The incident

Scorpius and Albus ducked in a side street.

“Ohmygod. I can't believe we did that.”

Scorpius’ chest was heaving as he slide down the wall.

“Yeah.. well, I’m sick of people talking about you like that Scorp.” Albus slide a hand through his hair in frustration as he slid next to Scorpius.

“I mean, who gives them the right? You’re amazing and they're such gits for not seeing that and still going on about the Voldemort's son things YEARS later, I've had enough and I don’t know why we didn't do that earlier.

Scorpius watched Albus’ passionate speech with large eyes.

“Well, we hadn't had the experience of going through time travel, and, through surviving, we gained a sense of “life is short and not to be wasted”. Plus, you didn't have a Gryffindor attitude regarding what people said about us before the whole Delphi thing..”

“Shut up. I don't have a Gryffindor attitude.”

Scorpius raised his eyebrows.

“And so that Bat bogey wasn’-”

Teddy skidded to a holt by the entrance of their alley and sighed.

“Albus.”

He stared at him with one of those Parent Spit-it-out looks.

Today, teddy had blue hair, and a nice fuzzy jumper on, an array of piercings in his ears, and his what appeared to be a shiny new pair of doc martins. Scorpius thought he looked rather pretty, but then started to panic because he couldn't remember if Teddy was the potter that recently learnt how to read minds. Think of.. Oh! Think of that weird screaming plant. Hm… Mermaids. Big scaly fish people. Teddy's- Uh. albus? Albus’ sparkly green eyes.. Albus’ gorgeous skin and laugh and smirk when he tries to hide his smile… Scorpius sighed contently, then shifted his gaze to follow Albus’...only to see Teddy's scarily attractive scolding face- FUCK-

“Hiya Scorpius.”

Scorpius gave an odd little flail of his hand, closer to wanking than a wave, and squeaked nervously.

“Hi! Er.. hellOOoo Teddy. You look really great. I don't mean- you just, you know, your choice of your face and hair today looks really nice. That's not to say that it doesn't look nice every other day! But I- I don’t mean that you always look attractive because that would be weird, I mean, I don’t like you like that. It's cool if people do, but I definitely don't." Scorpius wished he knew the spell to stop his cheeks from turning red.

"Aha ha.. B-but I didn't mean to say you don’t look nice!” Teddy and Albus blinked at him.

“ I just mean - You’re.. You’re shoes! they look really nice. They look.. shiny. Ha, ha…” Teddy smiled pityingly, his brow furrowing a fraction. Scorpius was tempted to bang his head against the brick wall.

“Erm.. thanks Scorpius...” said Teddy, who mercifully turned his attention back to Albus. Teddy put his hands on his hips, sexy-stern-face returned.

“Seriously though, what the fuck did you do, Albus? Did I really just see you attack a group of older witches?”

“Hags-”

Teddy waved his hands about in an effort to shut Albus up “In the Tavern? With a BAT BOGEY hex that Ginny obviously taught you?”

Albus tried not to smile “Yeah, Mum helped me perfect it last week incase I needed to use it. And I obviously did! Those hags were insulting Scorpius! They were talking very loudly about how he's the fucking SON OF VOLDEMORT - as if anyone's still saying insensitive shit like that! And it was so fucking rude of them to just point directly at him and I’m just sick of taking it. Scorpius doesn't deserve it! and those old hags were just so..so - ARGH!”

Albus lent back huffing. He had a light blush across his face from getting riled up. Scorpius wanted to trail across his cheek and nose with kisses very badly. Oh Salazar.

“Wow okay. I didn't hear about that part. I’m so sorry for what happened to you both and for jumping to conclusions.” His eyes darted between them purposefully “Look, why don't I just take you two home? Then we’ll owl Ginny and let her know about what to look out for in the newspaper. Scorpius, I’m assuming you want to come back to ours? Or should I drop you off at the manor?”

Scorpius looked over at gorgeous Albus, who also held the same question in his big green sparkly earnest eyes. He felt a stirring in his gut. Yep. Definitely wanted to kiss him. Right now. “Oh, well, yeah, actually. I’d like for us to keep hanging out. And if you’re offering-”

Suddenly, a number of coordinated cackles filled their air, along with the smell that perpetually follows old people. All three turned their heads to the witches on broomsticks, each with their wand in hand.

“Down with The Child Potter and Voldemort-Spawn!” followed by a croaky chorus of ”Long live the witches-with-lovely-legs-knitting-group!”.

This was the only warning they had before one of the witches promptly tipped a bucket of grey-lumpy goo that was levitating over Albus’ head.

All three yelped and tried to duck out the way; Albus pulled Scorpius along with him and Teddy tried to pull Albus with him.

This ended with most of the goo unfortunately landing on Scorpius, with a splatter across teddy’s shiny new shoes, along with Albus’s legs, and his arm gripping Scorpius. The goo smelt like ozone and lavender and something that Scoripus couldn't decipher which burnt his nostrils and made him dizzy.

The stench got stronger as it began radiating and rapidly changing colours. Scropius yelped and tried to wipe it off his body with quick panicked movements, but despite the help from Albus and Teddy's diagnostic spells, it only stuck to his fingers, refusing to come off.

“Bethelda! No! You missed you idiot! And you were meant to wait until we added the hair growing spell!”

There was a beat of silence from the witches. at this point Scorpius felt entirely corrupted by vertigo, neglecting the multiplying goo that now covered his lower body so he could grip onto the shifting walls and floor. He thought heard Albus shouting and his own voice laughing.

“Shit!” said the witch.

Albus doubled his efforts in wiping off the goo, forgetting self preservation.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HIM?”

The old witches sat awkwardly on their brooms looking between one another, in a hushed conspiritorial argument with one another.

Teddy, on the brink of tears, probably from his shoes as much as because someone was hurt (the little graduated-Hufflepuff-prefect), glared at the witches “Remove this before we have to take him to St Mungos!”

“Shit!” the coven of witches repeated.

Bethesda and Agnes mumbled a chant, and from their wands came a purple mist that floated down onto the boys, coating them and the goo in a layer of purple.

This was a slight improvement, as they were all now covered in pretty purple sparkles, and the goo paused for a moment.
Only to rapidly speed up.

All three were now covered in a mountain of this grey-purple foam, which flashed rainbow lighting on the cobbled street and walls of buildings around them. Witches and wizards on the street paused to watch in horror.

Scorpius was fighting to breathe. But the goo did not care, continuing to spread at a rapid pace, indiscriminately covering every itch on his body.

Teddy launched further forward into the goo, gripped both the boys shoulders and tried to apparate.

With a flash of light, all three and the mountain of goo, disappeared.