FIC: Hello [R] - Part 1
Author: sara_holmes
Title: Hello
Pairing(s): Scorpius/Al, very minor Al/OFC
Rating: Mild R - underage drinking.
Warnings: A bit of angst along the way.
Word Count: 13,400
Summary: ”Scorpius stands still, feeling like he’s invisible with all these people who look at him like he’s not quite there. Maybe he’s actually a ghost, and no-one’s bothered to tell him.”
Prompt: Prompt #180, Hello by Evanescence, submitted by singlemomsummer
Notes: I hope the story does the wonderful prompt justice. Thank you to MCF and CD for the help.
Hello.
“I’m still here, all that’s left of yesterday.”
***
Ten
Scorpius Malfoy stands in the lower garden of Malfoy Manor, feeding the peacocks with the scraps from his breakfast and trying his best to be patient. It’s not easy; he itches to go back inside so he can finally meet the person he’s been waiting for. He feels like he’s been waiting for forever.
This morning has been the longest wait though, longer than the nine months that have passed since his mother and father sat him down and explained that there would be an addition to the family.
A baby sister. The concept seems brilliant to Scorpius; being an only child is okay most of the time but he’s looking forwards to having someone to share everything with. He plans to teach her everything he knows; where the best hiding places are, his fool-proof plan that will make sure they get into the best house at Hogwarts, how to make friends, how to get Father to give in every time.
The clouds above his head shift and shadows steal over the garden, turning everything a fraction darker. He brushes the breadcrumbs off his hands and shivers slightly, missing the warmth of the sun. He turns to face the house and sees his father standing at the top of the wide stone steps that lead from the patio down to the expanse of the lower garden. He’s standing as still as a statue; the illusion is only broken as his short hair is ruffled by the breeze.
Scorpius’s face breaks into a smile, anticipation and excitement rising in his chest. Ever since the Healer arrived early that morning he’s been kept out of the way, shooed outside so he can’t get under everyone’s feet. But now his father is here to tell him that he can finally meet his baby sister. He wonders if they’ve named her yet. He wonders if he’ll get to hold her. Maybe if Mother’s in a good mood. Maybe he’ll just ask Father instead; he’s bound to say yes.
He turns and walks towards his father, wanting to run but holding himself back. It seems to take forever to cross the gardens and when he reaches the bottom of the stone stairs he looks up, heart beating madly in his chest and cheeks flushed pink with excitement.
His feet stumble to a stop and his smile fades into uncertainty.
His father is crying.
He never cries.
Scorpius watches, his eyes wide and hesitant. His father just stands there, staring out over the garden with unblinking eyes, shining tracks on his cheeks. He hasn’t even seen Scorpius. He looks worlds away.
“Father?”
Scorpius takes a cautious step forwards, feeling scared. His father doesn’t even move. Scorpius starts to think that maybe something is very, very wrong.
Grandmother comes out, her face drawn and troubled. She reaches for Father and pulls him back inside by his arm. He follows, staring blankly at nothing, his feet stumbling and dragging. Scorpius can hear voices from the open French windows, low and distressed.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Everyone was supposed to be happy, smiling.
The clouds overhead grow darker, menacing. A raindrop hits Scorpius’s face and he blinks. Another falls, and another, and another. Soon it’s pouring with rain and even though Scorpius is only young he somehow knows that that means something. The weather is trying to tell him, because no-one else will.
He’s soon drenched, standing at the bottom of the staircase. He turns and runs away, runs across the lower garden, scattering the peacocks which scream angrily at him as he flees. He runs all the way to the wall at the bottom of the gardens and climbs his favourite tree, an old mulberry that his father keeps insisting he’ll have pulled down. He finds a safe place, high among the old branches, and listens to the rain pattering onto the leaves around him, his jaw clenched and his breathing short, his heart thudding dully inside his ribcage.
He sits there for hours. Nobody comes to find him.
Eleven
Life goes on as if that morning never happened. Nobody talks of it, and Scorpius isn’t sure he’s allowed to ask. After a while he finds he’s not a hundred per cent sure it actually happened, and he starts to forget. Soon, all he remembers of that day is the screaming peacocks and hiding in the mulberry tree.
Something is different though. Grandmother goes back to France and Scorpius never hears from her again, not even on his birthday or at Christmas. His mother hardly talks anymore, especially not to his father. She won’t go out anywhere with them either, so when it’s time to fetch Hogwarts supplies, it’s just him and his father who traverse Diagon Alley. His father doesn’t smile like he used to. He looks tired and drawn and when he thinks no-one is looking, he looks upset. Scorpius doesn’t really care; he’s too busy worrying over why his mother won’t come outside with him anymore.
His father buys him a cauldron, his books, his wand and an owl. He buys Scorpius an ice-cream at Fortesques and tells him he’s proud of him. Scorpius feeds the ice-cream to the owl. His father pinches the bridge of his nose like he does when he’s trying to chase away that upset look.
“Look, Scorpius,” Father says and then stops and shakes his head. He breathes out deeply and runs his fingers through his hair. Scorpius likes him a little more when he does that; he looks ruffled and more like a person. “You know I love you?”
Scorpius nods and scratches his nail along the worn wood of the bench they’re sat at. He’d rather know that Mother loves him, really.
“Do I have to be in Slytherin?” he asks, blinking at his owl.
His father looks startled, and then laughs, rubbing his eyes hard as if he can rub away the dark circles. “No. Go where you want.”
Scorpius nods. “Thank you.”
The owl hoots loudly and Scorpius turns to fuss it. His father sighs and vanishes the melted remnants of his own untouched ice-cream.
***
Scorpius does go where he wants; he goes into Ravenclaw. The hat asks him if he wants to be in the same house as his father, but he says no. He sits down at his new table, wide eyes taking in everything going on around him. He doesn’t feel like socialising, despite this being one of the most important days of his life; he’s still feeling unsettled because his mother didn’t say goodbye properly. She’d given him a brief hug with stiff arms and then walked away, leaving Scorpius standing still and feeling stupid and his father looking furious.
He’s still brooding over it when he’s nearly knocked off the bench by the next boy to be sorted into Ravenclaw. He rights himself and comes face to face with green eyes and messy black hair.
“Sorry,” the boy whispers. “I thought I’d be in Gryffindor, I panicked a bit.”
“It’s okay,” Scorpius whispers back. “I think I was meant to go in Slytherin.”
The boy nods and smiles, his expression soft and gentle. “My dad knows your dad,” he whispers. “But he says he’s not seen him in ages.”
“Harry Potter,” Scorpius says and the boy nods.
“I’m Al.”
“Scorpius.”
A fifth years hisses a shush in their direction and they fall quiet whilst the sorting continues. When the feast starts they talk and talk and talk. Scorpius talks about his owl. Al talks about his brother and they both eat too much ice-cream.
Scorpius likes Al. He talks quite fast but his voice is quiet and calm so Scorpius has to lean close to hear what he’s saying. They make a pact to be the cleverest students in the year, and agree that they’ll always sit together in lessons.
By the time Scorpius slips into his bed in Ravenclaw Tower for the first time, safe between blue sheets and with Al in the next bed over, he’s almost forgotten to feel disappointed with his parents.
***
Scorpius finds he’s great at charms and not so great at potions, although he’s still better than most people in his year anyway. He’s a tiny bit smarter than Al but Al doesn’t seem to mind. He just smiles his slow quiet smile that makes Scorpius suspicious that he’s got a secret in his chest that’s keeping him so happy. Scorpius wonders how Al is so calm all the time because from what he’s heard his entire family is mental. His older brother definitely is; he’s a Gryffindor and shouts all the time, even when his friends are standing right next to him.
Scorpius finds he doesn’t like it when Al talks to James, but he can’t really work out why. When he sees them face to face or shoulder to shoulder, laughing or arguing or rolling their eyes, it makes him feel like he’s forgotten something.
It doesn’t matter too much; Al talks to him much more than he does James and that’s okay.
***
That first Christmas he goes home to find that in his absence, everything has fallen apart. His mother has moved out of the master bedroom and now has her own wing in the manor, and his father has filled the gap she’s left in his life with copious amounts of alcohol.
On Christmas Eve, he finds his father blind-drunk in his study. He’s slumped in his high-backed chair, his elbow on his desk and his face in his hand. A glass is tilting dangerously in his free hand and his eyes are shut. The fairy lights fluttering over the ceiling make shadows flicker over his face.
Scorpius knows he’s meant to be in bed but he also knows his father doesn’t have the heart to tell him off about it. He pads across the room and takes the glass from his father’s fingers, putting it back onto the desktop.
Father’s eyes struggle open and he blinks hard as he focuses on Scorpius.
“You’re supposed to be in bed,” he says, and his voice is thick. Scorpius nods and his father sighs. “Come here.”
Scorpius obliges and climbs onto the chair, sitting sideways on his father’s knee with his feet pulled up even though he’s probably too big for hugs like this. He curls up with his face resting on his father’s chest, and his father leans his cheek atop Scorpius’s head.
“It’s just that whenever I plan anything out,” he says with a sigh, his words slurring. “The plan never works. I should know by now.”
Scorpius doesn’t reply.
“Everything just…how are you supposed to miss somebody you never met? God. Scorpius, if it weren’t for you I’d be insane by now. Even if you do insist on befriending Potter children.”
Scorpius lifts his head up, making Father move his own. Father looks down on him, his eyes blurred and heavy, and Scorpius wonders if he actually knows that he’s there.
***
The next night he goes into the south wing to find his mother. Scorpius creeps along the corridor to her room and peers around the door. It’s as if she’s lived in here all her life; all her possessions and trinkets are now in place in this small room, separated from her husband’s things by much more than long corridors and heavy oak doors. She’s sat at her dressing table, taking off her jewellery. She looks tired and sad, but she hides it better than his father does. Her fingers are moving slowly and deliberately, like a person does when they’ve had too much wine. She hides that much better than Father does, too.
“Mother?”
She looks up at him in the mirror, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. He waits for the normal routine, the one where she looks away from him down at whatever is in front of her, saying hello and asking how school is, her tone false and bright. She doesn’t. She looks straight at him, and her chin trembles and her eyes shine. She stands up, her pearls slipping and clattering onto the top of her dressing table, and then she walks away through into her bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
Scorpius stands still, feeling like he’s invisible with all these people who look at him like he’s not quite there. Maybe he’s actually a ghost, and no-one’s bothered to tell him.
***
He’s thankful to go back to school after the Christmas holidays, to escape the strange tension and emptiness that now fills the manor. He finds Al on the platform and is pleased when Al smiles brightly and gives him a hug. Father stands quietly, not even bothering to say anything as Harry Potter walks up to say goodbye to his youngest son. Harry Potter then says hello to Father, and then frowns when Father only mumbles back.
When Harry Potter is gone, Scorpius turns to give his father a brief hug, wishing that his mother had come to say goodbye.
“Have a good term,” his father says, holding him tight for a moment before letting him step back and studying him carefully. “You’re doing great. I’m proud of you.”
“Tell mother I love her,” Scorpius says, and his father’s face falls.
“Yes,” he says distantly, straightening up and looking away. “Of course I will.”
***
“Parents are strange,” Scorpius says as he and Al unpack their things in Ravenclaw Tower. “I think Christmas makes it worse.”
“Tell me about it,” Al says, flopping onto his back on his bed and yawning. “I think it’s because they have to get along. You’re not supposed to fall out at Christmas.”
“No? My parents did. Mother moved into the south wing and Father got drunk,” Scorpius says with a sigh. “I wish Father would move out instead.”
“I’d never want to live with my mum,” Al says contemplatively. “I like Dad more.”
“Everyone likes your father,” Scorpius says.
“Except yours,” Al smiles and Scorpius smiles back.
“He does like him, I think. Well, I don’t think he doesn’t like him. Want to play snap?”
Al nods, sitting up. His smile is bright and Scorpius smiles back, feeling at home once more.
Twelve
The second Christmas he goes home, his parents get divorced. Nobody tells Scorpius why.
“You’ll stay with me in the Manor,” his father says, crouching down beside the chair Scorpius is sat in. He rubs his chin. It’s covered in stubble, making him look a lot older than he is. “It’ll be almost the same.”
“Apart from Mother won’t be here,” Scorpius says, staring at the Christmas tree without really seeing it.
“Well, when was she anyway,” his father mutters, so quietly that Scorpius wonders if he was meant to hear it. He wonders if he should ask if this mess is anything to do with that day all that time ago, that time he hid in the mulberry tree.
“Can Al come for Christmas?” he asks instead.
His father stands up and then he laughs shortly. “Al Potter. Albus Severus Potter.”
“Yes,” Scorpius says. “But please don’t call him that. He doesn’t like it.”
“Of course,” his father says, turning around and walking away waving a hand in the air and ranting as he leaves the room. “It just had to be didn’t it? Yes, alright. I’ll call the Chosen Potter right away. I’m sure he’d love to come and have a nosey into the mess my life has become, maybe the Saviour can give me some more of his wonderful advice. Oh yes Draco, let’s forget all about the past, let’s be friends and talk about our hopeless marriages…”
His voice fades down the corridor and Scorpius shakes his head dejectedly. He bets his mother hasn’t even left him a present.
***
When he goes back to school, Al instantly knows something isn’t right. He hurriedly says goodbye to his father on the platform and then rushes over to Scorpius, who is ignoring his own father and wanting to cry because his mother isn’t there. As he turns away, he waves half-heartedly and hears his father say ‘goodbye,’ his voice sounding small and helpless. He stands perfectly still, staring at the train as it pulls away. Somewhere within him Scorpius feels a flicker of something that makes him want to see his father smile again, but he can’t pinpoint it and it fades away quickly.
“What’s wrong?” Al asks the minute they’re alone, the compartment door closed to keep the rest of the world out.
“They got divorced,” Scorpius says. “Mother moved out.”
“That sucks,” Al says, and then pauses. “Do you want to play snap?”
Scorpius smiles.
***
That night Scorpius tries to go to sleep. He really does. He stares up at the canopy of his bed for hours, feeling alone.
“Scorp?”
It’s barely a whisper, but Scorpius hears it and is out of bed quicker than he’s moved all day. He pads over and clambers onto Al’s bed, slipping beneath the covers as Al wriggles over to give him more space.
“My father said your father gives him advice,” Scorpius whispers, settling his head on the pillow. “He said they’re friends and they talk about their hopeless marriages.”
Al wrinkles his nose, pulling the blanket up over their shoulders. “I suppose they could. He can’t talk to Uncle Ron because he says he likes being married. Everyone does actually. Mum and Dad are the only ones that didn’t.”
“Seems pretty stupid to get married if you don’t like it,” Scorpius whispers, feeling inexplicably saddened by this thought.
Al agrees. “You can stay here if you want,” he whispers after a moment. “If you’re sad.”
Scorpius nods. Al watches him, as if he’s checking that Scorpius is okay. Scorpius decides that Al can definitely be his best friend for the rest of their time at school. He likes the way Al seems to actually notice him when he’s looking at him.
When he tells Al as such, his smile turns bemused.
“You’re very strange sometimes,” he whispers. “You can tell you’re an only child.”
“How?” Scorpius asks, pulling on the pillow a little and nuzzling down into it, breathing in and out deeply.
“The way you talk,” Al whispers. “Like you’ve not talked to many people before.”
Scorpius nods, conceding the point. He breathes out deeply, feeling warm and tired.
“Not many people for me to talk to,” he murmurs and then he’s asleep, comfortable and safe.
***
Despite having no-one to talk to at home, he has lots of people to talk to at school. His Ravenclaw dorm-mates like him because he always helps them with their work if they’re stuck, and he has a habit of saying those things no-one else is going to.
They’re working in the library when a sixth year Gryffindor girl takes their book without really asking - ‘just going to borrow this, yeah, sixth year work’s more important. I’ll give it back later okay? ’ - and Scorpius snatches it back and calls her a slag.
She stares at him, shocked.
“Everyone calls you a slag,” Scorpius adds, holding the book fiercely to his chest. “It’s because you snogged that Hufflepuff and his friend and your skirt is too short. When you walk up the stairs everyone behind you can see your arse.”
The girl turns on heel and walks away without another word. His friends gape at Scorpius as he puts the book back in place.
“It’s because he’s an only child,” Al says, eyes on his book and quill tip in his mouth. “Doesn’t like sharing.”
“She took it. That’s not sharing,” Scorpius replies, wanting to get back to his work. “And her skirt is too short.”
Soon after that he discovers that some of the other kids don’t like him as much as his friends do, if it all. They aren’t used to him and his tongue, and some of them have been on the receiving end of Scorpius’s blunt nature and not appreciated it.
It’s not long after that the teasing really begins. The ones that don’t like him call him a ghost - because he’s so pale, not because they know that sometimes his parents look straight though him. They laugh because he’s so small and skinny. They call him girly.
Scorpius ignores them but it makes him feel unsettled, deep in his stomach. He can’t work out why.
Thirteen
Third year, Easter holidays, and he goes straight to his mother’s house in defiance of his father. He gets to see his father all the time. Father writes all the time. He never sees his mother and he misses her so much it hurts.
He’s forgotten to have a haircut before the holidays - he honestly can’t remember the last time he did have one - and as he steps out of the floo, he’s pushing his hair out of his face and wishing he’d asked Al to cut it before he left school.
He finds his mother sat in the day room, staring out of the window at the snow, daydreaming and miles away. He walks across the room and as he reaches half way she looks around. She starts, her eyes flying wide. “You,” she whispers and Scorpius has a moment of alarm, thinking maybe he is a ghost when he comes here, doing nothing but haunting her.
The startled expression disappears. “Scorpius,” she says almost in relief, her eyes still on him.
“Happy Easter,” he says in reply, and walks closer.
“You look like…you look so different,” she says and Scorpius can’t believe she’s actually looking at him whilst she’s talking to him.
“Didn’t have time for a haircut,” he says and she nods slowly.
“Come and sit,” she says.
Scorpius complies and walks over quickly. As he does, he sees the open decanter of wine on the small table next to her chair. He ignores it and sits on the bay window seat next to her. When she reaches out to brush his hair back from his face with her palms, he realises she’s been drunk. She really does hide it better than Father.
She doesn’t ask him how school is, or how his father is. Instead, she pulls him closer and runs her hand over his head, smoothing his hair back again.
“Look at you,” she says, her smile sincere and her eyes hazy. “You could almost be her.”
Scorpius tenses. “Who?”
His mother smiles at him again. “Never mind. You do look lovely though, darling.”
Scorpius is thrilled. His heart feels like it’s doubled in size in a matter of seconds and he smiles back at her. “So do you,” he says boldly and his mother laughs, her voice thick. She reaches out and brushes his hair back again and then pauses.
“Come here,” she says, and reaches up to take off her pearls. She reaches forwards and Scorpius ducks his head as she fastens them around his neck.
“Beautiful,” she says, her smile wavering with tears. Scorpius’s mind flashes back to the kids at school, the ones that call him girly. He finds he can’t bring himself to care anymore.
“Don’t look much like Father now,” he says and Mother pulls him close, wrapping him in a hug like the ones she used to give him when he was tiny.
“No,” she murmurs. “You don’t. You’re all me.”
***
He loves his time with his mother and he never wants to leave. His mother gives him a different necklace to wear each day and he lets her clip one around his neck every morning, loving the way she smiles as she does it. She brushes his hair every evening and spoils him with presents. She lets him help when she puts her make-up on and Scorpius watches her face change, fascinated by the transformation.
Father comes to collect him after a week. Unwilling to leave his mother, he stands by the fireplace, hands in his pockets and expression subdued.
“Right, let’s go,” Father says, appearing through the doorway and looking harried. “Have you got - what’s that? Around your neck?”
“Nothing,” Scorpius says immediately, reaching up to tuck the pearls under the collar of his shirt.
His father stares at him, and then his eyes harden and his jaw clenches. “Come on,” he says tersely, marching over and flinging a pinch of floo-powder into the grate. “Home.”
Scorpius complies, stepping through the flames. He’s barely out the other side when his father follows, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“Hand them over,” he says without preamble.
Scorpius shakes his head.
“Scorpius, come on. Take them off,” his father says, and Scorpius hears the pleading note in his tone.
“I like them,” Scorpius says. “Mother gave them to me.”
“Pearls are for women, you know that,” father says. “You are not a woman, Scorpius. Now give me them before I have to summon them, please.”
With shaking fingers, Scorpius reaches behind his neck and unclips the pearls. He takes them off and hands them over, his chin trembling.
“Thank you.” His father’s relief as Scorpius hands over the necklace is tangible and Scorpius fights his tears back, wondering why it’s such a big deal anyway.
***
Later that night, Scorpius stares into the mirror above the sink in his bathroom.
He really does look like a girl, he thinks as he pushes his hair back. It’s not just the hair. He’s so skinny; he’s heard many of the girls whispering and wishing they could be that svelte. It’s his complexion and his stupid cheekbones too. He doesn’t understand it; he looks like his father but his Father doesn’t look girly in the slightest. He’s seen portraits of grandfather Lucius and he’s got long hair and doesn’t look girly. When he looks closely though, he sees his father’s features have been softened before being passed down to him. The line of his jaw isn’t quite as harsh, the bridge of his nose not quite so defined.
He fingers the ends of his hair. His mother seemed to like it. And she said he could almost be her. Scorpius doesn’t know what that means but he likes that his mother seemed to focus on his for the first time in years. Is looking a bit girly that bad if his mother likes it?
Noise behind him makes him turn; his father is standing half in and half out of the bathroom, his hand on the edge of the door and his expression troubled.
“Are you alright?” he asks.
Scorpius nods. “Yes. Is dinner ready?”
His Father nods as well. “Yes. I was thinking, maybe tomorrow we can go shopping. See if there’s anything you’d like for Christmas. I mean, anything else other than your presents. And we can get your hair cut-”
Scorpius shakes his head. “I don’t want my hair cut.”
His father stares, looking at a loss. “But it’s getting far too long.”
Scorpius turns around and walks over. “I like it like this. I’d like to go shopping, but I don’t want my hair cutting.”
“But-”
Scorpius wraps his arms around his father’s middle and hugs him. “Please? I promise I won’t wear anymore pearls.”
He pulls back and when he looks up, his father looks distressed, his brow knitting together. He bites his lip, worrying it between his teeth and then he sighs, all the fight going out of him.
“Okay. Shopping but no haircut. Come on, then. Dinner.”
***
The next morning, he wakes to hear his father shouting. Not fake-shouting like he does at the house-elves or at the newspaper; he’s properly shouting, angry and wild.
Scorpius holds his breath, standing outside the door to the study and watching through the slight gap between the door and frame. His mother’s face is visible in the flames of the fire, and she looks as angry as his father.
“-leave him alone to make his own choices! He won’t even get a fucking haircut just because of what you said! And don’t get me started on the fucking pearls - stop projecting what you want onto him-”
“Shut up, Draco. I’m not projecting on him.”
“Oh no,” father snarls, and Scorpius doesn’t like the sound. “Projecting would you require noticing him for once.”
“You wanted the boy first,” his mother says coldly, her words like ice. “Do I have to remind you whose fault this is?”
“Fuck you,” his father snaps, and flicks his wand at the fireplace, killing the flames in an instant.
Scorpius flees silently away from the door, not stopping until he’s in his room and sat at his piano, fingers resting on the keys in a comforting and familiar position. He tries valiantly to remember what happened that day before he climbed the tree, but all he can recall is running across the garden past the peacocks.
He puts the argument out of his mind. He goes back to school after the Easter break, shoulder to shoulder with Al in a compartment of their own, after shooing away some Hufflepuff first years. He’s glad; as always he feels better about everything when Al is close by.
“Look what I’ve got,” he says, rummaging in his bag. He pulls out the pearls that he’s stolen back out of his father’s pocket earlier that morning, dropping them into Al’s hand.
“Where did you get these?” Al asks, examining the pearls closely.
“Mother gave them to me,” Scorpius says, watching Al turning over the orbs in his fingers. “I think she thinks I’m a girl.”
“Really?” Al asks.
“Yeah,” Scorpius says. “I think it’s the way I look.”
“Well, you’re not a girl, are you?” Al frowns. “You’re in the boys dorms.”
“Course I’m not,” Scorpius says, taking back the pearls. He hesitates and then puts them around his neck, hiding them under his collar. “I’ve got a dick, you know.”
Al flushes, his cheeks turning a deep pink. His eyes dart to Scorpius’s crotch and then quickly away. He shifts uncomfortably on his seat and then clears his throat. “Then why does your mum think you’re a girl?”
Scorpius frowns. A distant memory stirs, shifts, and then falls back into slumber. He touches the pearls under his shirt, feeling them press into his skin. “I don’t know.”
Fourteen
When fourth year dawns, going back to Hogwarts isn’t the same as it usually is.
Scorpius is growing taller and his adam’s-apple is becoming more pronounced but even that doesn’t make him look any more manly. As he gets taller he gets more willowy, and his long fingers are turned graceful from a summer playing the piano. His voice changes too, but not as noticeably as the rest of the boys in his dorm. His hair is longer than ever; now it nearly brushes his shoulders. He’s immune to the teasing now. His mother likes the way he looks, so everyone else can fuck off. Besides that, he’s got something else to occupy his mind.
Al’s voice has definitely changed and he’s gotten a bit taller, but he’s also grown sideways too; his shoulders are broader than they were when they first met. Scorpius can see his adam’s-apple as well, and he can’t help but stare. He finds he watches Al all the time, and he just can’t stop. It doesn’t take him long to work out why he finds Al’s shoulders and his stupid messy hair so appealing.
Al looks back at Scorpius sometimes, too. Late at night Scorpius sometimes rolls over to see Al is watching him doze, his head turned to the side on his blue pillow. Every time Scorpius catches him watching, Al smiles a small apologetic smile and turns away, shutting his eyes.
For some bizarre reason, Scorpius doesn’t dare tell Al that he likes watching him. He’ll happily tell the head-girl that she’s got a stick up her arse, and easily tell Slughorn that he’s not an idiot, of course he knows what Golpatt’s second law is, but he doesn’t tell Al that he dreams of kissing him on the mouth.
They’re inseparable despite the changed dynamic between them. They spend almost every waking minute together, and Scorpius is absolutely fine with that.
The year is a good one, to start with. However, two weeks before the end of the year, things take a turn in a bad direction. It’s at this point that Scorpius gets called a girl for the first time. He’s been called girly before, but never a girl.
On the day in question a fifth year Slytherin pushes Al out of the way, making him drop his potions work, and then treads on it as he passes. Filled with hot anger, Scorpius jumps forwards and shoves the boy hard in the back, trying to push him out of the way.
“Just because you’re stupid doesn’t mean you can’t look where you’re going,” he shouts. Al just kneels to collect his work, not saying a word.
The Slytherin rounds on Scorpius. “That’s enough from you, Malfoy,” he says dangerously. “Don’t call me stupid.”
“I know you’re stupid,” Scorpius retorts. “You pay the sixth years to do your transfiguration so McGonagall doesn’t find out how stupid you are.”
The boy steps forwards and the corridor draws a collective breath. “I’d hex you in the face for that,” the boy says, his lip curling in an ugly sneer. “But a gentleman would never hex a girl.”
Scorpius flushes angrily. “I’m not a girl.”
“Could have fooled me,” the boy laughs. “Look at you.”
He walks away laughing, leaving Scorpius standing there and the rest of the corridor looking at him askance.
“You’re not a girl,” Al says quietly. “It’s just because you’re so small. Ignore him.”
Scorpius does, but a few in the corridor don’t. They call him girl’s names and point out how skinny he is, how his face looks like a girl’s face. ‘Girl’s cheekbones,’ they cackle. ‘Girl’s hair.’
Wishing he could hex them all, Scorpius drops to his knees to help Al collect his scattered parchment. He focuses on the task, trying to push away the whirl of confusion in the pit of his stomach.
“Scorp?”
He looks up and finds himself nose to nose with Al. The corridor is now empty and quiet, save for the sounds of their breathing and the rustle of parchment. The other students have obviously grown bored of Scorpius for now.
“Yeah?”
Al looks at him for a moment and then leans forwards, quickly kissing Scorpius on the mouth. He pulls back, waiting for a reaction.
Feeling a strange warm prickle down the back of his neck, Scorpius lifts his fingers to his lips. “What was that for?” he asks.
Al shrugs, still looking at him. “A thank you. For standing up for me.”
Scorpius’s face breaks into a smile and Al grins back. Scorpius feels like they’ve just found something brilliant, and decides he doesn’t care what the others say about how he looks. His mother likes it, and apparently so does Al.
***
From then on, they kiss each other a lot. They’re not proper kisses - Quinton Ackerley says you have to have your mouth open for it to be a proper kiss. Ryan Davies says you have to use your tongue. Scorpius and Al don’t do either. They stick with quick, innocent, lip to lip kisses before they go to bed or when one of them leaves to go to the library, or when they part ways for different classes. Their dorm-mates don’t mind; Quinton and Ryan don’t bat an eyelid in their direction even when they do kiss or hug or share a bed for the night. It might not be much, but it feels right and makes Scorpius feel closer to home than ever.
Part 2...
Title: Hello
Pairing(s): Scorpius/Al, very minor Al/OFC
Rating: Mild R - underage drinking.
Warnings: A bit of angst along the way.
Word Count: 13,400
Summary: ”Scorpius stands still, feeling like he’s invisible with all these people who look at him like he’s not quite there. Maybe he’s actually a ghost, and no-one’s bothered to tell him.”
Prompt: Prompt #180, Hello by Evanescence, submitted by singlemomsummer
Notes: I hope the story does the wonderful prompt justice. Thank you to MCF and CD for the help.
Hello.
“I’m still here, all that’s left of yesterday.”
***
Ten
Scorpius Malfoy stands in the lower garden of Malfoy Manor, feeding the peacocks with the scraps from his breakfast and trying his best to be patient. It’s not easy; he itches to go back inside so he can finally meet the person he’s been waiting for. He feels like he’s been waiting for forever.
This morning has been the longest wait though, longer than the nine months that have passed since his mother and father sat him down and explained that there would be an addition to the family.
A baby sister. The concept seems brilliant to Scorpius; being an only child is okay most of the time but he’s looking forwards to having someone to share everything with. He plans to teach her everything he knows; where the best hiding places are, his fool-proof plan that will make sure they get into the best house at Hogwarts, how to make friends, how to get Father to give in every time.
The clouds above his head shift and shadows steal over the garden, turning everything a fraction darker. He brushes the breadcrumbs off his hands and shivers slightly, missing the warmth of the sun. He turns to face the house and sees his father standing at the top of the wide stone steps that lead from the patio down to the expanse of the lower garden. He’s standing as still as a statue; the illusion is only broken as his short hair is ruffled by the breeze.
Scorpius’s face breaks into a smile, anticipation and excitement rising in his chest. Ever since the Healer arrived early that morning he’s been kept out of the way, shooed outside so he can’t get under everyone’s feet. But now his father is here to tell him that he can finally meet his baby sister. He wonders if they’ve named her yet. He wonders if he’ll get to hold her. Maybe if Mother’s in a good mood. Maybe he’ll just ask Father instead; he’s bound to say yes.
He turns and walks towards his father, wanting to run but holding himself back. It seems to take forever to cross the gardens and when he reaches the bottom of the stone stairs he looks up, heart beating madly in his chest and cheeks flushed pink with excitement.
His feet stumble to a stop and his smile fades into uncertainty.
His father is crying.
He never cries.
Scorpius watches, his eyes wide and hesitant. His father just stands there, staring out over the garden with unblinking eyes, shining tracks on his cheeks. He hasn’t even seen Scorpius. He looks worlds away.
“Father?”
Scorpius takes a cautious step forwards, feeling scared. His father doesn’t even move. Scorpius starts to think that maybe something is very, very wrong.
Grandmother comes out, her face drawn and troubled. She reaches for Father and pulls him back inside by his arm. He follows, staring blankly at nothing, his feet stumbling and dragging. Scorpius can hear voices from the open French windows, low and distressed.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Everyone was supposed to be happy, smiling.
The clouds overhead grow darker, menacing. A raindrop hits Scorpius’s face and he blinks. Another falls, and another, and another. Soon it’s pouring with rain and even though Scorpius is only young he somehow knows that that means something. The weather is trying to tell him, because no-one else will.
He’s soon drenched, standing at the bottom of the staircase. He turns and runs away, runs across the lower garden, scattering the peacocks which scream angrily at him as he flees. He runs all the way to the wall at the bottom of the gardens and climbs his favourite tree, an old mulberry that his father keeps insisting he’ll have pulled down. He finds a safe place, high among the old branches, and listens to the rain pattering onto the leaves around him, his jaw clenched and his breathing short, his heart thudding dully inside his ribcage.
He sits there for hours. Nobody comes to find him.
Eleven
Life goes on as if that morning never happened. Nobody talks of it, and Scorpius isn’t sure he’s allowed to ask. After a while he finds he’s not a hundred per cent sure it actually happened, and he starts to forget. Soon, all he remembers of that day is the screaming peacocks and hiding in the mulberry tree.
Something is different though. Grandmother goes back to France and Scorpius never hears from her again, not even on his birthday or at Christmas. His mother hardly talks anymore, especially not to his father. She won’t go out anywhere with them either, so when it’s time to fetch Hogwarts supplies, it’s just him and his father who traverse Diagon Alley. His father doesn’t smile like he used to. He looks tired and drawn and when he thinks no-one is looking, he looks upset. Scorpius doesn’t really care; he’s too busy worrying over why his mother won’t come outside with him anymore.
His father buys him a cauldron, his books, his wand and an owl. He buys Scorpius an ice-cream at Fortesques and tells him he’s proud of him. Scorpius feeds the ice-cream to the owl. His father pinches the bridge of his nose like he does when he’s trying to chase away that upset look.
“Look, Scorpius,” Father says and then stops and shakes his head. He breathes out deeply and runs his fingers through his hair. Scorpius likes him a little more when he does that; he looks ruffled and more like a person. “You know I love you?”
Scorpius nods and scratches his nail along the worn wood of the bench they’re sat at. He’d rather know that Mother loves him, really.
“Do I have to be in Slytherin?” he asks, blinking at his owl.
His father looks startled, and then laughs, rubbing his eyes hard as if he can rub away the dark circles. “No. Go where you want.”
Scorpius nods. “Thank you.”
The owl hoots loudly and Scorpius turns to fuss it. His father sighs and vanishes the melted remnants of his own untouched ice-cream.
***
Scorpius does go where he wants; he goes into Ravenclaw. The hat asks him if he wants to be in the same house as his father, but he says no. He sits down at his new table, wide eyes taking in everything going on around him. He doesn’t feel like socialising, despite this being one of the most important days of his life; he’s still feeling unsettled because his mother didn’t say goodbye properly. She’d given him a brief hug with stiff arms and then walked away, leaving Scorpius standing still and feeling stupid and his father looking furious.
He’s still brooding over it when he’s nearly knocked off the bench by the next boy to be sorted into Ravenclaw. He rights himself and comes face to face with green eyes and messy black hair.
“Sorry,” the boy whispers. “I thought I’d be in Gryffindor, I panicked a bit.”
“It’s okay,” Scorpius whispers back. “I think I was meant to go in Slytherin.”
The boy nods and smiles, his expression soft and gentle. “My dad knows your dad,” he whispers. “But he says he’s not seen him in ages.”
“Harry Potter,” Scorpius says and the boy nods.
“I’m Al.”
“Scorpius.”
A fifth years hisses a shush in their direction and they fall quiet whilst the sorting continues. When the feast starts they talk and talk and talk. Scorpius talks about his owl. Al talks about his brother and they both eat too much ice-cream.
Scorpius likes Al. He talks quite fast but his voice is quiet and calm so Scorpius has to lean close to hear what he’s saying. They make a pact to be the cleverest students in the year, and agree that they’ll always sit together in lessons.
By the time Scorpius slips into his bed in Ravenclaw Tower for the first time, safe between blue sheets and with Al in the next bed over, he’s almost forgotten to feel disappointed with his parents.
***
Scorpius finds he’s great at charms and not so great at potions, although he’s still better than most people in his year anyway. He’s a tiny bit smarter than Al but Al doesn’t seem to mind. He just smiles his slow quiet smile that makes Scorpius suspicious that he’s got a secret in his chest that’s keeping him so happy. Scorpius wonders how Al is so calm all the time because from what he’s heard his entire family is mental. His older brother definitely is; he’s a Gryffindor and shouts all the time, even when his friends are standing right next to him.
Scorpius finds he doesn’t like it when Al talks to James, but he can’t really work out why. When he sees them face to face or shoulder to shoulder, laughing or arguing or rolling their eyes, it makes him feel like he’s forgotten something.
It doesn’t matter too much; Al talks to him much more than he does James and that’s okay.
***
That first Christmas he goes home to find that in his absence, everything has fallen apart. His mother has moved out of the master bedroom and now has her own wing in the manor, and his father has filled the gap she’s left in his life with copious amounts of alcohol.
On Christmas Eve, he finds his father blind-drunk in his study. He’s slumped in his high-backed chair, his elbow on his desk and his face in his hand. A glass is tilting dangerously in his free hand and his eyes are shut. The fairy lights fluttering over the ceiling make shadows flicker over his face.
Scorpius knows he’s meant to be in bed but he also knows his father doesn’t have the heart to tell him off about it. He pads across the room and takes the glass from his father’s fingers, putting it back onto the desktop.
Father’s eyes struggle open and he blinks hard as he focuses on Scorpius.
“You’re supposed to be in bed,” he says, and his voice is thick. Scorpius nods and his father sighs. “Come here.”
Scorpius obliges and climbs onto the chair, sitting sideways on his father’s knee with his feet pulled up even though he’s probably too big for hugs like this. He curls up with his face resting on his father’s chest, and his father leans his cheek atop Scorpius’s head.
“It’s just that whenever I plan anything out,” he says with a sigh, his words slurring. “The plan never works. I should know by now.”
Scorpius doesn’t reply.
“Everything just…how are you supposed to miss somebody you never met? God. Scorpius, if it weren’t for you I’d be insane by now. Even if you do insist on befriending Potter children.”
Scorpius lifts his head up, making Father move his own. Father looks down on him, his eyes blurred and heavy, and Scorpius wonders if he actually knows that he’s there.
***
The next night he goes into the south wing to find his mother. Scorpius creeps along the corridor to her room and peers around the door. It’s as if she’s lived in here all her life; all her possessions and trinkets are now in place in this small room, separated from her husband’s things by much more than long corridors and heavy oak doors. She’s sat at her dressing table, taking off her jewellery. She looks tired and sad, but she hides it better than his father does. Her fingers are moving slowly and deliberately, like a person does when they’ve had too much wine. She hides that much better than Father does, too.
“Mother?”
She looks up at him in the mirror, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. He waits for the normal routine, the one where she looks away from him down at whatever is in front of her, saying hello and asking how school is, her tone false and bright. She doesn’t. She looks straight at him, and her chin trembles and her eyes shine. She stands up, her pearls slipping and clattering onto the top of her dressing table, and then she walks away through into her bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
Scorpius stands still, feeling like he’s invisible with all these people who look at him like he’s not quite there. Maybe he’s actually a ghost, and no-one’s bothered to tell him.
***
He’s thankful to go back to school after the Christmas holidays, to escape the strange tension and emptiness that now fills the manor. He finds Al on the platform and is pleased when Al smiles brightly and gives him a hug. Father stands quietly, not even bothering to say anything as Harry Potter walks up to say goodbye to his youngest son. Harry Potter then says hello to Father, and then frowns when Father only mumbles back.
When Harry Potter is gone, Scorpius turns to give his father a brief hug, wishing that his mother had come to say goodbye.
“Have a good term,” his father says, holding him tight for a moment before letting him step back and studying him carefully. “You’re doing great. I’m proud of you.”
“Tell mother I love her,” Scorpius says, and his father’s face falls.
“Yes,” he says distantly, straightening up and looking away. “Of course I will.”
***
“Parents are strange,” Scorpius says as he and Al unpack their things in Ravenclaw Tower. “I think Christmas makes it worse.”
“Tell me about it,” Al says, flopping onto his back on his bed and yawning. “I think it’s because they have to get along. You’re not supposed to fall out at Christmas.”
“No? My parents did. Mother moved into the south wing and Father got drunk,” Scorpius says with a sigh. “I wish Father would move out instead.”
“I’d never want to live with my mum,” Al says contemplatively. “I like Dad more.”
“Everyone likes your father,” Scorpius says.
“Except yours,” Al smiles and Scorpius smiles back.
“He does like him, I think. Well, I don’t think he doesn’t like him. Want to play snap?”
Al nods, sitting up. His smile is bright and Scorpius smiles back, feeling at home once more.
Twelve
The second Christmas he goes home, his parents get divorced. Nobody tells Scorpius why.
“You’ll stay with me in the Manor,” his father says, crouching down beside the chair Scorpius is sat in. He rubs his chin. It’s covered in stubble, making him look a lot older than he is. “It’ll be almost the same.”
“Apart from Mother won’t be here,” Scorpius says, staring at the Christmas tree without really seeing it.
“Well, when was she anyway,” his father mutters, so quietly that Scorpius wonders if he was meant to hear it. He wonders if he should ask if this mess is anything to do with that day all that time ago, that time he hid in the mulberry tree.
“Can Al come for Christmas?” he asks instead.
His father stands up and then he laughs shortly. “Al Potter. Albus Severus Potter.”
“Yes,” Scorpius says. “But please don’t call him that. He doesn’t like it.”
“Of course,” his father says, turning around and walking away waving a hand in the air and ranting as he leaves the room. “It just had to be didn’t it? Yes, alright. I’ll call the Chosen Potter right away. I’m sure he’d love to come and have a nosey into the mess my life has become, maybe the Saviour can give me some more of his wonderful advice. Oh yes Draco, let’s forget all about the past, let’s be friends and talk about our hopeless marriages…”
His voice fades down the corridor and Scorpius shakes his head dejectedly. He bets his mother hasn’t even left him a present.
***
When he goes back to school, Al instantly knows something isn’t right. He hurriedly says goodbye to his father on the platform and then rushes over to Scorpius, who is ignoring his own father and wanting to cry because his mother isn’t there. As he turns away, he waves half-heartedly and hears his father say ‘goodbye,’ his voice sounding small and helpless. He stands perfectly still, staring at the train as it pulls away. Somewhere within him Scorpius feels a flicker of something that makes him want to see his father smile again, but he can’t pinpoint it and it fades away quickly.
“What’s wrong?” Al asks the minute they’re alone, the compartment door closed to keep the rest of the world out.
“They got divorced,” Scorpius says. “Mother moved out.”
“That sucks,” Al says, and then pauses. “Do you want to play snap?”
Scorpius smiles.
***
That night Scorpius tries to go to sleep. He really does. He stares up at the canopy of his bed for hours, feeling alone.
“Scorp?”
It’s barely a whisper, but Scorpius hears it and is out of bed quicker than he’s moved all day. He pads over and clambers onto Al’s bed, slipping beneath the covers as Al wriggles over to give him more space.
“My father said your father gives him advice,” Scorpius whispers, settling his head on the pillow. “He said they’re friends and they talk about their hopeless marriages.”
Al wrinkles his nose, pulling the blanket up over their shoulders. “I suppose they could. He can’t talk to Uncle Ron because he says he likes being married. Everyone does actually. Mum and Dad are the only ones that didn’t.”
“Seems pretty stupid to get married if you don’t like it,” Scorpius whispers, feeling inexplicably saddened by this thought.
Al agrees. “You can stay here if you want,” he whispers after a moment. “If you’re sad.”
Scorpius nods. Al watches him, as if he’s checking that Scorpius is okay. Scorpius decides that Al can definitely be his best friend for the rest of their time at school. He likes the way Al seems to actually notice him when he’s looking at him.
When he tells Al as such, his smile turns bemused.
“You’re very strange sometimes,” he whispers. “You can tell you’re an only child.”
“How?” Scorpius asks, pulling on the pillow a little and nuzzling down into it, breathing in and out deeply.
“The way you talk,” Al whispers. “Like you’ve not talked to many people before.”
Scorpius nods, conceding the point. He breathes out deeply, feeling warm and tired.
“Not many people for me to talk to,” he murmurs and then he’s asleep, comfortable and safe.
***
Despite having no-one to talk to at home, he has lots of people to talk to at school. His Ravenclaw dorm-mates like him because he always helps them with their work if they’re stuck, and he has a habit of saying those things no-one else is going to.
They’re working in the library when a sixth year Gryffindor girl takes their book without really asking - ‘just going to borrow this, yeah, sixth year work’s more important. I’ll give it back later okay? ’ - and Scorpius snatches it back and calls her a slag.
She stares at him, shocked.
“Everyone calls you a slag,” Scorpius adds, holding the book fiercely to his chest. “It’s because you snogged that Hufflepuff and his friend and your skirt is too short. When you walk up the stairs everyone behind you can see your arse.”
The girl turns on heel and walks away without another word. His friends gape at Scorpius as he puts the book back in place.
“It’s because he’s an only child,” Al says, eyes on his book and quill tip in his mouth. “Doesn’t like sharing.”
“She took it. That’s not sharing,” Scorpius replies, wanting to get back to his work. “And her skirt is too short.”
Soon after that he discovers that some of the other kids don’t like him as much as his friends do, if it all. They aren’t used to him and his tongue, and some of them have been on the receiving end of Scorpius’s blunt nature and not appreciated it.
It’s not long after that the teasing really begins. The ones that don’t like him call him a ghost - because he’s so pale, not because they know that sometimes his parents look straight though him. They laugh because he’s so small and skinny. They call him girly.
Scorpius ignores them but it makes him feel unsettled, deep in his stomach. He can’t work out why.
Thirteen
Third year, Easter holidays, and he goes straight to his mother’s house in defiance of his father. He gets to see his father all the time. Father writes all the time. He never sees his mother and he misses her so much it hurts.
He’s forgotten to have a haircut before the holidays - he honestly can’t remember the last time he did have one - and as he steps out of the floo, he’s pushing his hair out of his face and wishing he’d asked Al to cut it before he left school.
He finds his mother sat in the day room, staring out of the window at the snow, daydreaming and miles away. He walks across the room and as he reaches half way she looks around. She starts, her eyes flying wide. “You,” she whispers and Scorpius has a moment of alarm, thinking maybe he is a ghost when he comes here, doing nothing but haunting her.
The startled expression disappears. “Scorpius,” she says almost in relief, her eyes still on him.
“Happy Easter,” he says in reply, and walks closer.
“You look like…you look so different,” she says and Scorpius can’t believe she’s actually looking at him whilst she’s talking to him.
“Didn’t have time for a haircut,” he says and she nods slowly.
“Come and sit,” she says.
Scorpius complies and walks over quickly. As he does, he sees the open decanter of wine on the small table next to her chair. He ignores it and sits on the bay window seat next to her. When she reaches out to brush his hair back from his face with her palms, he realises she’s been drunk. She really does hide it better than Father.
She doesn’t ask him how school is, or how his father is. Instead, she pulls him closer and runs her hand over his head, smoothing his hair back again.
“Look at you,” she says, her smile sincere and her eyes hazy. “You could almost be her.”
Scorpius tenses. “Who?”
His mother smiles at him again. “Never mind. You do look lovely though, darling.”
Scorpius is thrilled. His heart feels like it’s doubled in size in a matter of seconds and he smiles back at her. “So do you,” he says boldly and his mother laughs, her voice thick. She reaches out and brushes his hair back again and then pauses.
“Come here,” she says, and reaches up to take off her pearls. She reaches forwards and Scorpius ducks his head as she fastens them around his neck.
“Beautiful,” she says, her smile wavering with tears. Scorpius’s mind flashes back to the kids at school, the ones that call him girly. He finds he can’t bring himself to care anymore.
“Don’t look much like Father now,” he says and Mother pulls him close, wrapping him in a hug like the ones she used to give him when he was tiny.
“No,” she murmurs. “You don’t. You’re all me.”
***
He loves his time with his mother and he never wants to leave. His mother gives him a different necklace to wear each day and he lets her clip one around his neck every morning, loving the way she smiles as she does it. She brushes his hair every evening and spoils him with presents. She lets him help when she puts her make-up on and Scorpius watches her face change, fascinated by the transformation.
Father comes to collect him after a week. Unwilling to leave his mother, he stands by the fireplace, hands in his pockets and expression subdued.
“Right, let’s go,” Father says, appearing through the doorway and looking harried. “Have you got - what’s that? Around your neck?”
“Nothing,” Scorpius says immediately, reaching up to tuck the pearls under the collar of his shirt.
His father stares at him, and then his eyes harden and his jaw clenches. “Come on,” he says tersely, marching over and flinging a pinch of floo-powder into the grate. “Home.”
Scorpius complies, stepping through the flames. He’s barely out the other side when his father follows, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“Hand them over,” he says without preamble.
Scorpius shakes his head.
“Scorpius, come on. Take them off,” his father says, and Scorpius hears the pleading note in his tone.
“I like them,” Scorpius says. “Mother gave them to me.”
“Pearls are for women, you know that,” father says. “You are not a woman, Scorpius. Now give me them before I have to summon them, please.”
With shaking fingers, Scorpius reaches behind his neck and unclips the pearls. He takes them off and hands them over, his chin trembling.
“Thank you.” His father’s relief as Scorpius hands over the necklace is tangible and Scorpius fights his tears back, wondering why it’s such a big deal anyway.
***
Later that night, Scorpius stares into the mirror above the sink in his bathroom.
He really does look like a girl, he thinks as he pushes his hair back. It’s not just the hair. He’s so skinny; he’s heard many of the girls whispering and wishing they could be that svelte. It’s his complexion and his stupid cheekbones too. He doesn’t understand it; he looks like his father but his Father doesn’t look girly in the slightest. He’s seen portraits of grandfather Lucius and he’s got long hair and doesn’t look girly. When he looks closely though, he sees his father’s features have been softened before being passed down to him. The line of his jaw isn’t quite as harsh, the bridge of his nose not quite so defined.
He fingers the ends of his hair. His mother seemed to like it. And she said he could almost be her. Scorpius doesn’t know what that means but he likes that his mother seemed to focus on his for the first time in years. Is looking a bit girly that bad if his mother likes it?
Noise behind him makes him turn; his father is standing half in and half out of the bathroom, his hand on the edge of the door and his expression troubled.
“Are you alright?” he asks.
Scorpius nods. “Yes. Is dinner ready?”
His Father nods as well. “Yes. I was thinking, maybe tomorrow we can go shopping. See if there’s anything you’d like for Christmas. I mean, anything else other than your presents. And we can get your hair cut-”
Scorpius shakes his head. “I don’t want my hair cut.”
His father stares, looking at a loss. “But it’s getting far too long.”
Scorpius turns around and walks over. “I like it like this. I’d like to go shopping, but I don’t want my hair cutting.”
“But-”
Scorpius wraps his arms around his father’s middle and hugs him. “Please? I promise I won’t wear anymore pearls.”
He pulls back and when he looks up, his father looks distressed, his brow knitting together. He bites his lip, worrying it between his teeth and then he sighs, all the fight going out of him.
“Okay. Shopping but no haircut. Come on, then. Dinner.”
***
The next morning, he wakes to hear his father shouting. Not fake-shouting like he does at the house-elves or at the newspaper; he’s properly shouting, angry and wild.
Scorpius holds his breath, standing outside the door to the study and watching through the slight gap between the door and frame. His mother’s face is visible in the flames of the fire, and she looks as angry as his father.
“-leave him alone to make his own choices! He won’t even get a fucking haircut just because of what you said! And don’t get me started on the fucking pearls - stop projecting what you want onto him-”
“Shut up, Draco. I’m not projecting on him.”
“Oh no,” father snarls, and Scorpius doesn’t like the sound. “Projecting would you require noticing him for once.”
“You wanted the boy first,” his mother says coldly, her words like ice. “Do I have to remind you whose fault this is?”
“Fuck you,” his father snaps, and flicks his wand at the fireplace, killing the flames in an instant.
Scorpius flees silently away from the door, not stopping until he’s in his room and sat at his piano, fingers resting on the keys in a comforting and familiar position. He tries valiantly to remember what happened that day before he climbed the tree, but all he can recall is running across the garden past the peacocks.
He puts the argument out of his mind. He goes back to school after the Easter break, shoulder to shoulder with Al in a compartment of their own, after shooing away some Hufflepuff first years. He’s glad; as always he feels better about everything when Al is close by.
“Look what I’ve got,” he says, rummaging in his bag. He pulls out the pearls that he’s stolen back out of his father’s pocket earlier that morning, dropping them into Al’s hand.
“Where did you get these?” Al asks, examining the pearls closely.
“Mother gave them to me,” Scorpius says, watching Al turning over the orbs in his fingers. “I think she thinks I’m a girl.”
“Really?” Al asks.
“Yeah,” Scorpius says. “I think it’s the way I look.”
“Well, you’re not a girl, are you?” Al frowns. “You’re in the boys dorms.”
“Course I’m not,” Scorpius says, taking back the pearls. He hesitates and then puts them around his neck, hiding them under his collar. “I’ve got a dick, you know.”
Al flushes, his cheeks turning a deep pink. His eyes dart to Scorpius’s crotch and then quickly away. He shifts uncomfortably on his seat and then clears his throat. “Then why does your mum think you’re a girl?”
Scorpius frowns. A distant memory stirs, shifts, and then falls back into slumber. He touches the pearls under his shirt, feeling them press into his skin. “I don’t know.”
Fourteen
When fourth year dawns, going back to Hogwarts isn’t the same as it usually is.
Scorpius is growing taller and his adam’s-apple is becoming more pronounced but even that doesn’t make him look any more manly. As he gets taller he gets more willowy, and his long fingers are turned graceful from a summer playing the piano. His voice changes too, but not as noticeably as the rest of the boys in his dorm. His hair is longer than ever; now it nearly brushes his shoulders. He’s immune to the teasing now. His mother likes the way he looks, so everyone else can fuck off. Besides that, he’s got something else to occupy his mind.
Al’s voice has definitely changed and he’s gotten a bit taller, but he’s also grown sideways too; his shoulders are broader than they were when they first met. Scorpius can see his adam’s-apple as well, and he can’t help but stare. He finds he watches Al all the time, and he just can’t stop. It doesn’t take him long to work out why he finds Al’s shoulders and his stupid messy hair so appealing.
Al looks back at Scorpius sometimes, too. Late at night Scorpius sometimes rolls over to see Al is watching him doze, his head turned to the side on his blue pillow. Every time Scorpius catches him watching, Al smiles a small apologetic smile and turns away, shutting his eyes.
For some bizarre reason, Scorpius doesn’t dare tell Al that he likes watching him. He’ll happily tell the head-girl that she’s got a stick up her arse, and easily tell Slughorn that he’s not an idiot, of course he knows what Golpatt’s second law is, but he doesn’t tell Al that he dreams of kissing him on the mouth.
They’re inseparable despite the changed dynamic between them. They spend almost every waking minute together, and Scorpius is absolutely fine with that.
The year is a good one, to start with. However, two weeks before the end of the year, things take a turn in a bad direction. It’s at this point that Scorpius gets called a girl for the first time. He’s been called girly before, but never a girl.
On the day in question a fifth year Slytherin pushes Al out of the way, making him drop his potions work, and then treads on it as he passes. Filled with hot anger, Scorpius jumps forwards and shoves the boy hard in the back, trying to push him out of the way.
“Just because you’re stupid doesn’t mean you can’t look where you’re going,” he shouts. Al just kneels to collect his work, not saying a word.
The Slytherin rounds on Scorpius. “That’s enough from you, Malfoy,” he says dangerously. “Don’t call me stupid.”
“I know you’re stupid,” Scorpius retorts. “You pay the sixth years to do your transfiguration so McGonagall doesn’t find out how stupid you are.”
The boy steps forwards and the corridor draws a collective breath. “I’d hex you in the face for that,” the boy says, his lip curling in an ugly sneer. “But a gentleman would never hex a girl.”
Scorpius flushes angrily. “I’m not a girl.”
“Could have fooled me,” the boy laughs. “Look at you.”
He walks away laughing, leaving Scorpius standing there and the rest of the corridor looking at him askance.
“You’re not a girl,” Al says quietly. “It’s just because you’re so small. Ignore him.”
Scorpius does, but a few in the corridor don’t. They call him girl’s names and point out how skinny he is, how his face looks like a girl’s face. ‘Girl’s cheekbones,’ they cackle. ‘Girl’s hair.’
Wishing he could hex them all, Scorpius drops to his knees to help Al collect his scattered parchment. He focuses on the task, trying to push away the whirl of confusion in the pit of his stomach.
“Scorp?”
He looks up and finds himself nose to nose with Al. The corridor is now empty and quiet, save for the sounds of their breathing and the rustle of parchment. The other students have obviously grown bored of Scorpius for now.
“Yeah?”
Al looks at him for a moment and then leans forwards, quickly kissing Scorpius on the mouth. He pulls back, waiting for a reaction.
Feeling a strange warm prickle down the back of his neck, Scorpius lifts his fingers to his lips. “What was that for?” he asks.
Al shrugs, still looking at him. “A thank you. For standing up for me.”
Scorpius’s face breaks into a smile and Al grins back. Scorpius feels like they’ve just found something brilliant, and decides he doesn’t care what the others say about how he looks. His mother likes it, and apparently so does Al.
***
From then on, they kiss each other a lot. They’re not proper kisses - Quinton Ackerley says you have to have your mouth open for it to be a proper kiss. Ryan Davies says you have to use your tongue. Scorpius and Al don’t do either. They stick with quick, innocent, lip to lip kisses before they go to bed or when one of them leaves to go to the library, or when they part ways for different classes. Their dorm-mates don’t mind; Quinton and Ryan don’t bat an eyelid in their direction even when they do kiss or hug or share a bed for the night. It might not be much, but it feels right and makes Scorpius feel closer to home than ever.
Part 2...