Title: The Inconveniences of Being a Malfoy
Summary: Scorpius' life has never gone well, but lately it's really done a turn for the worse. He blames Albus.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter.

(17)

Despite the obvious reluctance of both Madam Pomfrey and Madam Davis, Scorpius was released only two days after his talk with Jarrod Nott, back into the gossip-hungry student masses. There had been a good number of witnesses to the incident during the Quidditch match, and the story had spread throughout the school to everyone who hadn’t seen it at the match. To the chagrin of the students, Professor McGonagall had seen fit to withhold as much information from them as she could, including the fact that Reed was suspected of being under the Imperius.

Although it was really none of their business, everyone seemed to think they simply needed to know the truth, and Scorpius had become their unwilling source of it. To his extreme annoyance, he was relentlessly hounded by overeager, information-seeking students wherever he went. Days of the insistent prying growing more and more intense finally climaxed one day as he was walking down to Potions with Albus.

“You study too much, Scorpius,” Albus was just saying as they turned the corner, “just look at all those books you have to carry around!” Scorpius was just about the protest when the Gryffindor boy suddenly stopped dead, his mouth dropping open slightly, expression changed into one of irritable weariness at the inevitable. “Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Albus muttered unhappily.

Scorpius blinked in surprise at the uncharacteristic behaviour, but dutifully looked in the direction Albus indicated. In the hallway a mob of people, too old to be students, were crowded. It took a few seconds for Scorpius to realise the flashing lights were coming from cameras snapping photos of their bemused yet exhilarated looking classmates. Gryffindor and Slytherin students alike from their Potions class were being vigorously interviewed by several different people, all with some parchment floating nearby as a quill scratched out notes on its own. He looked back at Albus only to see that his friend’s face had evolved into a full-blown scowl and a deep groove had appeared between the two dark eyebrows.

“That’s a very unattractive look for you,” Scorpius said amused, having never seen Albus look so angry before. The crease between Albus’ eyebrows eased when the other boy, to Scorpius’ amusement, stuck his tongue out at him and grinned. Scorpius snickered. “That’s mature,” he commented wryly.

Someone in the crowd of people suddenly noticed the two of them. “There he is!” they shouted. The kids who had been in the process of being interviewed had to jump back quickly to avoid being trampled by the sudden jostling of reporters and their cameramen all stampeding towards Scorpius and Albus. Albus took a deep breath and took a few steps forward to deal with the music – and was promptly bypassed, leaving him blinking in confusion.

Scorpius gaped a bit as well, until he was blinded by the harsh, unforgiving light of several cameras going off all at once. He brought a hand up to his face trying to shield his eyes, just barely managing to remember to keep a firm hold of his school things with the other hand. Questions were shouted at him, but he couldn’t discern enough of the words to answer. “What’s going on?” Scorpius demanded instead. “What do you want?”

As the spots in his vision cleared, Scorpius glanced around for Albus – the other boy seemed more experienced in this kind of situation, he would know what to do – but when he finally located the Gryffindor boy, he saw that Albus had frozen in shock, his face white with repressed anger. Anger directed not at him, to Scorpius’ relief, but at the flock of people pressing in closer and closer to him. Scorpius cringed slightly as one woman got close enough for him to smell her heavy perfume, making his head spin slightly at its strength, and he finally met Albus’ eyes.

Scorpius’ eyes widened as he saw the green eyes darken in sudden fury and a deep red flush of indignation spread across Albus’ cheeks, contrasting sharply with his previously pale cheeks. The other boy strode forward ominously, one hand reaching for one of the cameramen.

He’d never seen the other boy look so furious before and hoped Albus wouldn’t act too rashly. A horrible thought suddenly came to him – The press will have a field day if he does do something, Scorpius realized, And they’re going to blame me. As if the reporters need any more ammunition to soil our family’s reputation. A small voice at the back of his mind piped up too, wondering, But what about Albus’ reputation? He watched helplessly as Albus opened his mouth, ready to tell the older man off.

“EXCUSE ME,” a familiar voice -- thankfully not Albus’ -- bellowed over the clamour. While the hallway did not silence immediately, it quieted down rather quickly as everyone turned to look at a curious but stern-looking James Potter. Albus froze, wide-eyed in surprise, his hands inches away from the cameraman’s jacket.

James glanced around at the crowd and frowned, crossing his arms. “Visitors are only allowed if they have a visitor’s pass,” he announced in disapproving tone of voice. Scorpius stared at the older boy; he sounded frighteningly like his mother.

The crowd shifted sheepishly and glanced at each other in embarrassment. Scorpius continued to gape until Albus took advantage of the lull in excitement to manoeuver his way around the reporters and pull Scorpius out of the throng of people by an arm.

“Now,” James was saying, sounding strangely reasonable, “you all can leave now, or I can contact dear Professor McGonagall.” He flashed them a condescending smile. From their winces, it was obvious most all of them had gone to Hogwarts. “I thought not,” James continued in the same uncharacteristically calm tone of voice. “Now, if you would please proceed through these doors and carry about your business elsewhere, I think we deal with this without involving our dear Headmistress…”

Chagrined, the entire group shuffled dejectedly towards the door, looking like nothing more than guilty children, with James coaxing them along with a patience that Scorpius had never seen from the older boy before. A few stragglers tried to hang back as the crowd made its way through the doors, but James dangled the threat of Professor McGonagall over their heads again and they went through the door easily enough.

Scorpius blinked as James slammed the door shut and began to count down under his breath . “Three… two… one…” he murmured, a wicked gleam appearing in his eye.

“What the…?” someone outside the doors said before the unmistakable sound of rushing water and screaming drowned them out. Then the noise abruptly cut off.

“Ah, the feeling of sweet success,” James sighed happily. Everyone huddled together behind James as he opened the door and murmurs of surprise rippled through the second years to see no water on the floor or walls or furniture. The only evidence of there having been any sort of incident at all was Lan, who was standing a bit off to the side in another doorway. Her hand was still on the door and one foot was halfway through the motion of stepping through. Her eyes were wide with surprise, and everything from her head to her toes was soaking wet.

“Oops,” James said. Scorpius snorted, and beside him, he could see Albus rolling his eyes.

Lan plucked delicately at her waterlogged robes. “Oops, indeed,” she agreed wryly, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “Smells like the lake.”

James’ face lit up, though it was tempered with some guilt as Lan inspected her limp ponytail. “It’s a misdirection charm,” he explained, obviously trying to contain a grin of elation at his achievement. “I wasn’t sure it would work, but I figured if I used something as a sort of anchor, I could move a crowd that big, as long as I specified an area, and well, I’m not so sure of the exact logistics… I guess for a moment it brought the lake here and then just transported the entire group when it returned to its natural place-”

“Um,” Cassandra Hilldayes, a Gryffindor girl in Scorpius’ year, spoke up timidly, looking a bit awed, “what if they can’t swim?”

“Oh, it should be shallow enough for them to get out alright,” James said unworriedly, waving a hand dismissively. He frowned suddenly. “I think.”

“Charming,” Lan mused, pulling her wand out of a pocket and flicking the water off of it before casting a quick drying charm on her clothes. She hesitated for a second, then set her wand down to free her hands so she could make an effort to make her hair presentable again. It took a minute before she noticed the second years all still peeking around the door. “Hey now, don’t you all have to get to class?” she asked, and there was a slow moment of dawning realization followed by a disorganized scramble as they all panicked.

“We’re going to be late!” Albus hissed and grabbed Scorpius by the arm again, dragging him towards the Potions room.

“We should probably check the lake for your wayward victims,” Scorpius heard Lan suggest and then sigh heavily. “I suppose there wasn’t really any point to drying myself off, since there’s a good chance that I’ll be getting wet again.” He glanced back to see Lan walk off, a displeased frown on her face.

Scorpius snickered when James glanced down, started in surprise, and picked up the girl’s wand. “Oi!” he called after his friend. “Don’t go leaving your wand wherever! It’s kind of important!”

Scorpius shook his head bemusedly as Lan stopped and glanced down blankly at her empty hands before slapping herself in the forehead. “Does she always do that?” he asked Albus.

Albus glanced back to in time to see James hand the wand over to a sheepish looking Lan and sniggered. “Always,” he confirmed, amused. “Dad says she’s bright, but you wouldn’t know it from the way she’s so careless with where she puts everything.” Albus grinned. “She’s still not as bad as Professor Longbottom, though. Now come on, I don’t want us to be the only ones late!”

Scorpius glanced back once more and was startled to see James and Lan staring unflinchingly at him. James was murmuring something that he couldn’t hear with an unhappy look on his face, and Lan frowned in response. Her eyebrows raised as James continued to speak, visually agitated. Scorpius turned away, embarrassment and irrational fear making him feel sick to the stomach.

Luckily, they reached the Potion’s dungeons in time. As Scorpius answered a question on the impromptu quiz that Professor Warway handed out immediately after class began, he reluctantly admitted to himself that without Nott’s notes, he probably would have had a lot of trouble understanding, let alone answering, most of the questions.

After the quiz was collected and quickly graded (to Scorpius’ relief, he received a decent score), they were told to split into pairs to discuss and prepare the potion they would begin making the next day. Albus claimed Scorpius as his partner, and Scorpius quickly scribbled out an outline for the procedure. Albus unhelpfully doodled smiley faces in the margins of the paper, occasionally noticing discrepancies in the outline and pointing them out to Scorpius.

“Are you going to stay here for the hols?” Albus asked abruptly, just as Scorpius was finishing.

Scorpius blinked at him. “Yes,” he said. Draco was busiest during the winter hols and wasn’t able to come home, and Scorpius wasn’t even sure where Narcissa – or Lucius, for that matter – were. Before he’d come to Hogwarts, Christmas had always been a formal, rigid, joyless affair, and he would much rather stay here.

“Oh,” Albus said and fell silent. They sat in silence for a moment as Scorpius wrapped up the outline and then looked up to see the Potter boy staring at him.

“What?” Scorpius asked blankly.

“There’s something on your cheek,” Albus responded solemnly and laughed as Scorpius immediately brought a hand to his face self-consciously. “Just kidding,” Albus assured him.

Scorpius hmphed grumpily in response, glaring at Albus as he carefully rolled up the parchment and placed it carefully amongst his stuff, not wanting to leave it in the classroom by accident. He’d gotten used to not having a bag after it’d broken that day he’d spoken with Jeanine, but every once in a while, he would leave something in a classroom and would consequently be forced to make the journey back to find it. Scorpius made a mental note to owl his father to see if he could get a new bag – the lack of efficiency that came from having to carry everything around manually didn’t make life too troublesome, but it would be nice not to have to deal with it.

“You should come to my house for the hols,” Albus announced decisively and unexpectedly as Scorpius tucked his quill and inkpot in his pockets, startling Scorpius so much that he nearly dropped the items in his hands.

Scorpius quickly secured his things before turning to give Albus an incredulous look. “Is that even allowed?” he asked disbelievingly.

Albus shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think Dad could probably ask McGonagall to let you come…”

Scorpius was silent. He didn’t want to impose on the Potters again, no matter how much he had enjoyed spending time with them; his pride flinched at the very thought of it. He remembered James and Lan watching him and bit his lip, trying not to think too much on it.

The Gryffindor boy stared at him expectantly. “Well? What do you think?” Albus asked.

“I…” Scorpius hesitated. “I don’t think so.” He ducked his head shamefully, not wanting to look his friend in the face as he refused.

“Oh,” Albus said, disappointed, “alright.”

They were both quiet for a second, and Scorpius muttered unhappily, “It’s not that I don’t want to go, but-”

“Then come!” There was a spark of the anger that Scorpius had seen earlier in the hallway in Albus’ eyes.

“I don’t want to impose,” Scorpius mumbled, feeling awful.

Albus sighed heavily. “You won’t be,” he said, exasperated. “I want you there. The more the merrier and all, right? Sharing the Christmas spirit? I know Mum and Dad wouldn’t mind.”

Scorpius shrugged noncommittally, keeping his tongue while silently wondering, what about everyone else? The memory of the discontented look on James’ face from earlier flashed warningly in his mind.

Albus huffed at his silence, taking it for the negative answer that it was. “Fine then,” he grumbled, “I’ll stay here too then-” he cut himself off at the fierce glare that Scorpius gave him. Albus frowned at him. “But-!” he tried to protest, but Scorpius shook his head.

“Go home to your family,” Scorpius said firmly. “They’ll miss you if you don’t go back home.” He refused to speak about the topic again, despite Albus’ attempts to do otherwise, and the two of them left Potions class not speaking to each other.


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