books by their covers

[wldnst]

part 1

In the morning there’s nothing to regret, just breakfast to eat and a dog who needs to be walked; and then, after, Albus pulls on his Auror robes and goes to work, goes from his office up to the library.

“I wasn’t sure you’d show,” Scorpius says, and Albus shrugs. He has a pile of books and his sheaf of notes, which he spreads out for Scorpius to examine.

“Nice cartoons,” Scorpius says, glancing at them, and somehow, somehow, Albus has the grace not to blush.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Let’s just get to it, then.”

Scorpius splays Albus’ notes across the table, and then he sorts the books by subject and splits the pile between the pair of them. Scorpius draws a tangled web of connections around Albus’ notes, and does a neat piece of spellwork that makes the whole thing three-dimensional, and, somehow, comprehensible despite it all.

Albus’ drawings of Teeth, meanwhile, tug at the more tenuous connecting thoughts as they scurry around.

“These are good, you know,” Scorpius says, prodding one of the drawings with his wand.

“Silly, though,” Albus says, shrugging. Two of the drawings of Teeth have gotten into a scuffle with one another. To win a crup fight one crup has to get the fork of the other’s tail, bite it. Albus points to the fighting pair.

“I’ll bet you,” he says.

“For what?” Scorpius asks, and Albus shrugs.

“A sickle,” he says, and Scorpius shrugs.

“I was thinking something a little more interesting,” he says, leaning forward on his elbows. “But, you know.”

“Interesting how?” Albus asks, despite himself. Scorpius’ glasses are slipping down his nose, glinting silver in the library lights, and he’s looking very intently at Albus’ face, like he’s waiting for something.

Like he’s fascinated.

“Interesting,” Scorpius says. “Like--”

“The fight’s already over,” Albus interjects, pointing at the crups. The one closer to Scorpius has a firm grasp on the other’s tail, and the pair of them tumble into a ball, yipping silently.

“Right,” Scorpius says, and the he pushes his glasses up his nose and flips open another volume.

Albus knows what just happened. He just wishes he understood it.

In Slytherin--it’s not really worth talking about Slytherin, because Sean was a Gryffindor, and wore his emotions on his red and gold sleeve. But in Slytherin, too, you always knew what people wanted, because they tried to get it. Not once, but several times, and if they were cock-blocked by an early win in an animated illustration of a crup fight, they pressed on.

Scorpius doesn’t. He starts taking notes again, gesturing at their floating diagram, and then he suggests other sources and disappears to retrieve them, leaving Albus to his thoughts. It’s not--if they hadn’t gone to school together, and if Scorpius hadn’t been such an ass, if they’d just met at Hugo’s bar (or at the other bar, the one Albus had frequented after he and Sean broke up, with his eyes and hair magicked to something less distinctive because it was not good for the rep, to have people know he danced like that).

There are a lot of possibilities, but the one that is playing out right now--Albus just can’t see it working out.

Albus is a Slytherin. He protects himself.

When Scorpius comes back to the table Albus asks which books he should work on, and takes them and reads them. He does not steal glances at Scorpius when he thinks he’s not looking, and he certainly does not stretch his legs out beneath the table in case they might brush. Because, for one, that’s so Hogwarts, and for two--Albus just said he wouldn’t do that. He just decided. He stands by his decisions, even the worst ones (and there have been plenty of worst ones).

But making a decision doesn’t mean that Albus doesn’t want to find out what Scorpius was trying to do, and why. He lets the idea percolate through him--Scorpius Malfoy wants him. Or wanted him for a moment. Or was trying, weakly to flirt with him. Either way, it’s something.

With Sean there had hardly even been flirting--Rose had invited Albus to a Gryffindor party. There’d been something in the punch. Sean and Albus had wound up pressed together in a plush chair in the corner, quietly licking their way into one another’s mouths. And Sean wasn’t like Henryk. After that, they were an item, as they say.

The break up last year ago had been either rough or inevitable. Rose said inevitable, Stella thought rough, and so when Albus gets home from research with Scorpius, Rose is the one he calls.

Rose had gone to Bulgaria to work with Uncle Charlie after graduation, and from there she’d been moved to a reserve up in Norway to work with Norwegian Ridgebacks. When she answers the firecall she has a long streak of soot on her cheek, and her hair is twisted up into a bun on the top of her head with frizzy strands escaping.

“Al,” she says, catching her breath. “What’s the occasion, cuz?”

“How are you?”

“Skip the formalities,” she says. “I know you want something.”

Albus looks at her for a moment.

“I am doing well,” she says. “It’s mating season up here. The females hold eggs over winter, and they mate in midair--you should come up and see it sometime.”

“And now what do you want?” she finishes, grinning.

“I was wondering why you were so sure Sean and I were going to split,” Albus says, and Rose’s grin broadens.

“Coming to your good cousin Rose for relationship advice?” she asks. “Poor Albus.”

“Shut up,” he says mildly. “Talk.”

Rose has always had a weird habit of magicking little balls of blue light and floating them around while she talks. It was the first spell Aunt Hermione taught her, and it’s been like that since then--there’s always one or two, trailing after her.

She got in trouble with the Ministry about it nearly every summer.

Now one orbits around her head, and then bobs in the air when Rose taps herself on the chin with her wand.

“Did you ever think you might be afraid of being gay?” Rose asks, then cuts him off before he can answer. “Because of Uncle Harry. Because if you don’t marry and have 2.5 children to carry on the Potter line you’re afraid you’ll disappoint him.”

“That’s not true,” Albus says. “I’ve never wanted--”

“No, but you never wanted to commit, either,” Rose says. “And Sean did.”

That’s true. Albus knows it’s true, because Sean’s living with the guy he started dating after Albus, and that was a step Albus was never willing to take--moving in together, combining their possessions in one flat. He liked waking up in the tangle of Sean’s arms, but it felt safer to keep certain things separate, like the other apartment was a safety net or an escape rope.

“Some people just don’t like commitment,” Albus hears himself saying. “Not everyone needs long term things.”

“And if you believe that, it wasn’t going to work out with Sean anyway,” Rose says succinctly. “But is that what you really believe?”

“It’s not because of Dad,” Albus says.

“You’re an Auror because of him,” Rose replies. “I don’t see how this is any different.”

Sometimes, Albus kind of hates Rose. She’s sitting there, probably kneeling in front of the fireplace, with her hair frizzing out and her little ball of blue light, and she’s saying things that are sensible, that might be true, but that Albus does not want to hear.

“Albus,” she says when there have been several beats of silence between them, broken only by crackling flames. “Your family loves you. You can be whoever you want, and they--we--still will. I just want to make sure you’re being who you want to be.”

Being whoever he wants to be is terrifying. Albus’ ambition had always been for some nebulous state, for respect. His father was the most respected man he knew. It followed that if he could be like Harry Potter--but he wasn’t.

“Yeah,” Albus says. “I’ll think about it.”

Rose smiles at him wanly, looks like she wants to reach through the fire and hug him, and then they say their good byes.

Albus is still sitting on the floor, his back wedged against the sofa. He calls Teeth over and scratches him behind the ears. He wonders.

He doesn’t even know what he’d do if he weren’t an Auror.

Albus falls asleep like that, slumped together with Teeth in front of the fire, and he wakes to the crup licking his face. He is, not unexpectedly, late to work, but no one seems to care. When he gets up to the library he waves in Scorpius’ direction and then retreats to a table in the back, curling his legs up beneath him and pressing onward with books, notes spread on the table around him.

Scorpius comes to join him sometime before Albus breaks for lunch, settling into a chair opposite Albus with little more than a nod of acknowledgment and a few moderately insightful comments about crup fighting.

It’s strangely comfortable, and when lunch does roll around Albus asks Scorpius if he’d like to come along. There’s a muggle cafe two blocks down from the Ministry that Albus like, small and quiet and never quite clean. Scorpius looks skeptical, but he comes along almost despite himself.

“Are you sure no one will be able to tell?” he asks when they’re outside on the sidewalk. Albus keeps muggle clothes in his cubicle, and he and Scorpius manage to transfigure a spare pair of trousers and an oxford to fit.

“You were wearing muggle clothing just the other night,” Albus says. “For dinner with Stella and Hugo?”

“But then I wasn’t going to see actual muggles,” Scorpius replies, weaving to dodge a man coming towards them. Then he pauses to examine his wrist. “I feel like the stitching is inauthentic.”

“The stitching,” Albus echoes.

“On the cuffs here,” Scorpius says. “The transfiguration altered it--because my arms are shorter than yours, and now it’s all--”

“Malfoy,” Albus interjects.

“What?”

“No one’s going to look at the stitching on your cuffs,” Albus says.

“That’s fine for you to say,” Scorpius grumbles. “Your shirt’s intact.”

“Yes,” Albus says. “It is.”

“And your trousers,” Scorpius says, twisting. “I think our arses are different shapes. Are any Muggles looking at my arse?”

“No,” Albus says. “But the will be, if you don’t keep trying to look at it yourself.”

Albus is. Albus is looking at Scorpius’ arse. If anything, they transfigured the trousers too tight, and the pull of the tucked-in shirt neatly displays the curve of Scorpius’ waist.

“Right, Potter,” Scorpius says, and keeps walking.

“You’ve passed it,” Albus says, halting in front of a storefront.

“Thanks for telling me,” Scorpius replies, coming back a few paces to rejoin him. “Helpful, you are.”

“I try,” Albus says, and pushes the door open for Scorpius to go inside.

It’s Albus’ treat, because Scorpius doesn’t carry muggle money.

“Does it surprise you that I don’t carry muggle money?” Scorpius asks when they’ve seated, and Albus shrugs.

“Not particularly,” he replies.

“It’s not that I hate muggles--” Scorpius starts. “I know, my family. I just don’t know much about them.”

“Didn’t you take Muggle Studies?” Albus asks. He knows Scorpius took Muggle Studies. They were in the same class.

“That was the only class you ever did better than me in,” Scorpius says dryly. “You know I took it.”

“Why were you always such an arse about that?” Albus asks. “Grades?”

Scorpius glances down at the table, then flickers his eyes up towards Albus’ face.

“It was what I was good at, I guess,” he says. “I was kind of a show-off.”

Albus snorts.

“I didn’t think you were prone to understatement.”

“I’m not,” Scorpius says. He might be blushing, which--is not a bad look, really, a tint of color on the sharp Malfoy cheekbones.

“You tell me,” Scorpius says, then. “About your cartoons.”

“What?” Albus asks. “The drawings of Teeth?”

“And your entire family,” Scorpius says. “And nearly everyone we went to school with.”

“You’ve seen those?” Albus asks. It’s true the margins of most of his notes and some of his essays at Hogwarts were littered with doodles. Albus had always been quite handy with animation spells, but that was not the sort of thing Hogwarts tested with any particular alacrity, so it had never mattered. Albus still has binders of cartoons, filed away in boxes beneath his bed.

“It’s no wonder you never did well in most of our classes,” Scorpius says, hiding a smirk. “You were never paying attention.”

“Yeah--” Albus says, trailing off thoughtfully. “But I did well enough to become an Auror.”

“Yes,” Scorpius replies. “That was certainly a surprise.”

“Was it?” Albus asks, narrowing his eyes.

“That’s just not what I expected you to end up as,” Scorpius replies.

“Because I’m too dumb?” Albus asks. He scowls at Scorpius, thinning his lips. “Because that is--”

“No,” Scorpius interjects, spitting out the syllable quickly. “Albus. I just didn’t think that was what you wanted to do.”

“Because I’m a Slytherin?” Albus asks, and Scorpius actually has the gall to laugh.

“Albus,” he says, again. Albus’ name, not Potter, which Albus is not entirely sure how long he’s been saying. “Most of my relatives are in Slytherin. I’m talking about you, not your house.”

Albus had lifted one of his hands, like somehow that would enable him to articulate things more clearly, but now he lets it fall to the table.

“You don’t know me,” he says, softly. “You don’t.”

“I--” Scorpius starts, but Albus cuts him off.

“This is none of your business, Malfoy,” he says. “It’s not your place to judge.”

“Right,” Scorpius says. “Of course not.”

Albus looks at him, but his face is impossible to read. The rest of their meal passes in silence, and when they get back to the library Scorpius goes to his desk and Albus stays at his table, sorting through books and adding to their web of notes until the work day is over and he can wrap up his work and go home.

He makes a cheese sandwich for dinner. Contrary to popular belief, he can cook other things, but it’s drizzling outside and this is something he doesn’t need to think about.

The bar he goes to for dancing (for hook ups, if he’s honest with himself) is on the fringe between Diagon and Knockturn Alleys, down a flight of stairs. If it has a name that Albus has forgotten, brick walls with tattered posters and more kinds of beer than anywhere else in either alley. Light comes from floating orbs in dull, warm colors--amber, ochre, maroon, mahogany.

Albus has always liked it, because it’s dim and noisy and the music is good. It’s just a club, really, and changing his hair and eyes--had to do with being a Potter, more than thinking what he was up to was particularly shameful. It wouldn’t be, if he weren’t a Potter. But on a slow news day, even dull Potter news made the Prophet, and Albus Potter sleeping with random men was somewhere north of dull, edging towards interesting, if taudry. Because Potters didn’t sleep with random men. Potters saved the world and married their Hogwarts sweethearts. Potters did good, wholesome, useful jobs and lived similarly wholesome lives.

That was not, strictly speaking, the truth.

Albus calls Lily.

When Lily wound up in Slytherin Albus was sure everyone blamed him for actually liking his house, and he didn’t really know what to do with that. Instead he wrapped her green and silver scarf around her neck and pulled her tight into a hug, then he set her loose amongst the snakes.

They didn’t stand a chance.

Lily played Seeker at Hogwarts, and she was recruited by the Ballycastle Bats before she even graduated. She dropped out.

“Of course,” she said, whenever anyone commented (Grandmum Weasley, Aunt Hermione, Uncle Percy--Uncle George had clapped her on the back and welcomed her to the fold). “What else would I do?”

Lily can’t take his firecall because she’s training, but she calls him back that night when he’s already asleep.

“Al,” she says. “Did I wake you? You should really put on a shirt, don’t want to scar me for life with your pasty chest, yeah?”

Albus mumbles into coherence, blinking at his sister. She has always been the youngest. That’s really the only way to describe her.

“Lily,” he says.

“That’s my name,” she replies brightly. She grins, waiting.

“Did you ever feel guilty about being in Slytherin?”

“Merlin, Al, it’s just a house,” she says.

“You don’t feel like you disappointed Mum and Dad? We were all over the Prophet--‘House of Potter Goes Bad.’”

“That was my favorite headline,” Lily muses. “But Al, don’t be an arse. They don’t care. I’m the best seeker since ever, and you’re Albus, and no one gives two shits about it.”

Albus stared at her. Lily was the best seeker since ever, and Albus was--Albus. Which was actually kind of depressing.

“Stop stewing,” she commands from the fire. “Albus Severus Potter, whatever you’re angsting about, just stop. You’re not old enough to have a midlife crisis.”

“Do you think I should quit my job?” Albus asks, and Lily squints one eye at him.

“Are you having a midlife crisis?” she says.

“No,” he replies. “Just the regular sort.”

“Do whatever the hell you want,” Lily says. “I have to go.”

And then she leaves. Albus didn’t really expect anything else.

He sleeps in front of the fire again, with Teeth curled up against his back, breathing warmth and smelling of crup.

He’s on time for work this time, though just barely. He spends the day reanimating the notes he and Scorpius created and allowing them to congeal into an essay, and when he’s done he puts the scroll inside a drawer of his desk and decides that he’ll bring it over to Scorpius for review before submitting it.

But that can wait until Monday. That needs to wait until Monday, actually, to give Albus some time to order his thoughts.

Friday night he goes to the bar. It’s a decision he feels like he already made, pulling on his trousers in the usual way, pulling on a thin green jumper. He changes neither his hair nor his eyes, and doesn’t look in the mirror before he leaves--he knows how he looks, which is like himself.

Like a young Harry Potter, they say. Albus likes to think his glasses are a little more stylish.

He feels conspicuous when he descends the stairs into the club, but when he gets there--he’s not. No one turns to stare when he enters the room. The bartender glances at him and says nothing, just slides the requested pint down the bar and grins as Albus tosses it back.

And then there’s the dancing. Albus has never been good, precisely, but it’s not the sort of dancing you need to be good at.

When he sees Scorpius, there’s another man’s hands on Albus’ hips thumbs teasing at the waistband of his denims. Scorpius is a shock of bright white hair on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, wearing the clothes Albus transfigured for him one day prior. His hips are angled forward and his hair’s been rubbed into soft peaks and he’s looking directly at Albus.

When their eyes meet, and Albus turns around and puts his arms across the strange man’s shoulders, tries not to think about it. It’s easier this way, to match his hips with a stranger rather than thinking of the play of Scorpius’ body against his, about the fact that Scorpius is wearing his clothes for no reason Albus can fathom.

He makes the paper that morning, one line on the fifth page (‘Cauldron of Gossip’). It’s not as bad as he expected. When he has dinner with his parents Sunday afternoon, they don’t even mention it.

“Albus,” Harry is saying. “I have it on good authority that your next job will be slightly more interesting.”

Albus pauses to chew his food and revise his thoughts.

“I think I might quit my job,” he says, and Harry looks at him sharply across the dinner plates he prepared.

“What?”

“I’m not sure I’m an Auror,” he says.

Things fall quiet, then, and Albus desperately wishes Lily or James were there to diffuse the tension, but James has an odd bit of weekend work to do, and Lily is traveling with the Bats.

“Really, Albus?” his mother asks. Albus is trying to read the expressions on both of their faces at once. He’s always been good at telling when his parents are angry, and lying his way out of it, but they don’t look angry now--they just look--they just look.

“What will you do?” his father asks, and Albus thinks he recognizes his expression as patience.

“My drawings,” he says. “Cartoons.”

“There’s money in that?” Ginny asks, and she sounds so calm that it startles Albus, frightens him.

“Are you really okay with this?” he asks.

“Of course,” Harry says. “Merlin, Al, you know we just want you to be happy.”

They both smile fondly. It’s so--these are his parents. Albus knew these were his parents. He still expected something more, some sort of drama, some sort of--he expected someone to imply he was less, but instead of that his mother is scooping peas onto her plate, and his father is offering him potatoes.

They hug him by turn when he leaves, even though they both know he hates it.

Albus firecalls Lily when he gets home, sitting on the floor with Teeth.

“Al,” she says. “What’s happening?”

“I told mum and dad I’m quitting the Aurors,” he says, and she grins.

“Oh, good on you then,” she says, clapping her hands.

“It’s not really that big of a deal, is it?” he says, and she shrugs.

“Not really, no,” she replies. “You were always more interested in the stories about being in the Auror Corps than the actual--”

“Yes,” he says. “The stories.”

“Are you going to write comics, then?” she says, and Albus scowls.

“How’d you know?”

“Al,” she says. “Everyone knows. You never liked anything else as well. Also, I’m uniquely perspective.”

Albus wants to punch her, but he settles for shaking his head.

“I don’t know why I put up with you,” he says.

“Because I’m your sister,” she says. “Like you ever had a choice.”

After they say goodbye Albus scratches Teeth behind the ears and goes to bed, properly, this time. Teeth hops up sometime in the middle of the night, wriggling up towards the pillow.

There’s business to take care of on Monday, but Scorpius isn’t there.

“You can owl it to him,” says the witch at the desk, the one with the fingernails from the other day.

“No, it’s fine,” Albus says.

“Well, I can hold it here,” she continues.

“No,” Albus says, clutching the scroll. “I’ll bring it back.”

He turns to go, and then swivels around.

“Where’s Scorpius live?” he asks.

The librarian with the fingernails looks at him, blinking evenly.

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information,” she says.

“I need to see him,” Albus says, because it’s true.

“He’s not here right now,” the other librarian says. “You can owl him the scroll.”

“Owl him this,” Albus says, instead, taking out a small sheet and writing Where do you live? -ASP on it. The other librarian scowls at him, but eventually she whistles for an owl and sends it off, and then sits down at one of the tables and waits.

The owl comes back thirteen minutes later, precisely, and the other librarian hands Albus the note, hiding a smirk.

That’s none of your business, Potter.

Albus scowls, flips the note over, and scrawls.

I put in fortnight’s notice this morning. I need to talk to you.

The next note as a Floo address. Albus tries not to look smug. He fails.

“He’s ill,” the other librarian says, but Albus is already going through the big glass-and-oak doors and back to the lift.

The other librarian turns out not to have been lying. When Scorpius answers the floo Albus can already see his nose is red, and when Albus comes through it’s apparent that Scorpius is wrapped in a soft robe of the sort muggles wear, and has wool socks sagging around his ankles.

“Oh,” Albus says. “I suppose I’ll--go, then.”

“No, don’t,” Scorpius says. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“It looks bad,” Albus replies, and Scorpius shrugs.

“Dad sent me potions,” he says. “I took them.”

“Ah--well, then,” Albus says, pausing to look around. Scorpius’ flat looks a lot like his own, with more books. But there’s the pictures in frames, the posters tacked up on the walls (one for The Toaster Ovens, Albus’ personal favorite band and a result of the recent vogue for naming bands after muggle devices), the tatty furniture. “I just came to apologize.”

“Did you?” Scorpius asks, and Albus--Albus doesn’t know what else he came here for.

“And to ask if you could revise my crup fighting report,” Albus says, thrusting the scroll forward.

Scorpius stares at it, at Albus, and then reaches out to take it.

It is terrible. It is painful. It is awkward. Albus flees.

And then he feels guilty when he gets back to his flat, because Scorpius was clearly sick, and Albus crashed into his life and demanded he read a terribly dull report about crup fighting.

So he makes chicken soup. He left work early, he has time. He owes Scorpius something, otherwise he’ll be indebted. He’ll drop it off, it’s not a big deal, he has a chicken in the freezer, anyway.

It’s not true, about the chicken in the freezer, but no one has to know.

Albus doesn’t know all the spells for soup, so he improvises a little and it ends up alright. Or it looks alright, anyway, and tastes alright, so he shrinks the pot down and floos back to Scorpius’.

Draco Malfoy is there.

“Oh,” Albus says. “Sorry.”

Draco looks at him blankly and then says, “Are you here to see Scorp? He’s asleep.”

“I just--brought soup,” Albus says quickly, fishing the pot out of his pocket. “I shrunk it.”

“I can see that,” Draco says.

“Right,” Albus says, bringing the pot back to size. “Tell him he can bring the pot to work, or something.”

“Or something,” Draco echoes, and he sounds so damned amused that Albus absolutely needs to leave.

“Cheers,” he says, and does that.

Albus goes to Stella and Hugo’s next, because he’s trying to tell everyone that matters about his change of careers before the Prophet gets hold of the information, and because maybe Stella can answer some questions about Scorpius that need to be resolved.

Stella is there, curled up in an chair reading with her legs hooked over the armrests.

“Al,” she says, turning when he arrives in the Floo. “Hugo’s at The Flying Ford.”

“Yeah--” Albus starts. “I was just--I’m quitting the Aurors.”

“Lovely,” she beams. “That’s lovely, Albus. Scorp will be so pleased.”

Albus blinks at her and perches himself on the armrest of another chair.

“He actually already knows.”

“Does that mean you two are getting on, then?” Stella asks. She’s smiling in that way she does, benign and frightening and like she knows something you don’t.

“Not really, no,” Albus says. “But we had lunch the other day, and he mentioned--I thought I ought to tell him.”

Stella frowns at him, then.

“He likes you, you know,” she says.

“What?” Albus asks.

Stella shrugs.

“He just--he likes you, Albus,” she says. “Don’t mess around with him.”

“What?” Albus repeats.

“Albus,” Stella sighs. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but it’s been forever, and just--let him down easy, if you need to.”

“Do you remember by break up with Sean?” Albus asks, and Stella snorts.

“Of course I do,” she says. “It wasn’t that long ago.”

“Did you think--was it my fault?”

“Yes, Al,” Stella says. “It was.”

“What if I do it again?”

Stella meets his eyes, and hers are bright and brimming with hope.

“You don’t know that, Al,” she says. “You try. If you’re willing to try, that’s enough.”

Albus desperately hopes that Draco has gone home, and Floos back to Scorpius’.

“Thanks for the soup,” Scorpius says when Albus floos in. “Dad tested it for poison and said there was none, so.”

“Right,” Albus says. “I must’ve forgotten that ingredient.”

“He said you can never trust a Slytherin,” Scorpius continues.

“I’m trying to escape house stereotypes,” Albus replies.

“How so?” Scorpius asks. He’s sitting on the couch, still wearing his socks that sag around the ankles, still pink about the nose. He’s looking at Albus with nothing much in his face, like he’s tired and drained of emotion, and Albus suspects this may be the wrong time to do this, but he doesn’t know of a better time.

Albus doesn’t actually know how he’s trying to escape house stereotypes. He sinks down onto the couch besides Scorpius, looks over at him.

“Did you like the soup?”

“Good as mum’s,” Scorpius replies. “But she didn’t--you know--make soup.”

“Right,” Albus replies. They sit there in silence for a few minutes and then a few minutes more.

“Did you have something else to say?” Scorpius asks. Albus is still wearing his coat, and Scorpius is wearing a robe and socks, and Albus isn’t sure what he meant to say, but it’s there, something’s there.

“Scorpius,” he says finally. “I like you.”

Scorpius is silent, watching him, not patient, exactly, but waiting.

“I’m kind of an arse,” he says. “Sometimes.”

Scorpius kisses him, putting one hand on the back of his neck, snake-quick, and pulling their mouths together. He tastes like dill and lemon and Pep-Up Potion, and he’s moving his mouth against Albus’ like he’s trying to say something.

“I’m sick,” Scorpius supplies when they pull apart. “Sorry about that. It’s probably contagious.”

Albus will care slightly more when he falls ill the next week and it turns out that Scorpius doesn’t know how to make any sort of soup, but for now he pecks up on his pinkened nose and kisses him again, thoroughly.

“So we can try this?” he says.

“Yes,” Scorpius replies. “We can.”