Chapter Text
Albus had always felt different.
He wasn’t exactly sure why this was, and for a long time he thought it was normal. No matter where he was and who he was with he never quite fitted in.
It wasn’t that he was lonely. He had an annoying older brother, a pretty spoiled little sister, a super-brainy/super-stubborn cousin/best friend, and a ton of other cousins and relations. His house was never quiet and there was always someone visiting.
Uncle Percy would stop by to bore them all and bring Molly, Lucy, and long-suffering Aunty Audrey with him. Then there was Uncle George who was probably the only person who had more jokes under his belt than Uncle Ron. There was Aunty Angelina who talked endlessly to his mother about Quidditch until everyone was bored out of their minds. Then there were Fred and Roxy who took after their mother and made up the most stylish, overall well-presented portion of the family. That crown would have gone to Uncle Bill, Aunt Fleur, Victoire, Dominique, and Louis, who the family generally agreed were too good-looking for their own good, but for some reason they liked to wear second hand clothes and his cousins would always be wearing tooth-necklaces or other such bohemian oddities which made them look quirkily scruffy. Uncle Bill himself looked like an ageing rockstar. His dad and Uncle Ron seemed to think he looked cool. Albus saw his uncle’s long ponytail and cringed. And then there was Uncle Charlie, who was generally regarded as a bit odd. He had a thing about dragons and would talk about them at any opportunity. He was often out of the country but was guaranteed to send postcards from wherever he was and occasionally he returned with some new scar or other which he showed off with pride. James enjoyed his outrageous stories. Lily found them scary. Albus thought they were probably made up.
Then there were his grandparents. Grandma was the bossiest, fussiest little woman Albus had ever known and she was always ready to tell someone off… but she also gave the best hugs, made the best food, and was always there in a crisis. Whenever his mother or father was feeling a little down about something, you could guarantee Grandma and Grandad would turn up in their funny little car and Grandma would commandeer the kitchen, make cups of tea, and give out advice until everyone had pulled themselves together.
Grandad was a special favourite of Albus. He was very tall and very thin, and always tinkering away with some weird outdated muggle item which no muggles even used anymore, but he was fairly quiet and made Albus feel calm. Sometimes they would sit together watching the television and occasionally Grandad would comment on something or other. While everyone else regarded Albus as slightly difficult and secretive, Grandad didn’t appear to mind.
The truth was, Albus had little to complain about. His life should have been perfect. He knew that everyone his age envied him his famous mother and even more famous father. Albus wanted for nothing. He never went hungry, he was always clothed, and he didn’t think he’d ever been mistreated by his parents in his life.
And yet something was wrong. Very wrong.
Albus was starting to discover as the years went on, much to his horror, that he found it harder to smile than his siblings. Where they would sit at the dinner table and laugh, James throwing his head back, Lily giggling, Albus would find it an effort to join in.
Why was it he was so very miserable? It was a question he asked himself fairly often.
It was a question he overheard his father asking his mother on a regular basis.
“What is wrong with Al?” his father would ask, when his parents thought they were alone in the kitchen, and Albus was crouched nosily on the stairs trying his best to overhear their own take on the situation.
“There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with him,” his mother would say with a sigh. “This is just Al. It’s the way he is. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong.”
“But James never…”
“He isn’t James, Harry.”
A pause.
“No, I know he’s not. But even Lily… I get her. She makes sense. I know what she’s thinking. But with Al… I just… everything’s different.”
“You need to try a little harder,” his mother would advise often. “Get to know him.”
“That’s the problem,” his father once responded, damningly.
Albus never quite forgave him.
He never let his parents know about the conversations he overheard. He didn’t like to let them know he cared enough to listen. Also, he hated the idea of being seen as nosy, or worse, that he cared what people thought of him.
His father already thought he was a pretty poor excuse for a son, apparently. He didn’t want to disappoint him further by coming across as pathetic enough to beg for his father’s love. If his father couldn’t be bothered to understand him, then he wasn’t going to plead. He would simply have to accept that fact and learn to live with it.
The worst part about being the black sheep of the Potter family, was that nobody ever acknowledged that simple truth. That Albus Potter simply didn’t fit in.
Everyone skirted around it. It was the constant elephant in the room. Nobody was ever supposed to comment when instead of coming down to greet guests who came to visit like his brother and sister, Albus remained shut away in his bedroom. Everyone seemed conveniently distracted whenever Harry had to show physical affection to his kids, even though it was excruciating to watch James get an enthusiastic high-five, Lily a big hug, and then Albus an awkward sort of half wave or on bad days even a short nod.
Eventually, Lily stopped commenting on Albus being in a ‘bad mood’. The bad mood was too constant, too long. It simply became Al. If ever Albus did laugh or make a joke with his father, it was an exceptional occurrence. What Ginny and Harry had suspected and hoped might just be an early teenage phase seemed destined to become something far more permanent.
There were no two ways about it. Their son was a troubled boy.
While they agonised over ways to reconnect with their son, Albus thought deeply about his situation. Most of all, he thought about his father.
“It must be so great to have a famous dad!” everyone said. He heard it time and time again, over and over until it made him feel cross.
Every single time Albus gave his usual twitch of the mouth which could have been a smile or a grimace. Nobody even seemed to notice that it was a baring of teeth and nothing more. That hurt.
Was it great to have a famous father? Albus came to the conclusion he didn’t much care about that part. It was an annoyance, that was true. It was yet another piece of his father stolen away from him that belonged to the public. But if he was honest with himself the part that troubled him most was that his own father didn’t seem to like him.
He could have dealt with the fame if his dad didn’t look at him warily, like he was some sort of bomb about to go off. If perhaps his father could once, just once, say “I love you, Al,” and mean it.
Was Harry Potter a good father? Albus supposed he was to a certain degree. James and Lily were turning out all right, so he didn’t think it was entirely fair to call him useless.
With Lily, Harry was perfect. Anyone could see he was the doting dad, lifting her up on his shoulders, buying her constant little gifts of sweets or hair clips which he would produce from his pocket like a magic trick when he thought Ginny wasn’t looking, letting her chatter to him about anything and everything as they sat on the sofa of an evening, Lily with her pink-socked feet resting comfortably in her father’s lap.
The adoration was clearly mutual. Lily never minded when people remarked to her:
“It must be so great to have a famous dad!”
She had many responses to this, and never had to force the same old expression for fear of seeming rude. The question would delight her. Her eyes would light up and she would declare, absolutely sincerely:
“Yeah, my dad’s the best.”
When it came to discipline Harry never seemed able to scold his beloved daughter. One pout of her lips and the slightest sign of tears and he would melt. It fell to their mother to tell Lily off whenever she did wrong, and even then Lily could count on being able to sidle silently up to her father a little bit later and receive a consoling hug.
With James, things were different again. His and Harry’s relationship wasn’t perfect. But Albus thought it was what a father and son SHOULD be. Sometimes they were best mates. Other times they got on each other’s nerves. When James did wrong (like the time he thought it was a good idea to try and fly the car inspired by the latest story Uncle Ron had told him about when he and their father were in their second year of Hogwarts) Harry would not hesitate to lose his temper. When Harry shouted, it was always at James.
And yet James would always accept his punishment with little to no resentment in a way Albus simply couldn’t understand. An hour later he and his father were on the best of terms again.
Once, Albus had asked James why he wasn’t angry about being shouted at.
James had shrugged in that infuriatingly carefree way of his and said: “To be fair, I was pushing it a bit.”
It drove Albus up the wall.
Harry often compared James to Uncle Ron. Albus wasn't sure this was exactly the compliment it was intended as, since he regarded his ginger uncle as something of a (well-meaning) idiot, but coming from his father it was clear this was the highest of praise.
When his father and Uncle Ron got together, James was always able to join in their chatter, enjoying the laughs and the banter, entirely accepted and included as a member of the group. Uncle Ron would ruffle his hair and say “This is a true Weasley right here.” Every one of them would laugh.
As for Albus himself… well, it was complicated.
He got on with his mother better than his father. That was for certain. She was better at reading his moods and he felt that often she noticed more than she let on. Some days, when he was feeling a little out of sorts, instead of asking him hundreds of questions, she would slide him a bowl of cereal and start telling him funny stories about her Quidditch days.
While Lily was easily the spoiled baby of the family, and James the one who always got himself into trouble, his mother treated him as something of an equal. Well, not exactly. He still got told off from time to time and had to do his chores, but he got the distinct sense that his mother understood him not just as her son but as a person. That meant something to Albus, somehow.
When it came to his relationship with his dad, Albus wasn’t particularly sure where it had gone wrong. He’d been a shy little boy, which he supposed his dad had found hard to deal with. James had been so outgoing and reckless. Lily had loved being the centre of attention. Only he, Albus, used to dread going out with his parents and being followed about by people wanting to stop and talk to his father. The thought of being told over and over again how much he looked like his father made him feel queasy.
It was easy for James who was tall and lanky and despite having the Potter shock of dark hair gave off general vibes of complete and utter averageness. There was nothing special about him. He was just a friendly, confident, often annoying person who always had a rubbish joke at the ready (passed on by Uncle Ron) and didn’t seem to think all that much about anything more than what was happening at the present moment.
When strangers looked at the three children of the Potters, it was always he, Albus, who was singled out as special. Albus hated it. He wanted nothing more than to sink into the ground in these moments. It made him feel, somehow, like he had something to prove. Worse, that they wanted him to be like his father.
‘I’m not him’ Albus would think to himself furiously. ‘I’m nothing like him.’
But nobody seemed to care.
He was Harry Potter in miniature. Harry Potter the second. Harry Potter come again.
All he wanted to be was Albus. Albus Severus Potter who thought about everything too much and wanted to be normal. Not ordinary, though. He and his cousin Rose, who were probably the brightest of his generation of the family (according to them), had agreed that being ordinary was not the thing to be. But normal? That would have suited Albus just fine.
Because of his father Albus could not be ‘normal.’ Without meaning to his dad had robbed him of every teenager’s right: the chance to be invisible. And worst of all his father seemed to expect him to be grateful for this fact!
All he would ever go on about when Albus gave his usual grimace to an interested stranger, or made it clear he had no interest whatsoever in hearing for the one hundredth time about some rule his father and Uncle Ron had broken while they were in school, was how lucky he was. How he, Harry, had been an orphan. How he’d lived in hand-me-down clothes and never had birthday presents. How his aunt and uncle had been cruel and how he would have done anything, anything, to have had a family.
When his father said things like this it only made Albus more resentful. Partly because it was true and despite everything it made Albus feel more than a little guilty. But also because it made it crystal clear that his father did not and could not understand him. It was a lonely feeling.
+++
When it was finally time to go to Hogwarts, after the years of waiting, Albus wasn’t sure he particularly wanted to go.
James was loving every second of it. In his first year he had sent photographs and letters and the family also received frequent owls from Professor McGonagall detailing his latest list of misdemeanours. His mother would tut when they received these letters, but his father always grinned, like it was something to be proud of. Like being a reckless idiot who didn’t want to learn and was only interested in practical jokes was a good thing.
Albus loved his big brother dearly, but honestly? He was a bit of an idiot. And if that was what it took to make his father proud then Albus was not willing to go there.
The nightmare was that he might end up in Slytherin.
Rose had been quick to reassure him that this was a ridiculous fear to have.
“You’re Harry Potter’s son,” she had declared, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. “Don’t roll your eyes, Al. It’s just probability. If your dad and James both got into Gryffindor, I bet you anything you will too. Besides, there’s nothing Slytherin-y about you.”
The way she said ‘Slytherin-y’ with that slightly odd emphasis and the turn up of her nose only made Albus more anxious.
Uncle Ron didn’t like Slytherin that much. He mentioned it in jokes all the time. Aunt Hermione would often jump in to reassure the group he meant no such thing and they weren’t to listen to him. Sometimes she could go off on a lecture about unity and kindness and compassion that would last for more than ten minutes.
But Albus was observant and even though she spoke of these things and seemed genuinely very keen that neither her children, nieces, or nephews should absorb her husband’s foolishness, he noticed that she almost gave that same look Rose did when she said the word Slytherin. Aunt Hermione didn’t screw up her nose. She gave a little smile which didn’t meet her eyes as if to compensate for having nothing much positive to say. That was all Albus needed to know.
Of course there were still all sorts of rumours flying around about Slytherin House. Nowadays everyone was supposed to be tolerant like Aunt Hermione, but a surprisingly few amount of people seemed willing to move on. Sometimes it wasn’t that people said nasty things about Slytherin that made it apparent. More the great reputations of the other Houses compared to silence when it came to Slytherin.
His dad and Uncle Ron would talk about Gryffindor with such great pride, and of course it had been Dumbledore’s House, so everyone knew it was a pretty big deal. The fact that Harry Potter had been a Gryffindor had upped its glamour somewhat and given it that extra bit of heroic zeal.
Aunt Hermione (who seemed certain that Rose would end up in either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw) made sure she spoke often about Ravenclaw House so that Rose would not feel disappointed if that was where she ended up. It was a house for creative thinkers and those who loved to learn. Nothing wrong with that at all, Aunt Hermione would say. Luna was a Ravenclaw and look how she turned out.
(That last part was never entirely reassuring to Rose.)
Hufflepuff was regarded as the ‘good’ House. Everyone spoke about it with an almost patronising affection. If you ended up in Hufflepuff you were a good sort. They were known for their kindness and willingness to work hard. Neville (aka Professor Longbottom) spoke often in Hufflepuff’s defence, having almost been sorted into the House himself, and declared that some of his favourite students were from Hufflepuff House. Teddy Lupin, family friend and Albus's almost-cousin, had been in Hufflepuff when he was at Hogwarts, but everyone said it was because of his mum rather than anything else.
Some people might have been embarrassed to be sorted into Hufflepuff, but not Albus. At least in Hufflepuff he might get to spend time with Neville and he didn’t think he would mind the bit about hard work.
During the war, when Hogwarts was under fire, it was well known that most of the Slytherins evacuated and got to safety rather than stand and fight. They slithered off like the snakes that they were, some said. They didn’t want to die, said some others. Albus privately thought it was quite wrong to have left, but also, deep down, he felt that he understood. You weren’t supposed to say or think that sort of thing, especially not if you were Harry Potter’s son. But it was true. Albus wasn't sure he would have stayed either. He wouldn’t have wanted to die. He imagined he would have been scared.
+++
James had been a royal pain in the backside all morning. He was an abnormally annoying big brother to have on normal days, let alone on Albus’s first day at Hogwarts.
He seemed to find it amusing to remind Albus that he could end up in Slytherin over and over again. As if he didn’t already know. As if he hadn’t lost sleep over that very fact for weeks.
The journey to the station had been completed in nervous silence. Well, from Albus at least. Lily had been excited to be coming along on the family outing and was full of her usual eager questions, pointing and giggling.
His mother had been supremely supportive. She sat in the front seat of their car talking calmly to her husband and occasionally telling James off when he went too far with his banter.
She had been shy when she was little, so she understood. Albus took great comfort in that fact. That vivacious and totally sorted Ginny Potter had once been a small child hiding behind her father’s legs gave Albus hope that one day soon he could make the same transformation and become… well… someone.
His father had seemed a little more quiet than usual, but he was making up for it by occasionally bursting out with ‘good father sound bites’, as Albus called them. They were the words he imagined an ideal father would say on an occasion such as this. They didn’t quite feel real.
Albus was dreading having to be surrounded by witches and wizards. The whole Potter family in one place? Eyes would bulge out of heads. People would entirely forget about manners. Fingers would be pointed. Whispers would become way too loud.
And when they saw who it was being brought to the platform?
Albus could hardly bear to think about it.
They picked up two trolleys at King’s Cross and loaded their cases onto them, cages rattling as they pushed through the crowds.
Lily had been hoisted up onto her father’s shoulders, lest she become lost in the surging crowds. Albus found himself wishing he was still small enough to be carried, to be lifted above it all, to sit on his father’s shoulders and be at peace.
But those days were long gone. He was old enough for Hogwarts now. Which meant he had to try and gather up some courage from somewhere and learn to look out for himself.
“You’ll write to me, won’t you?” Albus asked his mother, looking up nervously.
As usual, she was wearing a reassuring smile.
“Every day if you want us to.”
As appealing as the thought was, Albus shook his head. He didn’t want to look like a baby. He’d probably get teased for something like that, and there was no way he’d be able to write back that often.
“No,” he decided firmly. “Not every day. James says most people only get letters from home about once a month. I don’t want to…”
His father raised an eyebrow.
“We wrote to your brother three times a week last year,” he said, causing James to shoot his father an almost comically betrayed look.
“What? James!”
Albus looked accusingly up at his big brother.
James seemed to have gone conveniently mute and become extremely interested in one of the wonky wheels on his trolley.
“Yes. You may not want to believe everything he tells you about Hogwarts. He likes a laugh, your brother,” said his mother with a wry smile.
Sensing a telling-off was not on the cards, James raised his head and grinned guiltily at his mother. Harry shook his head with fond amusement. It seemed he was off the hook, as always.
Albus looked at his dad, and then his mum. He knew how this worked. He knew what he was supposed to do. But now it had come to it… his legs were shaking.
“All you have to do is walk straight at the wall between platforms nine and ten,” his mother told him gently.
“I’m so excited!” Lily exclaimed from her position atop her father’s shoulders. Remembering her presence, Harry lifted his daughter back down to the ground. She pouted a little at having to rejoin the rest of humanity on the grubby station floor. If Lily Potter could have had one wish, it would have been to fly.
The wall was now before them. The brick wall which looked entirely solid. The brick wall which did not look like the sort of thing you wanted to collide with.
“Don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it,” his father said, seemingly reading his mind. “That’s very important. Best do it at a run if you’re nervous.”
Did it notice that he was?
Well, that wouldn’t do. Albus took a deep breath and tried to look more confident than he felt. He thought of his cousin, Rose, who would have told him to stop being such a wimp and get on with it. The Rose in his mind was right, as usual.
“I’m ready,” Albus said, nodding.
His father and Lily joined his trolley, Lily leaning up to touch the handle. His mother gave him a pat on the back and then went to join James and his trolley, who didn’t look overly thrilled at being supervised.
It was time.
Every Potter ran hard at the barrier. Albus closed his eyes at the last moment. He felt his father’s encouraging hand on his back. They disappeared, together.
+++
The platform was as expected. Albus barely remembered any of what happened between the moment the Potter family arrived on the platform and the seemingly hours later when the family were finally left in relative peace.
Everyone had wanted to shake Harry’s hand. Genuinely, everyone.
Albus was so nervous his brain didn’t seem to be working correctly anyway. He zoned out for much of this hand-shaking and smalltalk. When he thought back to this time later, he could conjure up a blur of anxiety and people. He could just about remember Lily twirling and basking in the attention, and James high-fiving friends and getting told off by his mother.
He did, however, recall the mortifying moment towards the end in which he had given into the pressure and confronted his dad about his greatest fear.
“Dad… Do you think - what if I am - what if I’m put in Slytherin?”
The moment the words left his mouth he wished them back again.
His father was reassuring, of course. What else had Albus expected? Harry Potter, beacon of hope and tolerance and the new generation, was hardly going to tell him he’d be disowned if he ended up in the wrong House.
Instead he decided to go for The Story. The one that was always told (and Albus found fairly excruciating) whenever he was thought by his parents to be feeling a little insecure.
He knew where his names came from. It wasn’t like he needed to be told all over again about Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape. He couldn’t escape the weight of them if he tried. While James and Lily had been given the names of Harry’s beloved, heroic parents, he, Albus, had been left with a pair of teachers.
Yes, a pair of pretty exceptional teachers. And heroes too.
But they weren’t family. And from what Uncle Ron said, Severus Snape had been a fairly unpleasant person.
Even if he had been a war hero, Severus Snape was never spoken about with any particular affection. He was the only Slytherin Albus ever heard anything good about from his family, and even then, there was the coldness, the distant begrudging respect.
When his father revealed that the Sorting Hat would sometimes let you choose your own House, Albus could have sworn with relief. He thought it was pretty late in the game to be revealing that little piece of information, but that was Dad for you. He never had been great at reassurances.
It was settled then. When the time came he would choose Gryffindor. Simple. Just the same as his family before him.
But even then, as he reassured himself with that comforting thought, something within Albus felt the perverse need to rebel. Part of him wanted to be different. Part of him wanted… more?
Albus hugged both of his parents before boarding the train. With his mother this was easy, if a little embarrassing in public. With his father, it was both preceded and followed by a great deal of shifty awkwardness. He didn’t cling on for as long as he could have. He didn’t like to hug his father so tightly. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he was scared his father would break the hug first and he’d be pushed away.
+++
Thank Dumbledore for Rose. Without his cousin, Albus would have been utterly overwhelmed as they stepped on board the Hogwarts Express.
As usual she was brisk and businesslike. She had all of her mother’s ability and all of her father’s easy optimism. The world simply fell into place for Rose Granger-Weasley.
Already she had some strategy planned. Albus hadn’t really been listening to all of it, but it was something about getting in with the right people, making the right impression, starting as they meant to go on.
The legendary trolley witch approached the pair laden with sweets and chocolate and pastries. Immediately Albus’s eyes went to the Chocolate Frogs. They were, in Albus’s opinion, one of life’s great culinary delicacies.
“Al!” Rose had interrupted him with a long-suffering sigh. (Only Rose could manage to know when you were thinking and feel the need to intervene). “We need to concentrate.”
“Concentrate on what?”
“On who we choose to be friends with. My mum and dad met your dad on their first Hogwarts Express you know…”
Of course Albus already knew this, but he didn’t point that out. Rose had a habit of telling people things that were pretty obvious, but it seemed rude to say so.
Personally, Albus found the whole idea ludicrous. It wasn’t like you could plan friendships like that. They just happened. You liked someone, that someone liked you back. Easy peasy. You were friends and that was the end of it.
“So we need to choose now who to be friends with for life? That’s quite scary.”
“On the contrary, it’s exciting,” Rose responded easily. “I’m a Granger-Weasley. You’re a Potter. Everyone will want to be friends with us. We’ve got the pick of anyone we want.”
Albus supposed that was true, but he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of people wanting to be his friend just because of who his father was.
By now the trolley witch and the chance of Chocolate Frogs had long gone. Now all that was left before the cousins was a set of compartment doors. It was fairly daunting, having to pick one.
“So how do we decide which compartment to go in?” Albus asked doubtfully.
Rose, bright as always, attempted to tame her bushy pigtails, and then nodded her head. She was ready. In action mode.
“We rate them all and then we make a decision,” she declared, like it was simply the next step in the equation.
Albus took a deep breath, attempting to be as confident as his cousin, and picked out a compartment.
‘Here goes’ he thought as he stepped forward to open the first compartment door. ‘Please be someone nice…’
+++
The boy in the compartment looked nice.
That was the first word that came into Albus’s head when he saw Scorpius Malfoy. He looked nice, approachable, thoughtful, and a little bit odd. He was sitting alone and trying his best to seem like he didn’t mind. He was surrounded by sweets. He seemed exactly like Albus’s sort of person.
Without thinking, Albus shot him a smile.
Immediately the lonely blond boy returned the gesture. He returned it with nothing but pure honest relief. Albus knew then and there that he liked this boy. He felt relieved too, not that he let it show on his face. Perhaps this would be easier than he’d thought?
“Hi,” Albus found himself saying with a sort of half wave which he hoped made him seem approachable, friendly, and just the tiniest bit cool. “Is this compartment…”
The boy seemed so overjoyed to have company that he couldn’t get his words out fast enough.
“It’s free. It’s just me.”
The boy’s voice was fairly posh. There was a hint of self-deprecation in it, and yet not even a touch of sarcasm.
“Great,” said Albus, feeling a new awkwardness settle over the two… three of them. Rose was there too. How had he forgotten? Now he noticed her, he could feel her distaste coming off her in waves. She had that in common with her mother, that uncanny ability to radiate her emotions so everyone in the room knew exactly how she was feeling.
For a brief moment he felt cross with his cousin for what he saw as her rudeness. Here was a perfectly nice boy, who smiled, and had sweets, and she was turning her nose up at him!
“So might we just - come in - for a bit - if that’s okay?” Albus continued, feeling awkward now.
The boy was quick to put him at ease.
“That’s okay,” he said swiftly, even shifting over ever so slightly on his seat, not that he needed to with all the space in the carriage with him. The gesture seemed to rile Rose. “Hi.”
Sensing it was time for introductions or else they would go on like this forever, Albus gave a short nod of his head.
“Albus. Al,” he explained. He almost added Potter and then thought better of it. He never knew whether or not he ought to mention his last name. He didn’t want people to think he was trying to draw attention to it, that he thought he was better than everyone else.
Something in the boy’s eager expression and attentive posture made Albus pause.
“I’m - my name is Albus…” he amended swiftly. Al was who he was at home. Al was Harry Potter’s son. He didn’t want this boy to know him as Al.
“Hi Scorpius,” the other boy said, before immediately grimacing and starting again. Albus got the impression he was fairly used to making mistakes and simply forcing himself onward again. “I mean, I’m Scorpius. You’re Albus. I’m Scorpius.”
Albus found that he wanted to laugh at how badly Scorpius had messed up his intro, not in a cruel way, but with… fondness? It made him feel so much better about his own shaky start.
Scorpius, unaware of how good an impression he was making on Albus, turned to Rose, politely not ignoring her as Albus accidentally had. He smiled hopefully at her, reminding Albus once again that his cousin was watching these proceedings with a rather haughty air about her.
“And you must be…”
Rose was growing colder by the minute. Albus was very aware that his fiercely intelligent, no-nonsense cousin would not be at all impressed by this mess of an introduction. She liked things done properly or not at all.
“Rose,” she said in a distant sort of voice.
Albus felt his stomach twinge with embarrassment and pity as Scorpius ploughed on, apparently not noticing Rose’s attitude.
“Hi Rose,” he said brightly. “Would you like some of my Fizzing Whizzbees?”
“I’ve just had breakfast, thanks,” Rose remarked coolly.
Just leave it there, mate… Albus found himself thinking, willing the boy to give up so he wouldn’t have to face the stony wrath of his most stubborn family member. You won’t get anywhere with her when she’s like this…
But Scorpius seemed determined to dig himself into an even deeper hole.
“I’ve also got some Shock-o-Choc, Pepper Imps and some Jelly Slugs,” Scorpius announced generously, gesturing vaguely about him at the mass of goodies he had acquired. How was it, Albus wondered, that Scorpius could make that impressive haul seem so, well… pathetic?
“Mum’s idea,” the blond boy continued. And then horrifyingly, a second too quickly for Albus to make some sort of gesture to save Scorpius this moment of utter mortification, the boy cleared his throat and began to sing.
“Sweets they always help you make friends!’
Albus was not aware of the look of empathetic embarrassment that had crossed his features until a pair of blue-grey eyes met his own, read his expression in an instant, and the singing stopped.
“Stupid idea probably,” Scorpius mumbled, looking down and then visibly (and quite heartbreakingly) pulling himself back together again and raising his head.
It was too much for Albus. His dad might have called him selfish, but there came a point when you just had to take a deep breath, wade in, and rescue someone from complete and utter no-going-back embarrassment.
“I’ll have some…,” he said, stepping forwards. “Mum doesn’t let me have sweets. Which one would you start with?”
Albus pointedly ignored the none too subtle shove he received from his cousin.
Once again, Scorpius looked almost overwhelmed with relief. Albus could tell that he felt more comfortable chatting to him than to Rose because he would start to speak very fast, eager to get his thoughts out. This made Albus feel fairly triumphant.
“Easy. I’ve always regarded the Pepper Imp as the king of the confectionary bag. They’re peppermint sweets that make you smoke at the ears.”
Albus had, in fact, had Pepper Imps before, but he felt it would be easier not to say so.
“Brilliant, then that’s what I’ll-“
Rose interrupted him once again with another shove. This time it was impossible to ignore and so instead of trying to gloss over his cousin’s actions (which Scorpius could now very easily see), Albus rolled his eyes and dealt with Rose in the best way he could.
“Rose, will you please stop hitting me?” he deadpanned.
“I’m not hitting you,” Rose lied, seemingly realising that admitting that she had been might hurt Scorpius’s feelings.
“You are hitting me, and it hurts,” Albus argued, refusing to let her get away with it this time. At home, Rose was used to getting her own way. She was by far the smartest of the cousins and Uncle Ron doted on her. It was about time someone refused to back down where Rose was involved, Albus thought.
He was about to add a little more to that, feeling more confident somehow with Scorpius sitting across the carriage, but then he noticed Scorpius’s face. It had fallen quite suddenly. This was a boy who showed every little feeling he had in his expression. Right now he looked frankly devastated, and it devastated Albus.
“She’s hitting you because of me,” Scorpius announced. He swallowed hard and tried his best not to look upset.
“What?” Albus asked, frowning.
But Scorpius cut in swiftly. He did not seem offended by Rose’s rude behaviour, which struck Albus as odd. He looked like he had entirely accepted it.
“Listen, I know who you are, so it’s probably only fair you know who I am,” he said quietly.
Albus thought that was a strange thing to say.
“What do you mean you know who I am?”
“You’re Albus Potter. She’s Rose Granger-Weasley. And I am Scorpius Malfoy. My parents are Astoria and Draco Malfoy. Our parents - they didn’t get on.”
Before Albus could ask what on earth that had to do with anything, Rose spoke up, quick as anything.
“That’s putting it mildly. Your mum and dad are Death Eaters!”
Albus’s eyes widened.
“Dad was,” Scorpius agreed, swallowing again and looking a mixture of affronted and ashamed. “But Mum wasn’t.”
Rose looked away but Scorpius wouldn’t drop the subject.
“I know what the rumour is, and it’s a lie.”
Feeling once again out of his depth and like he’d very much like to know what was going on, Albus looked from his cousin, who seemed so uncomfortable she couldn’t quite decide on how to stand, to Scorpius, whose eyes caught his own with a hopeful form of desperation.
“What - is the rumour?” Albus asked the carriage in general, hoping it wouldn’t make him sound stupid.
It was Scorpius who spoke up, and almost immediately.
“The rumour is that my parents couldn’t have children. That my father and my grandfather were so desperate for a powerful heir to prevent the end of the Malfoy line, that they.. that they used a Time-Turner to send my mother back-“
“To send her back where?” Albus asked, frowning.
“The rumour is,” Rose explained, putting a hand on Albus’s shoulder, strangely gentle now, “that he’s Voldemort’s son, Albus.”
The carriage fell immediately silent. Rose seemed embarrassed and perhaps a little guilty for bringing the subject up. Scorpius looked both saddened and defensive in his well-mannered way. Albus simply gawped unattractively from Rose to Scorpius, trying to take that outlandish little bit of information in.
“It’s probably rubbish,” Rose said in her guilty voice. “I mean… look, you’ve got a nose.”
It was a poor attempt at humour but Albus would take anything at this point. Scorpius gave a laugh that seemed pathetically grateful, seemingly forgetting that it was Rose who had brought the whole thing up in the first place.
Once again Scorpius seemed to brighten. The immediacy of this change left Albus reeling.
“And it’s just like my father’s!” Scorpius declared with a smile. “I’ve got his nose, his hair, and his name. Not that that’s a great thing either. I mean - father-son issues, I have them. But, on the whole, I’d rather be a Malfoy than, you know, the son of the Dark Lord.”
Albus looked at Scorpius just then, and Scorpius looked right back. Something passed between them. Albus could not name exactly what it was. Perhaps it was understanding? Perhaps a mutual struggle? Whatever it was, it made Albus quite certain that he had made a good choice in entering his compartment.
Rose also seemed to notice the look and she quite clearly disapproved of it. She would, Albus thought, perhaps a little unfairly. For all of Aunt Hermione’s lectures on tolerance, Rose could be a real snob.
“Yes, well, we probably should sit somewhere else,” Rose said pleasantly, as though this conversation had been nice but it was not something she intended to repeat anytime soon. “Come on, Albus.”
But Albus did not want to go. Yes, Rose was his cousin, and actually, probably his best friend. But he was tired of being around his family. As much as he loved Rose, almost more like a sister than a cousin, he knew that it was now or never. He didn’t want to be a Potter anymore. He didn’t want everyone to see them together and talk about their parents. He wanted to be Albus. Just Albus. His own person.
“No,” he said, after some thought. “I’m okay. You go on…”
“Albus, I won’t wait,” Rose declared, tapping her foot on the ground.
Usually this would have prompted Albus to follow her. It was simply the way they worked. But there was Scorpius all alone in the large carriage, surrounded by sweets…
“And I wouldn’t expect you to,” Albus said easily, somehow finding the right words. “But I’m staying here.”
Rose looked at him for a second in complete shock. This disobedience from her favourite cousin and best friend was entirely new.
“Fine!” she declared, not quite stomping her feet as she left, but it was a close thing. In a moment she was gone, leaving them in utter silence.
Both boys watched the compartment door close and then Albus let out a long breath.
Scorpius turned to look at Albus with disbelief. Albus glanced back and gave a half nod which tried to tell him they did not have to speak about what had just happened. That he didn’t need gratitude. It was just… the right thing to do. It was no big deal.
Scorpius apparently did not get the message.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely, his voice very quiet.
Albus felt simultaneously overwhelmed by his own sense of heroism, and embarrassed that such a small thing should matter so much to him. The way Scorpius was looking at him made him feel ten feet tall. He felt like a good person. Like somehow he had stopped an injustice from happening.
But after a moment the old Albus kicked back in. At home they never talked about their feelings. His dad laughed it off if ever he was upset or emotional. He didn’t think he had ever heard his mum and dad talk about anything to do with feelings. Not while he was around anyway.
He felt the sudden urge to make a joke himself, to lighten the mood.
“No. No. I didn’t stay - for you- I stayed for your sweets,” Albus found himself saying. He was proud to have thought of it so quickly.
“She’s quite fierce,” Scorpius remarked, not needing to use Rose’s name to let Albus know who he was referring to.
Albus gave a sort of shrug. He didn’t want to be disloyal to his cousin, but it was an undeniable fact that she was incredibly stubborn when she wanted to be. She could win any argument against anyone - except perhaps Aunt Hermione.
“Yes,” Albus admitted. “Sorry.”
“No,” Scorpius said. “I like it. Do you prefer Albus or Al?”
For the first time Scorpius grinned, displaying his perfectly white teeth. Albus was not sure why he noticed them so very distinctly, but he did. He popped two sweets into his mouth cheerfully. Albus noticed he chewed with his mouth closed, unlike his brother James who would spray you across the table when he was talking.
Albus thought on the question. It didn’t take him long to decide. Ever since entering the compartment, he realised he hadn’t been Al. Al would have followed Rose out with an apologetic shrug. But Albus? Albus was the sort of guy who thought for himself.
“Albus,” he said with certainty.
Smoke began to rush out of Scorpius’s ears in two almighty puffs of white. He’d been eating the Pepper Imps then.
He gave a somewhat goofy grin to Albus and shouted, over the sound of the smoke:
“THANK YOU FOR STAYING FOR MY SWEETS, ALBUS!”
Albus couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing.
“Wow.” He found himself saying. Wow.
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