Listened to so much ADELE while writing this chapter, I'd be interested to know if anyone thinks it affected my writing, haha. Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing! Hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Albus had to physically force himself to not to turn his head and look at Scorpius. He knew that if he looked at the blond he would lose it. Albus sat there for a moment, eyes wide, mouth open in complete shock.

How did they know? Hell, Albus didn't even know what his feelings for Scorpius were, but somehow these people had picked up on it. That must have been why they invited him here, to confront him about his feelings for Scorpius. But what were his feelings? He didn't love Scorpius. That was impossible. I mean, sure, Albus thought that the guy was attractive, but he was a boy. A BOY. Albus couldn't love a boy. He wasn't… well, he wasn't like that. Albus liked girls. Not any in particular, but over all they were nice. Then Albus thought of how he had felt when Scorpius touched him earlier that morning, and realized that he had never felt like that about a girl in his entire life.

Dropping his head and staring into his lap Albus felt his cheeks grow hotter.

"Well, that answers that question." He heard Jaysen laugh. "Look at the little faggot blush."

Albus quickly looked up and sent Jaysen the most menacing glare he could manage. It must have been at least a little frightening because Jaysen stopped laughing and looked shock. Without saying anything else Albus grabbed his bag and got up from his chair. He quickly walked to the edge of the bushes that surrounded the clearing, pulled his wand out and murmured a spell. The hedge grew apart and Albus stepped through. He heard talking from behind him but ignored all of the voices and ran away as quickly as he could. He felt tears stream down his face and his throat closed up as he tried to stifle a sob. He had to make sure he was far enough away that they wouldn't hear.

Unluckily for Albus his level of stamina for activities such as running was relatively low. He got about a hundred yards away before he had to stop and catch his breath. Catching his breath however quickly turned into gasping for air as he sobbed even harder. Albus tried to keep it in, he really did. He tried to convince himself that he was expecting to be humiliated by Scorpius and his friends. But, it didn't help. Despite knowing it would end badly Albus had still gotten his hopes up, and then they were brutally crushed.

Once he started crying Albus could find nothing but more things to cry about. It started with his humiliation, then drifted onto his overall patheticness, then he considered his lack of friends, his broken relationship with Rose, the fact that he wasn't comfortable sleeping in his own dorm, and finally the fact that he was currently missing Herbology and Professor Longbottom might be mad. The last thing Albus wanted to do was make his favorite professor mad, especially after the amazing news Professor Longbottom had given him the day before. With that as his motivation, Albus was able to end his tears and maneuver his way out of the forest.

It wasn't that hard to find his way back to the grounds. Scorpius' secret hideout wasn't all that far into the woods, and once the trees started thinning Albus knew he was headed in the right direction.

Less than ten minutes later Albus had exited the forest and was closing in on the greenhouses. He had tried his best to wipe his face and hoped that his eyes weren't ridiculously red. The last thing he needed was everyone in his Herbology class looking at him like he was some sort of lunatic.

Albus approached the doors and tried to open them as carefully as he could, with the preference of sneaking into the room without making a sound. Of course that idea was completely destroyed when his professor called out his name before he had even shut the door behind him.

"Ah Albus, I was hoping you would show up today. I know it is the first day of classes but you shouldn't slack." Albus could hear in the tone of voice that his teacher was teasing him in an affectionate sort of way. However, when Albus turned around and Professor Longbottom got a look at his face, the man stopped smiling and instead showed a look of concern.

Damn… Albus thought. His face must have still looked pretty upset. He tried to muster his best smile and grinned at his teacher.

"Sorry professor, I just couldn't manage to get up this morning. Won't happen again I promise." Professor Longbottom looked like he was at a loss for words, but luckily someone else jumped in and spoke to Albus.

"I saved you a seat next to me Albus."

Albus looked and saw that the person addressing him was none other than his cousin Rose.

"Rosie." He sighed with relief. She always had that affect on him. Even when she was mad, Rose's presence always made Albus feel more at ease. As soon as Rose got a good look at Albus' face her expression turned worried as well. Albus tried to ignore it, and shuffled over, setting his bag on the long table they shared, and sitting in the stool next to hers.

Albus was aware that everyone in the class had their eyes trained on him. Most of them were curious, a few might have been sympathetic, but Albus was trying not to notice the stares. A few moments later, once Professor Longbottom seemed to decide that Albus was situated and was not going to started crying hysterically, he continued his lesson for the day.

Rosie stayed silent for the entire time that Professor Longbottom was talking, but her eyes never left Albus. He could feel her staring at him, and knew that he was not going to be able to brush off being late. Somehow she was going to weasel the story out of him, and the thought of her knowing what had happened in the forest made Albus very uncomfortable. In fact, what had actually happened in the forest made Albus uncomfortable enough, so he had no idea how he was going to tell someone else about it.

As soon as Professor Longbottom stopped talking, and asked them all to start collecting spores off of the plant they were working on, Rosie pounced on him.

"Albus. Tell me what happened." She said, putting her hands on her hips. She looked exactly like her mother when she did that; the stance meant business.

"Can we talk about it later?" Albus said hastily, putting on his garden gloves and reaching for a tray to collect the spores.

"No. We can talk about it now." Rosie said in a commanding tone. She grabbed the tray out of his hands and glared at him. Albus sighed defeated.

"Well it's a pretty long story, maybe we can talk about it after class." He proposed, hoping that Rose's curiosity could be sated for that long.

"Alright, but after this, we are going to get lunch and you are going to tell me everything, sparing no details. Understand?"

Albus nodded, and took his tray back to start collecting spores. Rose's eyes softened suddenly, and she touched him on the shoulder. Albus couldn't help but think about how Scorpius had touched that same shoulder less than an hour ago.

"You're alright aren't you?" She said gently. Albus looked at her and grinned. His best friend was talking to him again. Better yet, she was concerned about him. Best of all she had saved him a seat in Herbology and they were getting lunch together.

"Yes Rosie, I'm just fine."

"What the hell Andy!" Steph yelled out almost immediately after Albus ran away.

"Andy, you SAID you were going to ask him if he was gay." Tess continued visibly angry.

"I thought you were going to ask him if he was a virgin." Wendy added, but she finished her statement with a shrug and leaned back into the couch, clearly unconcerned with the recent events.

"Why the hell are you ladies getting your panties in a twist?" Jaysen asked, "I mean, was that not entertaining? I thought that was entertaining. Did you not see his face?" Jaysen couldn't keep in his chuckle and the rest of his thoughts dissolved into laughter.

"So I changed up the game plan a little. No big deal." Andrew said.

"It is a big deal Andrew." Tess said crossing her arms. "I was hoping we could keep this going for a month at least. Now, Albus is never going to talk to us again, we have to think of another ingenious plan."

Andrew's eyes grew a little wider as he listened to Tess. It was obvious that he hadn't thought out his question before asking it.

"You big idiot." Steph said sighing.

"Well I guess it was fun while it lasted." Andrew said, pouting a little.

"I really did think we were going to get more out of it." Wendy added.

"Sorry guys. I couldn't resist… Did you see him, acting like some sort of little angel? With his book bag and his straight tie, and his little mumbling voice. I dunno, I just couldn't resist ruffling his feathers a bit." Andrew finished, slightly embarrassed now.

"Well he got pretty feisty, don't you think." Jaysen asked turning to Andrew. "I mean, when I called him a faggot he looked seriously pissed."

"Scorpius, you haven't said anything." Stephanie added suddenly. Instantly they all turned to Scorpius and waited for their friend to say something.

"What do you want me to say?" Scorpius asked quietly.

"Dude, I'm sorry." Andrew started, " I didn't mean to ruin-"

"Who said you ruined anything?" Scorpius interrupted with a grin. Everyone stared at him in shock so Scorpius decided to continue. "In case you didn't notice Albus Potter is in love with me. If anything this makes our job much easier."

"But Scorpius, how are we going to get him to trust us after this? We ambushed him." Tess asked.

"Leave that to me Tess." Scorpius replied, "After all, I'm his secret crush. Something tells me it will take a lot more than what happened today to keep him away." Scorpius started to laugh and they all joined in, well except for Sullivan, who was frowning to himself.

"What about you Sullivan," Andrew asked, looking at his friend. "What do you think?"

"I think you're all stupid." Sullivan replied.

"Oh please, do elaborate." Tess said rolling her eyes at their dramatic friend.

"Did no one notice how he opened the hedge by himself?" Sullivan said loudly, clearly upset. "I spent MONTHS proofing that charm and changing it to only let it open for US. Albus Potter walks over and in a second he tears it down with some silent spell? Its impossible!"

No one had any idea of what to say to Sullivan, who seemed more than a little peeved for being shown up by Albus.

"All I'm saying," Sullivan added calmly, "Is that treating Albus like some naïve, helpless kid is dangerous. We can't underestimate him. This could be a lot more challenging than you all realize."

"Well personally," Scorpius smirked, "I've always been fond of challenges."

Everyone relaxed a little. In their group when Scorpius made a decision it was final. He didn't always use his authority, but when he did it was nice knowing that no one would be arguing or fighting about the topic anymore. It seemed as if for now their little game was still in motion.

Steph sighed, and leaned back in her couch, propping her feet up on the arm of the chair where Albus had been sitting only minutes before. "Well Albus Potter, it looks like we aren't finished with you yet."

Immediately after Herbology ended Rosie and Albus packed up their things and headed to the Great Hall. Before leaving the greenhouse Albus spotted Professor Longbottom giving him a troubled look. Albus gave him a grin and a wave before leaving the classroom. Albus hoped that his teacher wouldn't worry about him too much. He especially hoped that he wouldn't feel the need to write Albus' parents about his concern for Albus, as he had done in the past.

Rose and Albus went into the Great Hall for only a moment. Rosie grabbed them a stack of sandwiches and a couple apples. She then motioned for him to follow her back out of the Great Hall. He followed her dutifully but was nervous on the inside.

Albus still wasn't sure that he wanted to tell Rosie about his meeting with Scorpius Malfoy and friends. He didn't want her to have some personal vendetta against them; after all, he was used to being teased and he had gotten over the events of the morning anyways. Well… mostly.

No, the real thing that was bothering Albus now was the question that Andrew had asked him. At first he had just dismissed it as impossible, but all throughout Herbology Albus hadn't been able to forget it. Albus couldn't deny that he thought Scorpius was really attractive, maybe he even was attracted to Scorpius, but that didn't mean he was… well, you know, gay… did it? Albus didn't feel gay. He didn't particularly care about fashion and he hated gossip.

During class Albus had tried a little experiment. He had looked at all the girls in his class and given each one a score from 1 to 10 depending on how attractive she was. Albus knew the boys in his dorm did this all the time, so he thought he might as well give it a try. He started with a particularly chubby Hufflepuff. She had a pretty face though, and nice hair, so he gave her a 3. The next girl got a 6, another got a 5, a few got 7's and a few more got 8's. One girl got a 4 and one girl got a 9. After Albus had finished scoring them all he went back to the 8's and the 9 and tried to tell himself that he thought they were attractive. And it was true; he did think that, the only problem was that Albus realized that he wasn't attracted to them. They were obviously very pretty girls, but Albus found that he just wasn't interested. This worried Albus. He had never been interested in girls, but he always thought it was for a lack of trying. Now he was trying, and there was still nothing there. For a moment he considered changing and scoring all the boys in his class, but he was too afraid to try, worried about how attractive he might find some of his male classmates.

Walking down an almost empty hall with his cousin Albus realized that the best way to sort out his confused feelings would be to talk to someone about them. The only person Albus felt comfortable talking to was Rosie, but he just saw no way of bringing it up without mentioning his excursion into the forest.

"Albus?" he heard his cousin ask. Albus pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked at her.

"Come on, let's eat in here."

Albus smiled as he realized that they were in his favorite empty classroom. It was only on the second floor, but it was at the very end of an older hall that didn't get much use. The walls were still decorated with large posters of planets and magical creatures that had faded and yellowed. Empty birdcages hung from the ceiling, although creatures of some sort had obviously been in them once. Albus and Rosie had come here often in past years to eat lunch or simply were two large chairs and a fireplace in the corner of the room. Albus and Rose had countless spent hours in those chairs over the years. Sitting down Albus was handed a sandwich from Rose. He took it tentatively, knowing what was coming. A moment later when Rosie had grabbed herself a sandwich and made herself comfortable in her chair, she turned to her cousin.

"Alright." She began, "Now what happened." If it hadn't been Rosie asking him the question Albus might have laughed. She sounded so much like a concerned mother… or maybe a therapist.

"I had an interesting morning…" Albus started, not quite sure where his story was going. Rosie gave him a look that seemed to say, duh. Albus continued.

"I had this dream last night." He started again, trying to make a story in his head as quickly as he could. "And I was at Hogwarts in the common room by myself. Then this guy came in, but I didn't know who he was. He sat down next to me, and then all of a sudden…." Albus stopped, unsure if his "gay dream plan" was a very good plan at all.

"What?" Rosie asked, obviously curious.

"We started snogging." Albus said quickly. He felt his cheeks heat up. He had never dreamed of snogging a guy, but the fact that he was pretending he had was almost worse.

Rosie stared at him for a long time without saying anything.

"Well, then, you know more things happened," Albus continued awkwardly, "Teenage boy dream things…"

Rosie nodded carefully, "Alright." She said after awhile.

"Well, yeah. And then when I woke up I had this… erm, situation to deal with." Albus continued. It did feel weird to be making all of this up, but it didn't really feel weird telling it to Rosie. After all she was his best friend, and they normally talked about everything.

"So I was going to get up and shower, but then I heard everyone else getting up and I was too embarrassed for them to see me, so I just stayed in bed and waited for everyone to leave. Then I took my shower, but… well I kept, I mean I was… I kept thinking about guys." Albus said finally. "And I dunno, I got upset because I haven't thought about this before and I'm just really confused. Also, I took forever to get ready so that's why I was late to class." Albus thought his story was pretty believable. In fact it was probably more believable then the truth.

"So, you were so upset because you were confused?" Rosie asked a moment later. Albus nodded taking a bite out of his sandwich.

"Albus?" she asked quietly, "Are you telling me that you think you are gay?"

Albus swallowed his bite of sandwich. "Rosie, I'm saying that I don't know. I was hoping you could help me work through my feelings."

"Right. Of course I can." Rosie said quickly. "First things first, have you ever had a crush on a boy?"

"No!" Albus said a little too quickly, but Rosie didn't seem to notice.

"Alright, well what about a girl?" she questioned.

"Not really." Albus said after a moment.

"Well, have you ever had these kinds of dreams before, I mean with either boys or girls?" Rosie asked next.

"No." Albus replied truthfully.

"Ok…" Rosie said slowly. "Well… I mean, did you like it? The dream that is."

Albus looked down at his lap for a second, feeling his face go red again. A moment later he looked up at his cousin and nodded. "Yeah, I liked it."

"Do you think you would like it if it had been a girl?" Rosie said.

"I don't know Rosie. I've never been with a girl." Albus said wearily.

"Well, think about it. Imagine it. What do you think?" Rosie persisted.

"I… I don't think I would. Maybe… I mean, no I guess not." Albus sighed.

"I don't mean to jump to any conclusions Alby, but if you are sexually attracted to guys and not girls then I' m pretty sure that means you're gay." She paused, "Does that bother you?"

Albus sighed again and put his head in his hands.

"Well it sure complicates things." He replied finally. A moment later he felt a hand on the top of his head. He looked up and saw Rosie smiling at him.

"Don't worry Alby. It's not a bad thing; you don't have to be sad or embarrassed. It's possible that you just had a weird gay dream, and that your hormones took control and let you get so worked up. Girls can have lesbian dreams with out being lesbians, sometimes your mind just does weird things. This doesn't mean you're gay. Even if you do like guys, you could still be bisexual." Rosie continued to rub Albus' hair gently as she talked.

"I just have this feeling Rose. This weird feeling that I've been avoiding this for a while and I just need to face it." Albus sighed again.

"Well then face it!" Rosie said firmly, "Experiment! Open your thoughts up. Let yourself think about boys, and girls, whoever you want. Your feelings will surface eventually."

Albus nodded, "That makes sense." He said quietly.

Rosie looked down on him and quickly pulled him into a big hug. "Albus, just so you know, I will always love you, no matter who you have sex dreams about. I love you for who you are, not for who you spend your time snogging. Don't ever be afraid to tell me the truth okay? And for the record, everyone else in our family loves you just as much, even James, although he wont show it."

Albus felt like he was going to start crying, he was so glad he had his best friend back. He hugged her even tighter.

"Rosie, I'm sorry for being so moody lately. I never meant to make you mad." He apologized.

"Alby, you have nothing to be sorry about. I forgive you. I mean, look how much you've had to think about. I should have been more supportive."

Albus smiled at Rosie and she smiled back at him. Then she grabbed another sandwich and handed it to Albus. He took it gladly and was about to take a bite when he thought of something.

"Rosie, you wont tell anyone about this will you? I mean not yet, while I'm still figuring it all out." Albus asked.

"My lips are sealed." Rosie said with a wink.

"Thanks." Albus replied and took a big bite of his sandwich. Leaning back in his chair Albus closed his eyes and for the first time since he left his parents at King's Cross he felt completely at ease.