, and now here Draco Malfoy was…watching him with a knowing look in his eyes, making no move to touch or try and force the issue. Looking at Albus like he knew every thought going through his head. Had expected it.

And thinking about that, really thinking about it and everything everyone, including Scorpius, had said about how the world was, how their families were, Albus winced hard, recognizing his own prejudices at work. Just one of the many hurdles in his way to getting Scorpius. The damn things kept popping up all over the place. Though this was one he could start clearing away if he was willing to trust a little.

Decision made Albus took the steps necessary to bring them close enough, Albus carefully removed the bandages and then with another instinctive pause that belayed his nerves, Albus held out his injured hand for Draco's inspection.

When Draco's hand took his Albus jolted not because it hurt, but because of the way Draco had touched him. The man's palm was much softer than his father's, but the feeling the gentle touches inspired brought to mind a paternal touch. One that would do no unnecessary harm to him.

"This needs treating now, or the wounds will only get bigger and scar more deeply. The powder she concocted is quite thorough." Fishing the bandage wrappings Albus still held in his other hand Draco wrapped the burned hand up again with more skill than Albus had before meeting his gaze again. "My son's stores should have everything we need to treat it. Come."

Tripping over his feet for a moment, Albus automatically started to follow the man who had given him his back and was walking towards the door he'd come through moments ago. "He'll kill me if I mess with his stuff!"

"I'll be messing with them, not you."

Staring at the door now being held open for him, Albus covertly pinched himself, and then while that pain registered asked the question that was circling around in his head like they'd been caught up in a hurricane or tornado.

"Why would you help me?"

"Because you matter to my son."

And having dropped his bomb, so to speak, Draco walked through the door, Albus suddenly very eager to follow after him. Because after Mr. Malfoy had thrown out bait like that…well how could he resist?