First Year
So Albus meets Scorpius, and stays for his sweets (and for his awkward, plucky smile, and for the way Scorpius sees HIM and not just Harry). From the start, Albus chooses Scorpius: over Rose, over Gryffindor (if that's the way the Sorting Hat even works), over leveraging his famous parents into popularity.
Scorpius receives an owl from his grandparents on the second day of school. They're proud of him for being sorted into Slytherin and while he feels nervous he doesn't really remember why his father cut them off, and he mostly remembers the tall, elegant figures that he wanted so desperately to please. He doesn't wonder how they knew - gossip travels so fast in the Wizarding world. He spends almost 24 hours at a dizzying height of hope before the second owl comes, demanding that he give up the "mudblood loving Potter boy" and "cultivate more appropriate friends, befitting the Heir to the Malfoy name." It's Scorpius' turn to choose, and he chooses Albus, quietly burning the letter and his hope in the Slytherin common room fire.
They muddle through together, despite their rocky start. They can endure the names and the inked messages on their bags and books as long as they have each other to rely on, mostly, though sometimes Albus wants to scream when he sees Scorpius wilt and then draw himself up to try again, painting the smile back onto his face or when he's tried his hardest and made a bit of progress only to be called a Slytherin Squib again. The sly tripping is harder, and the students who corner them to try out new hexes or to have a punching bag are the worst. They learn to find the quiet corners that other students avoid. After the first couple of days, the other Slytherins mostly ignore them, so the common room and dorm are usually safe, and as they stick to these spaces when other students are elsewhere they often see the House Elves on their rounds. If the House Elves are surprised by the boys and their respectful greetings they don't show it, though they do object when Scorpius and Albus try to help them with their jobs. After a few weeks the boys begin to find little conveniences in their favorite haunts. A cushion or two in a nook behind a tapestry, a small and unobtrusive lamp on the table in the back corner of the library behind the history books, a pitcher somehow always full of water at the corner of the Astronomy tower so that they don't have to jostle for the drinking fountain. They find that their particular favorite dishes somehow always end up within arms length of the end of the Slytherin table where they can sit in relative peace with their backs to the wall.
Scorpius loves History of Magic and Astronomy and is surprised to find that he's good at the theory behind Potions even if he's clumsy and rushes into mistakes, sometimes with disastrous results. He likes the greenhouses, which remind him of spending time with his mother in the garden, even if he'd rather grow flowers and fragrant herbs than seek out plants for their magical properties.
Albus loves Herbology, and when Professor Longbottom praises his technical drawings he's surprised and pleased. He loves Potions and likes being out at night for Astronomy, where sometimes the other students forget to look for him and Scorpius and they can just exist.
It isn't perfect, but they make it through the first year.