APOV
"You're not a genius at all. You're just mad. What possessed you to invite them all to dinner?" I demanded, helping Al put away the dish-ware once everyone else had finished their meals and gone. Mercifully the elves had cleaned the plates by magic but this was still the Potters private set.
"I don't know! I thought when he complimented our performance that we might have a good evening. My mistake in thinking you could control yourself around James."
"Me? ME? He's always a tit to us. Don't lay this at my feet."
"Ugh i'm too tired for this right now."
I walked out of the kitchen towards the bar to put on a playlist to relax.
"Oh, Clair de Lune. I love Flight Facilities" Scor offered, grabbing his glass of Rosé and joining me on the couch.
"I know. That's why I put it on. For you…"
I picked up a seventh year transfiguration textbook, seeing if there was anything useful I didn't already know in its inky depths. He watched me speed read page after page like some freaky savant, until I couldn't bare it any longer.
"Can I help you? I'm trying to study..."
He put his glass down with a delicate clink and without warning pulled me into a sideways hug from across the couch.
"Awww. Not that i'm not happy to receive cuddles at any hour, but what brought this on so suddenly?"
"I just… I miss my sister Al… I wonder what she would have been like at our age. Would she have liked you just as much? Would we all be friends? Would we have fought over who got to hang out with you more? Would she like our music? Would she be funny? What kind of books would she like…"
"Oh Scor... I think she'd have been wonderful. Beautiful, smart, hopefully though she'd have been less serious than you."
"Hey!" He shot, pulling back.
"She'd have been proud of her big brother that's for sure. Of what you've become… of how hard you work… of how brave you are…"
"Her big brother huh? It's weird to think while my mother labored to bring Ella into the world, you and I were already put in a crib together in the natal ward at Mungo's"
"What possessed the doctors to place us in the same crib do you think? My parents never talk about the birth. Apparently I was quite difficult."
"Of course you were difficult."
"Hey!"
it was my turn to scoff.
"What possessed the doctors I couldn't say. What possessed you to defend Ella that way is the better question. Don't tell me you had a crush on her?" Scor asked.
I blushed, thinking back on what James had revealed at dinner.
"I always thought it had been Lily i'd protected. I guess my mind tried to piece my memories together from what the Adults hadn't obliviated."
"Would you two have ended up together I wonder?" Scor mused quietly to himself.
"Why? Because you're so taken with my sister?"
"What? No! I just mean because you… well… you know."
"I defend those closest to me. I always have. I'd do the same for you... if someone tried to hurt you" I replied, staring into his eyes. That's when an idea struck me. I rose and made my way to the potions cupboard, withdrawing a large flagon and a small shot glass from its interior shelves.
"OH MY GODDESS! You're going to let me have Athena again?" Scor beamed, recognizing the transmog potion i'd made. I swear his hands almost flew to his belt before I'd finished pouring.
"What?! Ashera No! Jesus Scor! Fuck no! I was going to pour you like five minutes worth of Ella. So we could see what she'd look like. She was your twin right? It's for you dope! You as a girl equals Ella no?"
"Oh… right. I knew that."
I got red, realizing how fast Scor would be to fuck me again should I ever decide to take another full dose of the sex change potion. I poured a tiny fraction of liquid into the cup, watching Scor pull off his shirt. Next he unbuckled his pants and slid those off. He remained in but his emerald fitted trunks, the outline of his cock impressive even soft. He brought his hand to cover his chest, and I realized we had no access to magic to alter his clothes. Without a spell to shift with the shape of his body it could affect the fabric.
"I doubt your breasts will be so pendulous that they'd have messed up your shirt" I laughed, handing him the glass and the discarded shirt once again. "You're shrinking mostly."
"Oh… well i guess you are right… It'd be weirder changing from a girl into a boy with a larger frame."
I nodded, suppressing a smirk at the rare moment of thoughtlessness from my genius. he slipped the button down back on but left the top few nodes open just in case.
"well, here goes"
He downed the bitter tasting concoction and waited for his features to change. It took three minutes of digestion before the small traces of substance finally took effect.
My eyes went wide at the sight of the transformation, finding wonder in the magic the way i seldom did anymore. I grabbed the girl by her shoulders when the roiling skin had stilled, pushing her into the bedroom where an enormous gold framed mirror hung on the wall.
"Wow Al."
"WOW is right."
"Wow" He repeated shifting his body from left to right. He caught me blushing and rolled his eyes, her eyes…
The creature leaned in to the mirror, examining it's features with conspicuous interest, pulling at her skin with those slender fingers.
"Am I a genius or what?"
"You have your moments Al, for a twit."
"So what's it like in there?"
"My entire thought process is different? It's like a weird drug."
"Compared to all the other drugs you've done before?"
"You know what I mean."
"In this case I actually do."
I came up next to the angelic girl, opening the camera app on Scor's phone for a few photos. Mine was still in the living room playing music.
'We really did need a bluetooth system here' I mused momentarily, framing the two of us in the shot.
She did up a few buttons to close the shirt in front of her, before she placed an arm around my waist. She put up two fingers behind my head to make bunny ears. Another shot she leaned in to kiss my cheek, burning the skin even redder than before.
We laughed together and before I knew it the micro dose of potion began to wear off. Scor's manhood filled in the pocket of his trunks even as the long hair receded to its original length. An adams apple formed along his gorgeous neck and suddenly he was the handsome boy I knew again.
"Wicked" He tried, the slang a little casual sounding for him.
"Well you'd have had an awful time beating away all of her suitors with a stick. She'd have been more popular than either of us, and we're becoming famous!"
"Mother always said she'd be one of the prettiest women on earth… if i hadn't killed her…"
"Scor... you absolutely did not kill Ella. You know that. It wasn't your fault. Nor Aurora's. It just happened. The ground gave way..."
"I know… I'm just being morose. Anyway, should we sleep here tonight? I don't want to risk losing points, and the cloak happens to be back in our dorm."
"Sure. I'm beat anyway" I shrugged, leaping backwards into the plush king sized bed. The lights in the chic apartment were already dim, the multicolored flames of the Beacon flickering through the glass in the living room skylight. We were too lazy to turn off the lights or retrieve my phone but I did lower the speaker volume from a console by the backboard. Then I lifted the covers for my blond idiot to climb in.
"Hey Allie?"
"Allie this time? I'm not getting you water or turning off the lights if that's what you want."
"Ha, no, Lazy, you don't have to get up for this. I was just going to ask… if you maybe... that is... wanted to live with me after Hogwarts? This place is so chic, can't you just imagine a London apartment in the shard? Or maybe a place in manhattan?"
My head swiveled off its axis.
"You want to live with me after we graduate? What about the ICW? The ministry? Won't we do our post graduate studies at a university? Or maybe… I mean…"
"Woah calm down. You've gone a little super modular praxia on me. It's not a trick question you know."
His laughter brought my racing thoughts to a more manageable speed.
"Whatever we do next we'll need a place to live, no? Why not live together Al? If there's no war or other shit going on. We'll probably still have all of our business ventures going, and the band in full swing. Could be fun, and certainly convenient."
"Wow… I guess we could even live in the Moon Pocket when the club is finished? It's designed like a palace anyway. Or we could even… buy our own place too. We have obscene amounts of money."
"Sure… It wasn't exactly where we'd live that I was asking though. Just that we'd live together." He corrected a little awkwardly.
"I guess I could survive, if I absolutely had to" I teased, snuggling up to him. His arm came around my shoulder, except that instead of resting there as it usually did, he began to twirl little circles against the skin there. My head rose and fell with his chest, the warmth of his body a reassuring thing.
You mean I get to live with my love? Won't that be too hard on me—
"Something to look forward to if we don't end up in a war."
I sighed.
"You and I will doubtless survive any war. It's just the whole world could be unrecognizably shit in the aftermath of one."
"Sorry, I was being morose again Al."
SPOV
"What did it say?" Al asked cryptically, almost when I thought he'd drifted off.
"What did what say?"
"The love letter? I saw the pink envelope in the bin, with all the hearts on it."
"Ohhhhh. I was so confused for once. I have no idea actually. I didn't open it" I replied honestly my digits swirling.
"Seriously?" He lifted his head to look at me.
"Why? Should we go read it? For a laugh?"
He chuckled at that.
"You're not the least bit curious who might lurrrrrb you?"
I frowned.
"Do I have time to entertain some high school groupie crush?"
"RUDENESS! You don't know that they're a groupie? There are loads of posh well to do students at Hogwarts. It's not necessarily a fan or a rando."
"Whatever, I'm tired, let's just go to bed."
That night I dreamt of a myriad futures. I pictured Al sticking a piece of freshly made toast in my mouth as I slipped on a Burberry trench coat, running out the door of our Manhattan townhouse with a briefcase in hand. I pictured chocolate colored dobermans welcoming us home with licks and leaps in the foyer of our country estate. I pictured our club The Jade Fortress in all its glory, finished and renovated and open to the public. I pictured Al dancing through its winding halls and labyrinthine passageways. It wasn't the kind of stage dancing Taesung would teach us, it was a lush, seductive private sort of ambling. I found I couldn't take my eyes off of the boy in my dreams. He had black liner and silver makeup tingeing the corner of his eyes, a bit of glitter highlights along his cheeks that caught the glow of dark shifting lights. His hands trailed along the walls as he looked periodically back to see if I was following.
"Can you believe we built all this? To think it's only the beginning" The twenty year old Al asked, his voice wafting dreamily through the vision. He had on an emerald silk shirt, a cool metal stud earring in the shape of a snakes fang in his left ear and black velvet dress slippers on his feet. He wore a chain around his neck with a Louis Vuitton padlock as its pendant and a stack of Cartier love bracelets in platinum on his off hand.
'He's chic' I thought, watching the stupidly beautiful boy traverse our club. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into a false wall, tumbling through the fake bookshelf excitedly.
Guests parted before us, trying to say hi, trying to introduce themselves eagerly. Yet Al barely noticed. He pulled us through secret passage after secret passage. He pulled us through rooms of masked dancers and a myriad of variously styled bars and staged rooms. All the while I was powerless to resist.
We finally found ourselves in the pocket dimension that housed the orders headquarters. He led us to a room I assumed to be ours, where he began undressing.
"What are you doing?"
"Changing? We have to perform. It's three years since we opened. The club's anniversary Scor" He explained in the dream, pulling his pants off and then his shirt.
Without control or agency I watched as the dream me enveloped his counterpart in a tight embrace. I'd pressed myself up against Al, catching him smirk in the reflection of the closets mirrored doors.
"We don't have time to fool around! You're the worst sometimes Scor!" He teased, though he made no move to resist or push me off.
Inwardly I recoiled at the words, but I felt too the overwhelming force of the dream world push the actors towards whatever mad skit's end my unconscious mind was creating.
Al looked over his shoulder to catch my gaze, his features melting headily as his breathing deepened. He was starting to pant as he watched my lips, his lids closing headily as though the weight of his need had dimmed his common sense. Then suddenly we were kissing, the throb of my cock pressed up against the material of Al's underwear. I gasped when his hand reached back to slip into my pants.
'I'm hard…' i spat into my mind, horrified.
"Fuck Scor…" the dream Albus moaned. He'd freed my member from it's housing casually, pushing himself back against it dazedly. I further shocked myself when my hand lowered his underwear, the sight of his perfect ass teasing me.
The lyrics of Flutes by Hot Chip played through the Moon Pocket, played through the entire Jade fortress. Every room pounded with the beat of the song.
I recoiled in shock at the pleasure that flooded through me when our bodies joined. It was more nightmare than dream, the inability to stop myself from taking him the way i'd taken Athena.
He moaned my name without restraint as I took him. Over and over I heard him call me, the need in his voice a desperate, hot, thing. No embarrassment or fear as the word SCOR came panting over and over.
Was I fucking enjoying this?' I asked, catching a glimpse of us in the mirror as al gripped the open closet doors for support.
My horror only darkened when instead of Al's face in the reflection, appeared Tom Riddle's features overlayed over my brunets.
"I told you, you'd do anything for him. I told you that you would end up tainting your Scor to sate your filthy desires. What sort of brother are you? To let him inside you? To have planned it all for this conclusion. You've warped him…"
I realized Voldemort wasn't speaking to me, he was speaking to the nightmare Al.
Al's face was lost in pleasure, even as he awkwardly swung the door away from him in between my thrusts, all to obscure the reflection of the psycho intruder.
"Piss off Tom. Can't I even dream in peace?" Al asked, before the illusion shattered and I woke up in a cold sweat.
I looked over to Al who lay on the far side of the bed, snuggling a pillow in between his legs and another in his arms.
"What the fuck is wrong with me?" I demanded out loud, causing Al to mumble absently in his sleep.
"Stop it… you're hurting me Scor" Al whined deliriously, likely having his own weird dreams. There was no way it was the same as mine…
I realized then that I was hard, the sound of the dream song playing for real this time on the room speaker..
"Fuck!" I spat, leaving the bedchamber to pour myself some water from a pitcher in the fridge. My head was still a little foggy from the wine so I ripped open a packet of headache relieving powder and poured the orange stuff into my glass. I stared down into the frothy mixture, just letting the jumble of my emotions swirl. I took my drink into the living room and then stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the rest of the castle and the black lake.
I watched the mottling of hamlet lights from those few wizards still awake at this hour, wondering if their lives were just as complicated as mine. I tried using magic to change the soft music that still played quietly in the background, but remembered when nothing happened that i still could not perform. So I walked back to the bar, scrolling until I saw the song Bloom by HVOB. I closed my eyes and listened to the song, trying to picture the parts of my dream that i'd actually enjoyed… before it had turned raunchy.
I focused as hard as I could until the more innocent visions resurfaced.
There we were.
Al and I were laughing on the roof of a penthouse high atop the clouds of a city. I watched him smile at me even as our friends told jokes or played cards at neighboring tables. Even lily was drinking, presumably twenty one in my imagination. She brought cocktails to a group of our friends as we lounged happily above the city lights. Izanami was on her phone, Rose was reading a book.
'Why does he look at you like that?' A voice asked me as I observed Al.
'I… I don't deserve it…' I thought feeling tears spring to my eyes. 'He loves you more than the air he breathes' it continued, tracing the line of al's neck, catching the glint in his eyes.
'What?' he mouthed coyly in my imagination, his beauty something breathtaking to behold. 'you're staring' He added nervously without a sound, fixing a strand of hair behind his hair nervously.
& (ODIN^6) /-{ORBTI}/ O*# _332‚°•£HELiXº
'I'd die to protect him!' Al's voice roared in my head. 'For SCORPIUS! ATTACK! Rally to me! All of you!' TO WAR! The battler cry rent the peace of the vision I clung to in front of me. Nobody atop the spire could hear it but me but even in my imagination the premonition roared. The final horror that awaited us.
'How can I see the future inside a dream?'
My eyes opened when I realized the pretty song had started over abruptly, this time a good deal louder than before.
Al had woken too, raising the volume to enjoy the song with me. He made his way over to me, pulling my glass from my grip to place it onto the low sitting coffee table. With a strange silence he moved close to me, placing himself utterly flush against me. His cheek was pressed against my chest, his palms feeling me through the fabric. He began to sway without a word, dancing with me somberly in the wake of whatever dream had likewise disturbed his sleep.
"Al—"
He shook his head and placed a soft finger against my lips, his expression haunting. He pointed to the speakers as if to say 'just listen with me'
[Author note: definitely listen to the song while reading this]
Why is he shorter than normal? i wondered, realizing how differently he fit in my arms. As I looked down at the swaying figure, I noticed his exquisite hair beginning to grow out. I noticed his muscled arms shrinking and his chest develop the breasts i'd so enjoyed in my hands the night of our union.
"Al… you didn't…" I whispered, watching Athena's face looking up at me. She'd detached herself ever so slightly, just enough to peer nervously into my features for some kind of reassurance.
"You're not going to let me remember this tomorrow are you?"
She smiled and shook her head.
"How did you figure out how to obliviate me without regular magic? A potion?" I asked, watching her smile purse slightly at how well I knew him. "You're in love with me?"
She nodded so sadly I thought I might die.
"You'd give yourself to me like this? Even though we won't remember? Even though you know I don't want… you as a boy?"
He nodded again.
"You wouldn't risk my health even if I did want you as a boy would you…"
He pulled in those beautiful red lips, shaking his head.
'I'd die for you' her eyes seemed to say.
I took off my shirt then, cupping her cheek to pull us in for a kiss.
And oh how we kissed. Slow and sticky I moved us to the couch, lay her back, undoing the nodes on the shirt she'd worn out of the bedroom. He quiet was a bewitching thing, only moans or the sounds of bodies. She didn't say a word as I undressed us, nor when I continued to trail my nips and pecks down the front of her body.
I opened my eyes and Al and I were still slow dancing in our original position, the vision another dream like hallucination. The song was still playing and I realized something was seriously wrong with us.
'Could it be the tangled fate cord?' I wondered, feeling his breath against me. Version of fate, all the little futures we might fall into...
"You ok?" He asked me, sensing my unease. "I woke up and you were out here."
"I'm fin— actually no. I'm not ok Al."
"Hmm. Sorry to hear that…"
"Not going to ask me what's wrong? Not going to try and make it better?"
"I can't solve everything Scor… sometimes all I can do is be there. Like you are for me" He replied sweetly. I pushed him back a little to look at him, holding him by the shoulders. I went to the cupboard to look at the amount of transmog potion left in the container. He hadn't taken any after all… it had been a hallucination.
When I came back to the living room I almost gawked.
"You always know how to fix everything don't you?" I asked, watching him set up our MacBooks. He'd pulled out sheet paper and a notepad so we could work on songwriting.
"How do you mean? I'm just inspired right now."
"You're inspired because it's literally the perfect time to create something. Genius twit."
"Maybe" He replied, patting the couch next to him so I could join. "Either way, you sit and have a think. I'm just going to be here untying these knots. I know you're working on fixing us… but I have a feeling I can help."
I obeyed without argument, taking solace in just being next to my idiot best friend. His fingers worked along a particularly complicated section of webbed thread.
"I bet these strings would make for a great guitar chord" he mused absently as I wrote and rewrote the bones of a song.
An hour and a half later and Al had fallen back to sleep, a fairy princeling no matter what position he fell into.
I leaned down to pick him up, carrying him back to bed as if he were my own little creature. I deposited him there and against my better judgment kissed him deeply on the lips.
'Are you sure you're not also guilty of the thing you fear?' A voice whispered in my head when I pulled back.
'Shut up' I spat, sliding into bed and passing out.