Cursed Love || A Scorbus Story

Twenty-Four: In Which One Asks too Many Questions

Instead of being openly harassed by students, Albus and Scorpius were now mostly ignored. Perhaps some students were afraid that Scorpius would screw up the timeline and accidentally make half of their classmates non-existent.

Glancing over at his best friend, Albus noticed how pale he was; his chocolate eyes stood out more prominently against the nearly translucent skin, and Albus could see blue-tinted veins on his hands and his neck, one on his forehead as well.

He already had to explain his condition to all of his professors, and most had never heard of Moonlighters Curse before. Scorpius simply handed them a pamphlet from St. Mungo's. He only spoke the bare minimum.

Albus made sure to keep a close eye on him, just in case something happened. His hands were always shaking, yet his penmanship was still as perfect as ever. And Albus could tell he was tired, but he made sure to keep his eyes open and aware.

"You have McGonagall's permission to go to the Hospital Wing to sleep," he softly reminded the blonde. "I can walk you."

"I'm fine." It was a lie.

As the weeks wore on and another full moon began approaching, Scorpius was sent to St. Mungo's as his main symptoms set in. Percy Wood-Weasley was his overseer and was quite friendly to him, despite the obvious dislike of his father.

He chatted idly with Scorpius as he hooked him to several magical machines, making sure he was comfortable. He asked him how school was going, what his plans after Hogwarts were, if he was reading any new books lately, and if the accommodations McGonagall implemented helped him.

It was two months later in early December that Scorpius asked him, "How did you know you wanted to date your husband?" Percy looked at him for a second, hands still busy setting every machine up. "Just curious. Same-sex marriage was definitely discriminated against, even in the magical world. Heterosexual couples that couldn't have children themselves got surrogates, so I find it odd there was such a taboo against the same for others."

"Quite knowledgeable," Percy chuckled. "And yes, same-sex marriage wasn't legal for us until 20 years ago. Oliver and I got married as soon as it passed. But we had been 'married' before that, just not legally, if you understand."

"I do." Scorpius frowned. "Do you two want to have children?"

"We did try." Percy's expression went dark for a moment before turning back to placid. "But no witches really wanted to be a surrogate for a gay couple fifteen years ago. And now we're in our mid-forties, I'm judt not sure we should try again for a baby, but I'm currently looking into adoption."

"That's wonderful!" Scorpius smiled brightly. "There are plenty of kids, I'm sure."

"Oliver is very excited, as am I." Percy smiled softly, sitting in the chair beside Scorpius' bedside, folding his hands together. "Oliver and I have been together close to thirty years. We began dating when we were about 15, you know."

"Did you keep it a secret?"

"Oh yes," the redhead replied, leaning back in his chair, "we started dating in '91, and the AIDs epidemic was going around. If you were openly gay, there was certainly a lot that could happen to you. One boy in my year got beat up so bad they had to take him here for emergency surgery." He shuddered.

"That's horrible," Scorpius whispered, mind flashing him back to the Dark World. It was surely scary there, knowing that him being gay was illegal.

"Quite," Percy remembered how the boy looked when he came back, his entire left side of his face misshapen and his nose was crooked. He wasn't enrolled at Hogwarts for much longer after that. "Why do you want to know all of this?"