Enjoy!

The next morning when Albus woke up he was aware of two things. Number one, drinking fire whiskey was a very bad idea. Number two, he needed food more than he ever had in his entire life. Groaning loudly from his combined famish, headache and nausea Albus struggled to get out of bed. Once he sat up he pulled the curtains aside from his four-poster bed and groaned even louder. The large clock that hung on the wall of his dorm announced that it was 11:00. Not only had Albus missed breakfast by a long shot, he also had an hour to wait until lunch. There was no way he would last that long, Albus decided standing up.

After standing Albus immediately sat back down. The entire room was spinning and Albus was obviously in no condition to go anywhere. Shaking his head Albus decided that he would just go back to bed and wait for lunch, but a loud grumbling in his stomach convinced him that he would never get to sleep without food. As this mental debate raged on Albus was interrupted by a loud tapping on the window outside. Glancing over Albus saw a large black and brown barn owl, hovering outside the window with a letter clasped in its beak.

"Aurora!" Albus exclaimed. He got up slowly this time and made his way over to the window sluggishly so he could open it up for the bird. As soon as the window was opened the owl zoomed in and landed on top of Albus' wardrobe.

"Come on down girl." Albus called sweetly, gesturing at her to fly down. Aurora didn't move a muscle.

"Come on give me the letter." Albus called a little more harshly. Still the bird didn't move.

"Look, I'm sorry I wasn't at breakfast, I was very tired." Albus explained.

When the owl still stayed on top of his wardrobe Albus sighed and turned to get into his trunk. I moment later he pulled out a bag of owl snacks. He shook the bag and Aurora turned and gazed at Albus intently. Sighing again, Albus shook a handful of the little pellets into his hand and held them out to the bird. Immediately the owl zoomed down and landed on Albus wrist. She pecked up all of the pellets in record time, and was even careful not to nip Albus' hand, which was surprising seeing as how moody she had been a minute ago.

When the pile of snacks was gone Albus pet the owl for a moment or two before dumping another small pile of snacks out on his bed, and going to retrieve the letter from Teddy that the owl had dropped. Albus knew the letter was from his foster brother because Aurora was Teddy's owl. His own father had given it to Teddy as a gift upon entering Hogwarts, and Albus knew the owl rather well. Teddy usually wrote to Albus a couple times a month during the school year, and so Albus had been expecting a letter soon anyways. Ripping open the letter, Albus sat on his bed and read.

Hey Albus!

How's my favorite little brother doing? Really, I was just asking that to be polite, the truth is I already know how fantastic things are for you. Harry told me all about your summer trip to Saudi Arabia! I'm so excited for you! I know how much this means to you and I also know how much fun you are going to have. I can't wait to see you and hear more about it. I just wanted to write you and say congratulations! I know you were worried that this year was going to be tough, but I told you everything would work out, didn't I? And look at that, I was right. Not much of a surprise really, I'm always right. Since I knew you were wondering nothing is new with me, just working and hanging out with Vic a bunch. Write me back when you get a chance, I want to hear about school. Alright, later!

Love,
T

Albus re-read the letter twice before putting it down. He was happy that Teddy had written him. Teddy and Albus had always had a special bond. Besides Rose, Teddy was the only person who Albus trusted with everything. Teddy had always known how badly Albus wanted to be a curse breaker and so it would make sense that he would be excited about the Saudi Arabia trip.

However there was one part of the letter that Albus worried about. Teddy had said, "I know how great things are going for you". Although that was true academically, in terms of his emotions Albus was doing pretty horribly. Although last night had been a good escape from his problems, it hadn't made them disappear. If anything Albus had more problems because now, instead of wanting to avoid Scorpius Malfoy he wanted to spend more time the Slytherin and his friends.

Albus wasn't sure if he was ready to tell Teddy all of this. Teddy didn't even know that Albus was gay! Important information like that didn't exactly seem like something you could write in a letter. Plus if Teddy got the impression that Albus was depressed or unhappy he would tell his parents. The last thing Albus wanted were his parents worrying about him and his lack of friends.

Aurora had finished her pile of food and hopped over to where Albus was sitting. She began gently pecking his hand, obviously wanting more food. Albus realized that he would have to write Teddy back, but he was in no mood right now. Albus walked back over the window, and gestured that the bird go back outside.

"Go up to the owlry." Albus said to the bird. She looked back at him with disgust.

"Come on, I'll be up in a little while with a letter for Teddy." At the mention of Teddy's name the bird grudgingly started to move.

"And Mirzam is up there…" Albus added with a grin.

At the mention of Mirzam, Aurora perked up, and quickly flew out the window. Albus couldn't help but chuckle. Mirzam was the name of the Potter children's owl. Albus, James and Lily all shared one owl while at school, and it was a well-known fact that Aurora and Mirzam were madly in love.

When Teddy sent a letter sometimes it took days to get a reply to him because Aurora refused to leave the owlry. Usually Mirzam would just get sent back along with Teddy's owl, and even then he would stay at Teddy's place for a while before returning to Hogwarts. This sometimes made sending letters difficult, especially since the owl was shared between the three siblings, but they all thought it was so cute that they couldn't ever get mad at either Aurora or Mirzam.

Albus' stomach started the growl again and he was reminded of his hunger. Feeling a little better, Albus stowed the letter from Teddy beneath his pillow and got dressed before heading out of his dorms in search of the kitchen.

A few minutes later Albus was walking down the hall away from the Gryffindor common room, and thinking of all the delicious food he could have the house-elves make for him. Suddenly he heard a loud shout from behind him.

"ALBUS SEVERUS POTTER!"

Alarmed Albus turned around quickly to see who had screamed at him. The hall was relatively empty so it wasn't hard to spot the small figure that was currently speeding toward him shaking her arms and yelling more.

It was Lily Potter, and she was furious.

When Scorpius Malfoy woke up the next morning he was aware of another person in his bed, snuggling up to his side. Confused Scorpius looked and found that it was Stephanie.

"Steph?" he said gently, running his fingers through her soft brown hair.

"Hmm?" Came the soft response. Steph didn't open her eyes but seemed awake enough.

"What are you doing in my bed?" he asked.

"I'm sleepy." She replied with an exaggerated yawn.

"Yes, well, so am I and if I recall you have a perfectly good bed across the hall." Stephanie chose not to respond to this, and pretended that she had fallen back asleep. Scorpius rolled his eyes at her childish antics and began to glance around the room. The curtains of his bed were pulled aside and they allowed him to see every other bed in the room. Jaysen was clearly visible in his bed and Andrew was still in bed as well. Scorpius also noticed that Sullivan and Trey were not in their beds. Trey was most likely at quidditch practice on a Saturday morning, but Sullivan, as far as Scorpius knew, had nothing to do.

A moment later Scorpius' question was answered when Sullivan came bursting into the dorm, hands full of what smelled like breakfast. Scorpius didn't think it was possible to love his friend any more than he did in that moment.

"Morning Scorpius, I see you're awake." Sullivan greeted cheerfully.

"Barely… Is that food?" Scorpius asked, suddenly aware of how hungry he was.

Sullivan grinned, holding up one bag. "Yep. I realized none of you were going to get up in time for breakfast so I picked some up for you."

Suddenly Jaysen sat up in his bed. "I smell scones." He said.

Sullivan reached into the bag and grabbed him one, then lightly tossed it across the room. Jaysen tried to catch it but missed. Thankfully the scone dropped onto the bed, where Jaysen immediately picked it back up and shoved the entire thing into his mouth. A moment later he had swallowed it and was looking at Sullivan as if expecting another one.

Sullivan sighed and turned to Scorpius. "If I let him have anymore there wont be enough for the girls. Someone should go get them."

Scorpius nodded and turned, shoving Steph out of his bed.

She hit the ground with a loud thud, which was followed by a loud groan.

"What the fuck Scorpius?" She whined, slowly standing up.

"Go get Wendy and Tess. We have breakfast." Scorpius informed her.

"No!" She pouted, trying to get back in the bed. "I have a head ache, I need sleep." Scorpius wouldn't allow her back in and pointed towards the door.

"Go." He commanded pointing her finger toward the door. She glared at him and huffed off.

"And why were you in my bed anyways?" He shouted after her, a moment later.

Stephanie didn't even turn around, but just shrugged and continued out the door.

Once she was gone, Sullivan answered Scorpius' question.

"Steph refused to go back to her own room last night when we got back here, I tried for a while to get her to go to bed but finally I just let her come up here. You all were already passed out and she just climbed into your bed. I figured you wouldn't mind."

Scorpius shrugged. It really wasn't a big deal, Stephanie and him had slept in the same bed a multitude of times. That wasn't to say that they slept together, they hadn't. Scorpius and Steph had been friends since age two and so their relationship was more like that of siblings than anything else. Even when they got older and Steph started getting really pretty Scorpius never thought any different about her. She was still the same old Steph, who he used to dare to lick slugs in his backyard for chocolate.

Scorpius got up, combed his hair, put on a new shirt and grabbed a scone. By that time the girls had come back. They all had a hard time waking up Andy, who slept like a bear in the midst of hibernation. Finally when they were all awake Sullivan broke open his bags of breakfast and they devoured the food.

Only after everyone had their fill, and they were all lounging around the room quite contentedly did Wendy bring up the topic they were all thinking about.

"So… Albus Potter?"

"Morning Lily." Albus greeted his sister in a nervous voice.

"Morning Lily? MORNING LILY! Is that all you have to say?" She yelled at him. Albus, being quite sure that this was a rhetorical question, didn't say anything.

"Do you have any idea how worried I was about you?" She commanded, jabbing her finger into his chest. Again Albus decided it better to stay quiet.

"First you run out of the common room like a crazy person looking for Rose. Then I hear all these weird rumors about you during dinner, which you don't even bother showing up to! Then you disappear for the rest of the night. And the next morning you don't even show up the breakfast? I was about to go find Professor Longbottom and tell him that you had gone missing! I can't believe this; you better have a good reason for making me worry so much. Well come on now! Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"

Albus opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, his stomach interjected with a loud rumble. Lily looked at him, clearly surprised.

"I'm pretty hungry. Can we go get food. I promise I'll explain on the way. Lily gave him a curt nod, and Albus grinned. He put his arm around his sister and steered her down the hallway.

"I'm sorry I made you worry Lils." He said quietly.

"That's alright, I'm just glad that you are okay." She responded with a small smile.

"Yes… well more or less." Albus began, "I suppose I should start this story at the beginning."

"I'm all ears." Lily responded patiently.

Sighing Albus though about where he would start his story.

"Well I guess it all starts with those rumors you heard about." He said glancing sideways at her. Lily didn't respond but just looked back at her brother, waiting for him to continue.

"I've been… thinking a lot this year. About a lot of things." He started.

"Just tell me Albus." Lily responded quietly.

Albus didn't know how to react to her request. It was obvious that Lily knew what he was thinking. Albus had already accepted it, and all she wanted him to do was tell her. But saying it was so much harder than he thought it would be. James was one thing. Albus had never been good enough it James' eyes anyways. But Lily was his little sister; he was supposed to protect her. He wasn't supposed to throw all his problems in her face and make her deal with them.

"Albus." She said squeezing his hand, "You know I'll always love you no matter what." She continued to hold his hand tight and he looked down at her.

"I'm gay." He finally said. Lily gave a loud sigh.

"Alright." She responded. Albus waited but she didn't seem to have anything else to say.

"Lily, I just want you to know that I wasn't keeping this from you. I mean it honestly never even occurred to me until a couple days ago." Albus said trying to fill the silence.

"Well in that case I think I've known longer than you have." She laughed.

"What?" Albus exclaimed. His shock made Lily laugh again.

"I dunno. I mean it's not like I would have ever said anything. I guess I shouldn't say that I knew, it's more like when I heard last night I wasn't surprised."

"Because I've never had a girlfriend?" Albus asked.

"Well yeah. And other things."

"Like what?" Albus asked, extremely curious. Lily rolled her eyes as if her brother was being ridiculous.

"Well, when we took the chunnel to France for the weekend this summer to visit uncle Bill, I remember a bunch of us went shopping in all the muggle stores. You wanted to go into this book store so we split up and like an hour later when we were trying to meet up you didn't show. So James and Louis sent me to go find you. And when I found you, you were still in the same bookstore, having this in-depth conversation about some silly novel with this guy that worked there."

"Yeah, I remember that." Albus said thinking back, "His name was Sebastian. He was telling me about anthropology, this thing muggles study. It was really interesting."

"Yeah, well he was totally hitting on you." Lily informed her brother.
This time it was Albus' turn to laugh. "Um, no Lily, I'm pretty sure that he wasn't."

"Yes he was," Lily continued, " And you were flirting back with him."

"I was not!" Albus exclaimed.

"Alby, you were giggling, and running your hands through your hair and leaning towards him and smiling. You were flirting. And he was totally into it. Whether or not you meant to, you were. I mean, I didn't jump to any conclusions then, but I was surprised because I never had seen you act like that around someone before, especially a girl. So I just thought that maybe you were more into boys."

"I didn't like him." Albus said, almost in defense.

"I know you didn't Albus." Lily laughed, "But you liked the attention he gave you."

Albus tried really hard to think back to that day. All he could remember was that the guy who had worked at the bookstore, Sebastian, had spoken English, and showed him some really cool books about archeology and called his attempts to speak French cute. But, had they really been flirting? Albus just thought he was a nice guy. Well, he had been pretty cute too…

"Oh Merlin." Albus mumbled to himself.

"It's not a big deal Albus." Lily said trying to comfort him

"No, I feel so stupid. How could you have realized something that I couldn't?"

"It's hard to accept things sometimes. Really Alby, please don't worry about it. Besides, it seems like you have even bigger worries right now."

"You mean my stomach?" Albus said, as it gave another loud grumble.

Lily rolled her eyes at her brother and whacked him on the arm. "No! I mean with Rosie."

At the mention of his cousin, Albus' mood darkened. "I don't want to talk about that." He said, walking faster down the hall to move away from his sister. Lily caught back up to her brother in a moment.

"Come on Albus. What happened? You've never been this mad at her before. You've never ignored her."

"She told her stupid boyfriend who told my stupid roommates that I was gay before I had even really accepted it, and they ambushed me and harassed me and accused me of perving on them all year. When I confronted her, she seemed to think she had done the right thing. I just snapped and started screaming at her in the middle of the Great Hall."

"Oh Albus." Lily said hugging her brother's arm close. "I'm so sorry. Rosie would do anything for that stupid boyfriend of hers." Lily sighed.

"Yeah, well I haven't forgiven her. But, I've started to think that maybe it is better this way." Albus replied.

"Really? Better?" Lily wondered.

"Well I can't exactly feel welcome in my room anymore…" Albus started, "But I do feel a lot more free, if that makes sense. Almost as if even though people know, it's not something that I have to be embarrassed about."

Albus looked down and smiled at his sister.

"That does make sense, and I'm very proud of you. If I hear anyone trying to talk badly about you, I'll curse them into next year!"

Albus laughed at how animated his sister had suddenly become, and it dawned on him that perhaps he didn't need to protect her as much as he thought. She was much more mature than he gave her credit for, and she seemed to take his news very well.

Just as they reached the kitchens, Lily stopped her brother again.

"I just have one more question." She said with a large smile.

"What is it?" Albus wondered.

"Now that you know you like boys, do you like any boy in particular?"

Albus sighed. He considered just telling her no and moving on, but he was dying to tell someone about Scorpius. Besides if Lily could handle him coming out of the closet he was sure she could handle his little crush on Scorpius Malfoy.

"That's another story entirely." He started scratching his head. "One that I really can't get through without some food in my stomach." He opened the door to the kitchen and motioned her inside.

"Come on. I'll tell you over breakfast."

The room grew deadly silent after Wendy's little announcement. Everyone turned to look at Scorpius, waiting for him to say something about the matter.

"What about Albus Potter?" Scorpius asked casually, although everyone could tell he was angry the topic had come up.

"Well last night was a little unexpected, don't you think?" Wendy continued.

Again the room was silent until Scorpius spoke.

"I sure wasn't expecting him to save us from James Potter if that's what you mean."

"Well yeah, there was that. But, what about even before. I mean he got drunk. We got Albus Potter drunk, and he seemed to have a good time."

"Yeah, that's because you were all too nice to him." Andrew complained. "We were supposed to be teasing him. Remember?"

"Yeah right Andrew." Jaysen laughed, "I'm pretty sure you were the one who said he was 'cooler than you thought he would be'."

Andrew turned a little red, embarrassed at what he had said the night before. "Well at least I didn't promise to defend his honor by beating up his cousin and brother like you did Jaysen."

"Hey don't look at me!" Jaysen said pointing at Wendy, "She was the one who was all over him, calling him nicknames and acting like the best of friends."

"Stop it." Scorpius said firmly. "You were all drunk, so you acted nice. We just wont let it happen again." Scorpius leaned back in his chair, as if to signal that the conversation about Albus Potter had come to a close. Stephanie however, thought differently.

"That advice is a little hypocritical coming from you Scorp." She said a moment later.

Angrily Scorpius turned to her, "And what is that supposed to mean?" He asked glaring.

"It MEANS that I was almost unconscious and I still noticed that you were awfully touchy-feely with Albus. Holding his hand if I remember correctly." She said with a grin. Scorpius glared at her even harder.

"Yes well I'm supposed to act like I like the kid right? I thought that was my job, make him fall in love with me and then break his heart. And then we all have a good laugh. Has everyone forgotten that?" He asked angrily glancing around.

"Oh, so is that what you were doing? Pretending?" Stephanie pressed.

"Yes of course!" Scorpius answered quickly.

"Could have fooled me." Stephanie replied so quietly that Scorpius just pretended he hadn't heard it.

The room was awkwardly quiet again, no one sure how to move the conversation forward. Finally Wendy spoke up.
"I don't like that plan." She mumbled into her lap.

"What?" Jaysen asked, clearly confused.

"I don't want to hurt Albus anymore." She said, still softly. "I like him, he's nice."
Scorpius stood up, still glaring and walked over to his trunk. He opened it and reached in and pulled out the invisibility cloak Albus had left with them last night.

"Well that's too bad Wendy." He said walking towards the door. "Because that's what we are going to do."

Without another word Scorpius walked out of the room.