As the carriages rolled through the massive, wrought iron gates of Hogwarts, Scorpius peered out the window at the giant stone boars atop either side of the gates. The carriages continued to trundle their way up the stone pathways, bumping here and there on loose slabs of concrete and jolting the occupants within. Hogwarts loomed closer and closer and with it brought a funny sense of foreboding to Scorpius. Sure, he had always enjoyed his time at Hogwarts but approaching now he realised just how isolated everyone was at the school. Everything was contained within the grounds and although they were allowed infrequent visits to Hogsmeade, it still felt as though they were trapped. There was no way he could see his father, sleep in his own bed, wander the streets he'd grown accustomed to during the summer holidays.
As though sensing what he was feeling, Albus reached over and gripped Scorpius' wrist and squeezed. Scorpius turned his head and saw Albus' bright green eyes asking him if he were okay. He smiled and patted Albus' hand to reassure him as the carriage bounced along the path, only moments away from Hogwarts now.
The carriages trundled up into the main courtyard of Hogwarts and in front of the stone steps that would lead them through to the Great Hall. At the bottom of the steps stood Professor Neville Longbottom. He wore bright maroon robes with yellow accents around the collar and wrists, making him look rather like a large sweet wrapper. Professor Longbottom waved his hand, beckoning the students to disembark from the coaches and come on in.
"Come on now, students, get yourselves into the Great Hall. Plenty of good food tonight!" he boomed, in his best commanding voice, all the while still smiling warmly as the students passed him and said 'Hello'.
Scorpius, Albus and the three Hufflepuffs got out of their carriage considerably slower than everyone else and were some of the last students to walk past Professor Longbottom.
"Albus! I've just seen your brother in with his Prefect badge! Looks very smart, don't you think?" Professor Longbottom asked.
"Not really," Albus grumbled, "And you're supposed to call me 'Potter' here at Hogwarts." He protested.
"Oops, sorry about that. Forgot we're not friends anymore, strictly work here. You will tell Gin-your mum that I got that recipe for Pixie Dust Casserole that she wanted?"
"Sure." Albus said and with that, Professor Longbottom clapped him hard on the back.
"Good man! Go on, get yourselves in and get warm, the Headmistress doesn't much like to be kept waiting, Alb-" Professor Longbottom stopped himself short, "Potter." He added with a wink.
Albus and Scorpius ascended the stone steps and walking through the Entrance Hall, looking up as they did every year to marvel at the stone suits of armour lining the walls that had once, apparently, come to life and fought to protect Hogwarts.
"Honestly, you'll believe any old rubbish that Dad tells you!" James had said to Albus when he was much younger and had finished being regaled with stories of his father's youth. Albus had tried to argue that his father wouldn't lie about something so well-known and famous.
"Don't look at it as lying, he was just embellishing the truth. People do it all the time, I bet that battle was dead boring really. More of a scuffle than anything."
Albus refused to believe that final battle against Tom Riddle had been a 'scuffle' and was sure James was only winding him up to get a rise.
"Alright, students, settle down. Professor Rivers will bring in the first years for the Sorting Ceremony momentarily." Boomed the voice of Minerva McGonagall from in front of the staff table in the Great Hall. She was dressed head-to-toe in a very elegant sea-foam blue robe with a matching pointed hat atop her head, "Let's go over some etiquette to teach our first years how well we can behave here at-WILLA SNORT WILL YOU PUT YOUR WAND AWAY!" Professor McGonagall screeched at a skinny, fourth year Slytherin girl who was brandishing her wand menacingly at a group of Ravenclaws on the table over. She reluctantly stowed her wand back in her robes and Scorpius noticed that Finlay was staring daggers at Willa.
"Right, that actually leads well into my first point. It goes without saying but no fighting, especially in the Great Hall. And be sure to eat plenty of food at all meals, I don't want anyone telling me they're trying to drop a robe size. You'll all learn better with full stomachs. Also, your uniforms should be tidy and orderly. I know you think the ladies will fawn all over you, Potter, looking that scruffy."
Albus panicked for a moment, dropping his head to covertly scan his uniform, but the sound of laughter erupting from the Gryffindor table told him it was instead his older brother than was being scolded in front of the entire student body. James smiled bashfully and straightened his tie.
"Much better. Now, everyone feeling ready to welcome our new arrivals. Wonderful." Professor McGonagall held her wand aloft and swished it sideways, throwing open the wooden doors to the Great Hall. A tall, black witch with exquisitely sharp features led the first year students down the centre of the hall. Professor Simone Rivers was Head of Ravenclaw house and taught Astronomy, she was a kind witch who preferred to set her students riddles to solve instead of homework. With a dramatic flourish of her amber robes, Professor Rivers spun around to face the first years and wordlessly gestured for Mr. Filch to bring the Sorting Hat over and then took her place at the staff table, next to a newly arrived Professor Longbottom.
From within her robes, Professor McGonagall produced a long roll of parchment and begun to read the first name on the list,
"Amanda Richworth, please step forward and sit on the stool. I will place the Sorting Hat on your head, it will announce what house you are to be sorted into and you will join your new housemates."
At this point both Albus and Scorpius tuned out, the next person they knew to join Hogwarts would be Rose's brother Hugo and that wouldn't be until next year. They didn't much concern themselves with first years, leaving them to their own devices unless asked for help with directions or advice on homework.
The odd call of 'Slytherin!' from the hat roused the two out of their daydream long enough to clap politely and then drift off again. They were jolted to attention again by the raucous applause led principally by James as Rick Hassle's younger brother, Michael, was sorted in Gryffindor followed by some playful booing at the Hufflepuff table.
"Alright, settle down, everyone. No need to act like fools, even if it does come so naturally to you, Mr. Potter!" McGonagall snapped and the Sorting Ceremony resumed.
Albus looked across and saw that James had ushered little Michael Hassle over to sit next to him and had thrown his arm around the nervous first year. Albus wondered whether James would have put on the same spectacle if he had been sorted into Gryffindor all those years ago.
Scorpius simply lost himself deep in his own thoughts, replaying the events of the day over. He could remember so vividly blushing when Albus lifted up his t-shirt in the Hogwarts Express and Scorpius had been able to see Albus' belly button and his hip bones jutting out or how he had noticed that Albus' legs had gotten thicker since they last saw each other and his arms stronger. His eyes drifted down to the table and Albus' hand lying just next to him. The spindly, web-like structures of veins just beneath his pale skin stood out so vividly blue and Scorpius reached out and traced his finger lightly over the veins, walking a path down Albus' forearm to the back of his hand.
A call of 'Ravenclaw' from the Sorting Hat gave Scorpius a shock and his hand juddered and slapped Albus', who remarkably didn't even turn his head to look. On his face, a contented smile was plastered and he appeared thoroughly zoned out. Scorpius swallowed hard, retracting his hand and looked around to see if anyone had noticed him. Everyone at the Slytherin table was either looking ahead to the Sorting Ceremony or staring hopelessly at the empty plates and platter waiting for the food to magically appear. As he scanned around the Great Hall, Scorpius caught the one pair of eyes he had hoped he wouldn't see staring back at him.
Rose Granger-Weasley was giggling to herself, with her hand covering her mouth. She waved over to Scorpius and broke into another fit of giggles. Thankfully, James was too interested in the incoming newbies to pay attention to what Scorpius and Albus were doing. Or rather what Scorpius was doing and Albus was busy not noticing him doing.
The rest of the Sorting Ceremony went by uneventfully, Scorpius kept his hands to himself and at the end of it all he noticed that an overwhelming number of first years had been sorted into both Slytherin and Ravenclaw and that there had been a much larger intake of students this year than previously. His father had once explained to him that magical birth rates had exploded after the war with Hogwarts' student numbers ballooning more and more every year. As Scorpius looked down the table, he noticed that the table itself appeared to have grown in length, to accommodate more students. He wondered whether the Great Hall had also grown in size and indeed Hogwarts itself too.
"Right, everyone, thank you for your patience. I've no urgent notices that can't wait until another day so I do believe it's time to eat. Have an enjoyable evening and, once again, welcome to Hogwarts!" Professor McGonagall waved her hand and the food appeared before the now voraciously hungry students.
Scorpius grabbed some chicken and vegetables, since he hadn't eaten on the train the hunger inside had only been growing but it wasn't until now that he noticed. Next to him, Albus was clearly just as hungry, spooning mash potatoes onto his plate as he spooned even more into his mouth. Within an hour the magical dishes were emptied by the students and staff and disappeared into thin air leaving the students a few minutes to chat amongst themselves before Professor McGonagall told them it was time for bed and that the House Prefects should lead their students to the dormitories.
Finlay stood down by the entrance to the hall and called out in his soft, yet commanding, voice,
"Slytherin students follow me. First years come to the front so I can make sure you don't get lost. Everyone else watch out for them. Come on, let's go." And with that, he ushered Slytherin house out.
As Scorpius left the Great Hall with the other Slytherins, someone placed a hand on his shoulder from behind and whizzed past him. Scorpius watched the blaze of red hair turn around and Rose was pointing her wand at him, with a flick little red hearts danced above his head.
"Love is in the air," she called out, "And it smells like Scoooooooooorpius!" she continued in a sing-song manner, disappearing into the crowd of Gryffindors heading off to their common room. Scorpius swatted at the hearts above his head until they all burst and disappeared.
"Looks like Rosie's got a crush on you, Malfoy." A sixth year Slytherin boy with thick eyebrows and a rugged jaw said to Scorpius as he passed him. Scorpius swallowed hard, perhaps his classmates thinking he and Rose were involved was a better idea than the truth.
"You want to watch out for her, Scorp!" Albus said, suddenly standing next to Scorpius, "I heard she frightened a sixth year Ravenclaw boy half to death last year with all her love notes." Albus winked and chortled to himself as he followed the crowd of Slytherins off to the dungeons.
After travelling down endless flights of moving stairs – Scorpius forgot every year just how far down the dungeons were – they finally reached their dormitories where Finlay uttered the password 'Serpentia' and everyone crowded in the Slytherin common room. Outside the large glass windows, a school of shimmering, rainbow coloured fish glided by. Scorpius took note again that the common room definitely seemed larger than last year, even though it was still a tight squeeze fitting everyone in the one room. Clearly the entire school had grown to accommodate the rising student population. The green lamps on the walls all flickered to life, filling the room with an emerald light and restoring full vision to all the students inside. Scorpius noticed that nearly everyone else was looking around the common room in astonishment at the changes and the number of new students.
"Alright, everyone, listen up." Finlay called out, standing at the head of the crowd just beneath a large oil painting of a serpent that occasionally writhed and sometimes hissed if stared at too long, "It's been a long night for us all, so I'll make this short. Welcome to Slytherin house. You are now among brothers and sisters. Some of you may have been apprehensive to be sorted into our house, this I tell you, you have nothing to fear. Unfortunately, our old reputation still persists to this day but I want to reassure you this is not an evil house. One of the most defining Slytherin traits is fraternity, and everyone in this common room will now look out for you. If you're being harassed by another house, we will deal with it. If you are struggling with your homework, we will help you. And if you join the Quidditch team, we will cheer you on."
"A first year won't make the team!" called a lanky girl from the back of the crowd.
"Stranger things have happened, Elcie, stranger things. We will celebrate your victories and pick you back up when you fall, but know this, I will not tolerate inappropriate behaviour. The odd prank is acceptable but there is no excuse for targeting the Gryffindors or pursuing the Ravenclaws or relentlessly teasing the Hufflepuffs. I will also not accept inter-house fighting. As I've said, we're family now but never draw your wands on each other. If I catch any of you fighting around school, I'll hit you with a leg-locker curse so powerful even McGonagall will have trouble breaking it."
Some seventh years at the front whooped and cheered Finlay and the rest of the crowd joined in, various anxious first years looking much more reassured.
"Now, it's time for bed, don't you think? The boys' dormitories are off to the left and girls on the right. Follow the corridor down until it breaks into seven doors, enter the dormitory with your year number of it. Your belongings have already been laid out at the foot of your bed. And, please, no fighting over switching beds. They're all the same." Finlay ushered everyone away with a wave of his hand and he slumped down into an emerald arm chair, pinching the bridge of his nose.
As the students filtered away to bed, Scorpius and Albus held back a moment to talk to Finlay. They wandered over to his armchair, where he was massaging his temples, looking rather stressed.
"That was a really good speech, Finlay. Very leader-like." Albus assured him and Scorpius nodded in agreement.
"Thanks, Potter, it had to be done. We get a bad enough rep from the outside, I wanted to make sure we build our foundations right, you know?"
"I could tell some of them were dreading being a Slytherin but I think you made them feel a bit better." Scorpius said.
"I hope so," Finlay sighed, "Now, you two should get off to bed. Busy day tomorrow being the first of term and all that." And Finlay waved them away to their room as well.
Scorpius and Albus wandered down the dark, stone corridor that led to the boys' dormitories and as they approached the set of seven doors, they heard plenty of noise coming from the door marked '1'. Albus walked towards it and reached for the door knob.
"I'll just ask them to keep it down a little." Albus said, his hand almost touching the door knob.
"Albus, don't-" Scorpius started but it was too late, Albus grabbed the door knob and not only did his hand go right through it but an electric charge shocked his entire body.
"Ouch!" he yelped, leaping back from the door and nursing his sore hand.
"I tried to warn you." Scorpius told him, unsympathetically, "I imagine Finlay's charmed the doors to give everyone some privacy from the other years after what happened last year."
"Oh right, good thinking that. He could've warned us though!" Albus moaned.
"I imagine he wanted us to learn the hard way. He's surprisingly wicked when he wants to be."
"You're telling me." Albus said, still cradling his hand.
"Besides, you can't hear anything inside, the stone walls are too thick." Scorpius told him as he opened their door marked with a polished silver '5'. Inside the other Slytherin boys in their year had already gotten into bed. The fifth year dormitory was almost identical to the ones they had stayed in during the previous years, it was a large circular room with tall, forest green four poster beds all along the edges. Ceiling to floor was decorated with green and black accents, various tapestries depicting famous male Slytherins adorned the walls as they did in all the bedrooms. In the first year Scorpius had noticed that a great deal of more recent Slytherins had been omitted from the walls but he was relieved to find his father there tucked away on the wall behind the door. Where tapestries didn't adorn the wall, large windows did showing the water of the lake all around them. The lapping of the current against the glass at night was so soothing that it was almost impossible to avoid sleep.
Before coming to Hogwarts, James had told Albus and Lily dreadful stories about the Slytherin dungeons.
"They tie the students up in their straw beds so they don't get up and curse each other in the middle of the night and if someone has been particularly naughty that day, the chain them up by their thumbs until morning to teach them a lesson. And I heard there's a rather nasty ghost that haunts the bedrooms and drops dung bombs on people's heads just before they wake up! And-"
"James, stop it!" Ginny intervened, putting her arms around Albus and Lily who were shaking, Lily was almost on the verge of tears, "That's not true, I promise."
"Well, how do you know, mum, have you ever been in the Slytherin dungeons?" James questioned his mother. She frowned and chewed her lip, trying to think back.
"Not exactly, but I've heard it's quite lovely. Those are just rumours they spread every year James to scare new students into begging to be in the other houses!" Ginny concluded, smoothing down Lily's hair and kissing the top of Albus' head. He looked up at his mother, fear in his eyes,
"I won't be in Slytherin, will I, mum? I won't have to sleep on a straw bed?" he asked, his voice trembling slightly.
"Of course not, sweetheart. Your brother is just teasing. You're a Gryffindor like the rest of us." She reassured him.
How wrong she had been.
Some of the boys in the dormitory had already fallen asleep, but a few other were awake and reading. Ralph Thorne was perched on the edge of his bed, dressed in lime green pyjamas, looking out the window at the lake beyond.
"What's with the pyjamas, Thorne?" Albus asked, grabbing his own from inside his trunk at the foot of his bed. Thorne turned to him, his usually rather handsome face heavy with tiredness.
"Oh, mum got them, made me promise to wear them. Only one night though, then I can go back to the usual." Thorne chuckled to himself, he had gotten into the habit in third year of sleeping completely in the nude something that either aggravated or amused the other boys.
"Well, just make sure you put the covers over yourself again." Albus warned. Thorne nodded slowly and clambered into his bed without another word. Within a few seconds, Albus and Scorpius could hear him snoring softly. Scorpius pulled the drape around his bed halfway across and begun to undress. He had recently become aware that he was still much thinner than the other boys his age, even Albus had bulked up considerably over summer and while he felt completely comfortable getting dressed around Albus, he didn't like feeling the other boys' eyes on him.
As he pulled on his old, chewed-up t-shirt for bed, he looked across and caught Albus' eye. He had almost completely undressed and was only wearing his initialled boxer shorts that Scorpius had seen in the train carriage.
"You feeling okay?" Albus asked, but before Scorpius could reply, Albus hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his boxer shorts and slid them down to the ground. Scorpius panicked and locked his eyes firmly on Albus' face.
"What are you doing?" he squeaked frantically.
"What?" Albus shrugged, pulling a pair of shorts on and covering up his lower half.
"I thought you were following Thorne's example!" Scorpius sighed, relieved as Albus also pulled on his t-shirt and sat down on his bed, chuckling to himself.
"Get some sleep, Scorp." Albus advised while clambering under his sheets. Scorpius got into bed and surveyed the room, noticing that everyone else had fallen asleep already, except the two of them. Scorpius grabbed his wand from the small dresser next to his bed and pointed it at the large, myrtle lantern hanging from the centre of the room and it extinguished itself leaving the room in almost complete darkness, save for the bluish glow from the water outside. Scorpius lay down and closed his eyes, letting sleep carry him away, feeling as though he were sinking further and further down into the bed.
"Hey, Scorp?" Albus mumbled and Scorpius opened his eyes again, squinting in the darkness to try and see his friend in the bed next to him, but failing to make out more than a vague outline.
"Yes, Albus?" he asked, watching the faint outline of Albus' chest rise and fall beneath his covers.
"Have you got the Potions homework?" Albus asked back. Scorpius frowned in the dark, wondering what homework Albus was talking about before realising that his friend was clearly talking in his sleep, uttering complete nonsense as his mouth was on autopilot.
"No, Albus, I don't. Go back to sleep." Scorpius told him and he watched Albus' head go up and down as he nodded in his sleep.
"Okay, I'll do that." He muttered, drifting off again, "You're my best friend." He added, before snoring loudly. Scorpius laughed to himself and whispered into the darkness,
"You're my best friend too. Good night, Albus."
That night Scorpius' mind was filled with dreams of spider webs made of veins and giant, green eyes staring down at him and Albus' legs and – rather curiously – a segment in which he himself was a large bowl of mashed potatoes.