Days After Death

“I can’t believe you summoned Scorpius,” Albus seethes, wondering if he’ll get charged again if he mauls James right then and there in the middle of the Ministry. Probably, but maybe people would be too awkward or shocked to act on it right away…

“Stop being a drama queen,” James rolls his eyes, as if he would have been any better. “Who else was I going to ring? Your parents?”

“Ouch.”

“He had a point though, Albus.”

“Don’t.”

“You can’t keep doing this–”

“I will block my ears and scream the national anthem at the top of my wretched lungs just so I don’t have to listen to you right now.”

James cringes but thankfully shuts up.

They leave the administration centre, passing the nosy onlookers who try to act nonchalant about it, but Albus catches their ever-curious little glances, at his swollen cheek, at his mussed hair, at the bruise along his jaw. He almost feels proud of the discontent flowing off of them.

We don’t understand you, their gazes say, and he’s reminded of a time where that used to be the worst feeling in the entire world, where he felt he may go crazy with sorrow on it. But if people were so disgruntled over the behaviour or public presentation or whatever prissy British concern they had over someone else’s son, they could kindly go fuck themselves.

James leads the way though Albus has been to the Ministry enough times to weave past the almost identical dark bricked corridors and hallway. The area opens up to the Floo stations, the Atrium expanding into a wide circular chamber, the golden Fountain of Magical Brethren shimmering right in the middle of the place, polished and larger than the original, as if the community wanted to give an extra ‘fuck you’ to the Death Eaters that had occupied the place four decades or so ago.

Albus follows James’ purposeful stride until he stops in a corner where wizards and witches aren’t conforming themselves into the massive river-like queues to the Floo Stations.

“Will you at least tell me why you had to get into a fight?” James asks, annoyed, but the concern in his voice is unmistakable. Albus can’t help but soften a little.

“Some drunk prat at the bar started it.”

He’s telling the truth, at least.

“You always say someone else started it.”

“It’s true this time, it was like he was purposefully looking to start something,” Albus says, scratching his neck.

“Picked on the right guy then. If anything about you is consistent, it’s your anger issues. How’s your face?”

Albus ignores him. If he’s honest, he can barely feel the bruises. They’re only numb now. “Fine. Not as bad as he probably feels right now.”

“Is that supposed to mean that you won?”

Albus grinned.

“I always win.”

“You’re such a liar.”

Albus is about to retort when James’ head turns to a passerby, his eyes widening. Albus follows his line of sight, but catches nothing in the crowd except a long head of black hair.

“Who’s that?” Albus asks, disinterested until James says stiffly, “I sent a quick message to Scorpius to meet you here so he should be here soon.”

“Don’t change the subject, you prat.”

It comes out as a snap, with an accompanying scowl to match, but Albus is positively delighted. He loves James, which is more than he can say about most people; he’s impossibly kind and one of the most intelligent people Albus has ever known, which has a whole other meaning when he’s related to the Granger women. But truly, he’s too fixed in his ways, meaning anything remotely exciting, or a touch scandalous, piques more interest than usual.

So Albus nudges James with his elbow, and James jostles against him, and then Albus shoves him a little rougher than necessary, and James attempts to kick at his shin.

“I’m not telling you, prat,” James laughs, and Albus laughs too, because he knows James will crack eventually if Albus keeps pestering him. Which he will, because he is nothing if not a nosy bastard.

“Albus?”

Scorpius Malfoy always stood out from any single person that stood around him. As if the white blond head of hair wasn’t already a blinding beacon itself, his tall height and lanky posture made him look like that of an awkward tree, but it wasn’t as bad now as it used to be when they were in school, Scorpius having grown out of fidgeting with his hands every few seconds. He looked quite normal in terms of how he usually dressed, which was always wearing bright coloured cardigans or pale trench coats or fancy turtlenecks or glinting silver jewellery and vice versa. Whatever pants he wore, he needed deep pockets to store ‘emergency snacks’ as he liked to call them since he was eleven, justifying that if the apocalypse ever were to strike at some unprecedented time, he wouldn’t starve to death immediately like the rest of the world would. Not only was the logic flawed, it was false, because Albus knew Scorpius was just a terrible glutton, indulging in the spare apple or nut bar he nicked from the Great Hall at any time throughout the day. Nevertheless, and quite unfairly, his physicality never reflected that, his nefarious metabolism being forever Albus’ greatest enemy. Even in cold weather, Scorpius wore tight fitting clothes that seemed to look like it was worth half of Albus’ inheritance (which probably was never going to be true, seeing as he’s almost as rich as Scorpius is though he probably won’t be able to touch any of it). When it came to Ministry matters, Scorpius generally knew how to dress down for the occasion. At least he wasn’t wearing that stupid fucking pink beret.

“Scorpius, hey,” James greets casually, because Albus has spent too long staring at him to respond. “Sorry for doing this to you, I’ve got a client in a few minutes so I couldn’t go home with him.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s a slow day today anyways.”

Albus isn’t a child needing to be picked up from school for being naughty in class, but his dopey best friend and brother sure love acting as if this is the case.

Scorpius looks back to Albus, and Albus thinks that Scorpius, for all his peculiarity, looks even more strange when he frowns. It’s usually so rare that seeing it is jarring. He has one of those faces where he just seemed born to have infectious smiles, purposed to naturally melt others, so any sullen expressions of his were too noticeable. And strangely enough, normally manifested itself in an overdramatised (but amusingly, completely natural) pout that he’s wearing now, much to his ignorance.

“Believe it or not, I can use the Floo network perfectly fine,” Albus says, uncomfortable.

“You’re not drunk?” Scorpius asks. Ouch.

“No,” Albus replies coolly, and Scorpius merely arches a brow at him.

James clears his throat.

“Yeah, piss off James,” Albus snaps, giving his awkward brother the sought permission to get back to the lacklustre tedious job he seems to love so much. Albus could blow his leg off and James will still be finding a way to drag himself back to his desk.
James bids his goodbyes, and as soon as he melts into the crowd, Scorpius appears right in front of him, basically breathing down on his face. Albus waves off his concern.

“I think James is screwing with some girl in his office,” Albus says conspiratorially. Scorpius never likes gossip but it’s entertaining enough to see his friend squirm.

“I don’t care,” Scorpius says shortly, taking the lead to the nearest Floo. “We’re going home. I want to talk.”

Merlin’s droopy ballsack, why was everyone so pissy? It’s not like Albus beat them up. At least he’s being in character, no one could say they were exactly surprised.

“You don’t have to. You can stay here and catch up on work. Don’t worry, I won’t tell brother bear, not that it matters. You know how meek James is, and I’m not even sure he expected you to come out today. He won’t care if you go back.”

“It’s not about that.”

That only stops Albus for a second, before he shakes himself out of it. Even if Scorpius does know, there isn’t any reason for him to be upset about that.

“I’m not a kid, Scorp. You can seriously go back to what you were doing. Didn’t you say you were looking forward to archiving the Space Room?”

“That’s next week, and I’m not busy now. So we’re going home and we’re going to talk.”

The next thing Albus knows, they’re Flooing out of the Ministry and are being shot into the bustling streets of London. Scorpius intertwines their arms immediately before the two are swept up in the midday rush hour. The sun beats down on Albus’ face like it has a personal vendetta against him, or maybe Albus is just hungover. He’s beginning to truly realise the full extent of how terrible he smells, if the widening girth of people around them is any indication.

Albus nudges Scorpius into one of the dark alleyways that belongs to drug deals and dumpsters exclusively, and Scorpius knows to apparate to their flat shortly after.

—

Albus had refused to talk until he had taken a proper shower. Scorpius relented, probably secretly relieved he didn’t have to keep his face neutral around Albus’ incessant stink. Scorpius had also refused to let Albus go shower until he had fixed his face.

“If not with a spell, then at least with a Wiggenweld,” Scorpius said, digging out a shimmery green vial from one of the bathroom cabinets. “I brew them just in case, for situations like this.”

He didn’t say it in any way that was accusing, but it still made Albus stop for just enough time to feel guilty. He never wanted Scorpius to hurt. He still doesn't.

So he obliged, and he washed himself, and he swore he had never felt so much relief than the steaming hot water scorching his brown skin red. If hell was this hot he’d gladly succumb to it.

By the time he washed, his spirits had immediately brightened, the feeling flowing back into the numb spots of his face, his whole body buzzing, warm and clean. He was still nursing a terrible hangover, but that could be fixed in a matter of a few minutes. He always kept pickle juice around, which was probably a flag of his increasingly vicious night outs, which was also probably a flag as to what Scorpius wanted to talk about.

He now makes his way to the kitchen, where Scorpius is diligently reading. Some history book he discards the minute he notices Albus.

“Nice shower?” He smiles, a small, gentle one. It makes the back of Albus’ neck itch.

“Yeah, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“You ought to have had a bath. They always make me feel a little calmer,” Scorpius continues, as if he hadn’t heard him.

He’s looking at the floor right in front of where Albus stands, so he goes to join Scorpius on the couch. The hangover can wait.

They’re silent for a beat. Over the years, Albus had simply numbed himself out towards the feeling of anticipation when being confronted by anyone. Especially his family, who were all very predictable, and the motions became tedious. But Scorpius would always be the one person who could pull something he considered long dead out of him, revert him back to the little boy he had hidden away. Some days Albus venerated Scorpius for it, other times he scorned him.

“Polly called me,” Scorpius says, his voice wavering only a little. He had used to be so flighty when they were teenagers, but Albus almost mourned that after the hardening Scorpius had experienced over the years. “She called me this morning.”

“Okay.”

“Albus. Who did you tell James you beat up?”

Albus sighs, shifting. He hasn’t been looking at Scorpius either, but now he can feel his gaze on him. He is talking sternly, like he’s properly disappointed and upset with him.

“What does it matter what I told James if you already know I was lying?” Not technically true, but it’s always easier to paint himself to be worse than he actually is. Albus still doesn’t know why that is.

“You just didn’t think I would find out?”

“No, Scorpius, I didn’t,” Albus snaps. It’s an ugly thing, his defensiveness. He doesn’t hate it so much when it works in his favour, but it rears its head at the ones he loves too. So he says what he does next softer. “I didn’t know you and Polly were still talking.”

“We… aren’t. Not really,” Scorpius says, shifting now. He’s uncomfortable. Albus looks at him, at the living room lamp light framing his head like a golden aureole, him biting down on his full bottom lip. He’s looking down at the floor again. “But Karl told her it was you who attacked him first.”

Albus sniffs and looks away.

“Yeah, well. He was a dick anyways.”

He can just hear Scorpius frown.

“Are you sure it was nothing to do with me?” He asks, wringing his hands. He moves a bit closer to Albus, and Albus is afraid he can feel how warm his body feels. “I know… that you, um, have been going through something. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Albus looks at Scorpius, who looks at him now.

“I’m fine, Scorpius, I am,” he says. They’ve had this conversation many times, and Scorpius still can’t find it in himself to believe him. It probably doesn’t help that Albus just hands over more evidence to fuel this ridiculous belief that he’s going through an early, quarter-stage life crisis. “I’m sorry I attacked your ex-girlfriend’s friend. I didn’t think you would get mad over something like that, but I don’t want to upset you.”

This only seems to grate on Scorpius, who purses his lips and breathes in deeply, which in turn, only irritates Albus.

“Of course this upsets me,” Scorpius says. “And no, it’s not because of Karl. It has nothing to do with him or Polly and everything to do with you.”

“You never even asked me if what Polly said was true–”

“You’ve been going out more. Getting drunk,” Scorpius says, ignoring him, visibly emboldened. He builds up steam with every word. “I never know what you’re doing. Whether you’re safe. You don’t come back until the day after, or the day after that. Sometimes you’re absolutely wasted, or you're sick, or you're really, really upset, and you won’t tell me why. Sometimes you call me from wherever you are, off your face, talking about people I’ve never heard of before, and I don’t know where you are or how to get to you. And the next day when I try to bring it up to you, you’ll have no memory of it, no memory of anything. I don’t know who to tell, who I’m allowed to tell, whether telling someone would be me being a good friend or a bad friend. I feel like–”

“I know–”

“No you don’t!” He yells, and it shocks Albus into silence. Scorpius looks almost as shocked as he is. He hasn’t screamed at him like that since they were teenagers. “I just– you scare me to death. I just want to help you, but I don’t know how.”

Merlin, is Scorpius going to cry? Fuck fuck fuck.

Scorpius blinks it away, but Albus’ heart still drops to his feet, pathetically. He looks away to control himself.

He doesn't want to get upset like this in front of Scorpius, but Scorpius takes this as rejection, and continues.

“I don’t understand why you hit Karl,” he says, and Albus doesn’t bother to correct the understatement. “I thought the two of you would… I mean, you seemed to have really liked him. I don’t know. You were close. I thought that you weren’t talking to me because you were talking to him. But now I don’t know if any of that even happened at all.”

It didn’t, but Albus isn’t going to be the one to confirm that. Karl and him had had a very straightforward relationship, that had very straightforward needs. It isn’t Albus’ problem that he had chosen to breach that, that he had felt the privilege to overstep in places where he had made very clear he shouldn’t.

“You’re my best friend Scorpius,” Albus says instead, looking up to the ceiling corner of the flat, where a dead spider lies entangled in its web, next to a dead fly it never got to eat. “Trust me a little.”

Scorpius is silent for only a moment, but Albus catches it.

“I do trust you,” he says, sounding earnest. “But I don’t think you trust me. Not in the same way.”

You’re the only person I trust like this, Albus thinks. But he doesn’t say it, because they both know Scorpius is right. And it makes him feel shitty, makes him want to take another shower.

“Okay,” Albus says futilely, murmurs behind hesitant, locked up teeth. Scorpius probably knows he won’t get better, they talk all the time, and Albus will always fall back into his redundantly harmful coping mechanisms. He doesn’t understand his own self, why he seems to do this for no reason, why he has such disregard for everything now, and fucks up the few things he actually cares about.

Well, maybe he can draw up some ideas.

Scorpius gives him a tired smile that Albus absolutely doesn’t deserve.

“Okay,” he sighs. “Want to watch something on the telly?”

His small smile transforms into a beautiful toothy grin that pulls at his mouth a little, over-excited and over-the-top, making Albus laugh, an exhausted, beaten thing, but still genuine. They’ve been living together for the better part of five years, and Scorpius will still find it in himself to continue to be absolutely amazed with the Muggle invention of television, one of the many examples that furthers his belief that Muggles will always be more advanced then wizardkind, who are so rooted in tradition they apparently could ‘not see past the length of their own wands’ to embrace such marvels as the wondrous Netflix streaming service.

“It’s not that good,” Albus would say. “It cancels all the good shows.”

“Even the shitty ones are good,” Scorpius smiles, and Albus would guess that anything would be better than those terrible wizard soap operas that were sold on the corners of cobblestone streets in front of Zonkos. Though, he hadn’t been there in a long time. Hopefully, for the sake of the magical world and his mother’s sanity, they’ve improved in quality (highly unlikely).

Scorpius used to get so excited over them. He’s a collector of stories. His brain is a marvellous thing that can store a million of them, safer and more tightly locked than the chambers at Gringotts, more vast and endless than the sky above him.

Right now, that beautiful mind is currently focusing on a lego movie based on one of the popular Muggle superheroes. It is comedic, colourful, clearly meant for children. Scorpius laughs at the jokes like they are written just for him, and Albus laughs because Scorpius laughing feels like a phenomenon that occurs just for him.

“Why are they so blocky?” Scorpius asks between breaths, which makes Albus only laugh more.

The movie is only an hour long, but takes longer due to Scorpius constantly pausing to ask context questions (to which Albus has very limited answers) and rewinding at times where he feels he hasn’t grasped the complex plot of the power of friendship (or whatever cliche the film is trying to thrust upon young, malleable minds).

Sometimes he shifts a lot to get more comfortable, throwing heavy quilts over himself, coming closer to Albus until they are both pressed together. It reminds him of how they would stay up at night and whisper to themselves about a whole range of topics, no matter how difficult. Scorpius, fingers sticky with sweets, would talk about his dad. Albus would choke on some stories of his own.

Albus pushes the thought away, and focuses on Scorpius’ heat bleeding into his side.

After a lengthy commendation of how masterful the craft of the film is (“How did they manage to make their toys move without any magic Albus?”), how tear-jerking (Scorpius continues to cry during terribly stereotypical G-rated endings, and it will always be amusing to Albus) the redemption of the villain was, and how expertly the protagonist and the deuteragonist mirrored one another in their arcs (Albus had definitely not noticed that), Albus ends up choosing to continue a TV series they had both started together. Some Korean drama set in a time of the apocalypse. Scorpius protests, concerned about being frightened when the day has just finished transitioning into the washed out indigo of night, but Albus knows he will be fine. Within the second episode of the night, fourteen minutes in, Scorpius has fallen asleep beside him, his head of silvery hair lolling then and there, like a slowing heartbeat. He isn’t exactly resting on Albus, but he is close enough that Albus leans into him, and Scorpius settles on him so comfortably, like he could disappear behind the corner of Albus’ shoulder blade.

Scorpius doesn’t snore, but he sighs.

Albus sighs with him, and closes his eyes too. He knows he won’t be able to sleep, but he wants to think he can. And when he wakes up, he’ll like to forget everything too. Who he is, what he does to himself and to others.

He takes Scorpius’ hand.

No one must hurt you, he thinks, his heart breaking a little. Not even me.