Albus (A Next Generation Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Pure-Blood

Scorpius laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling whilst turning his light brown long wand in his thin white fingers. "There you are," he snapped when Al entered the dormitory to change out of his robes into something socially acceptable with the Gryffindor students.

"How were tryouts?" Al asked, ignoring his comment. Already he'd become used to the trail of sober judgement that trailed out of Scorpius' mouth whenever he opened it. Even though the other boy was still in uniform, he changed into a striped red top and jeans. Nowadays he'd do anything to escape the cage of green and silver he had no choice but to walk around school being a part of.

Scorpius grunted. There was something up with him, but Al changed the subject instead of prying. Something about Malfoy suggested he was private, and that they were not good enough friends to talk about problems and braid each other's hair. "Do you want to go eat?" he asked casually.

"Not if she's going to be there," Scorpius mumbled. Al frowned, wondering who he could mean. Scorpius had a problem with a lot of people, so for all he knew, he could be talking about the headmistress. It started raining, and the cold drops ran down the window and settled in a glistening puddle on the stiff green grass. Nobody had trod on the ground directly under their window, so it grew unnoticed and uncontrolled, making it's way up into the air, trying to escape the confinement of the floor.

"Who?" Albus asked, giving in. If Scorpius wanted to complain about someone else Al was the best one to listen.

"The Mudblood." He spat. The dirty words left his mouth in an even more pronounced sneer than usual, as if he'd physically tasted the ancient, hideous earth the expression had been made from. Al was still confused. The school was full of Muggleborns nowadays, and he'd never met anyone that used that word to describe them. It made Al himself wince, although it wouldn't be directed at him, so he repeated his one-word response and avoided the word Malfoy used with such calm composure.

"Who?"

Scorpius looked at him as if he was an insane asylum patient. "The one you left me with," he said accusingly. As if his hatred was Al's fault, not that of his own spiteful nature.

"You mean Matilda?" Al asked, remembering how uncomfortable she looked every time she said the password- 'pure blood'. She fitted into the Slytherin standards even less than Al; she was a Muggleborn, a first year, unimportant and completely hidden until Scorpius found out her true identity and why entering the room she was meant to call 'common' was so difficult for her. Al felt awful. "I didn't know she was Muggleborn."

Scorpius' eyes widened, as he retold the story he found almost horrific. "Me neither! Until we started talking about my family and I asked about hers and she goes, 'oh, they're muggles'," he huffed indignantly. "And I had to act like that was alright."

"It is alright," Al stated blankly. He didn't want to talk about it anymore.

They wandered down the stoned corridors on their way to the Great Hall, Scorpius telling Al about what else his father thought about muggles. Passing other students and teachers alike that looked at them with discern, Albus only wanted a distraction from him and his views and opinions. How could he be so naive, so completely trusting of his father, whose best interests were elsewhere. Not with his only son, or with simple social wellbeing. Al was tired of his lack of thinking.

"Albus," Scorpius called. He looked around, but Scorpius had stopped a while back and he hadn't noticed. He was staring to the left of him at something Al couldn't see from where he was standing. "Albus, quickly."

Al rushed back down the corridor, his feet clunking on the stone floor.

"She's blue," Scorpius was chuckling at the sight of Mr Filch's cat, sitting perfectly on the stone floor just out of sight from the main corridor. She was easily missed on Al's part, but once she'd been noticed there was no ignoring it. Someone had, indeed, dyed her fur a dark shade of periwinkle, and she was utterly unaware, staring at them with wide yellow eyes.

Al felt bad for laughing, but he couldn't help it. The cat had managed to already irritate them in the short time they'd been getting to know the castle. 

The sides of Scorpius' pale lips twitched into a smile. "I can't believe you're finding it so funny," he said, pulling out his wand. "Should we turn her green?"

The cat gave a small, fidgety growl and brought a blue paw up to her mouth, licking it calmly. "No, they could link that to Slytherin. They could take points away," Al replied. "Leave her, let Filch find her like that. Whoever did it is an artist." He quickly ushered Scorpius' wand arm down before a teacher came along and spotted him with a wand pointed directly at a blue cat. Al's heart was beating faster just being there, knowing what would happen if they got caught but similarly not really caring if that was to be the outcome. They would be school legends for years to come if they had done it. The blue almost shimmered in the evening light, her whiskers wavering as she remained at a standstill in the centre of everyone's view. "Let's go, before we get caught with her," Al said quickly, suddenely fully aware a ghost could drift through the wall at any moment. He grabbed the hem of Scorpius' robes to tug him away from the situation, and they both ran down the hallway laughing, hearts beating out of their Slytherin robes at the whole outrageousness of it all.

Entering the Great Hall Albus felt like he'd just discovered something eligible for the whole school, but they settled for gushing out the entire story to any first-year on the Slytherin table that would listen. One boy, Sylvian, didn't believe them, but the rest stared at the two boys as they told their story, some even running off to check if she was still there when they mentioned how recent it was.
Al simply could not wait to tell James. His older brother would love it. It was something he would do, something he probably did to Al or Lily years ago when they were much younger witches and wizards starting out in learning of the world they had been born into.

"It was brilliant. There were even different shades..." Scorpius was saying excitedly, as Al leaned in to listen.

"She had no clue! She just sat there like she was the Queen. She could walk in here any minute now, completely blue," Albus joined in, while Scorpius nodded along.

"We were gonna turn her green, but Al said they might deduct points. Hey, we should have made her change colours repeatedly," Scorpius added, and Al immediately regretted leaving her for someone else to find. They should have changed it to the Gryffindor colours, maybe, so they wouldn't get in trouble, or at the very least done something a little scandalous to contribute to this episode. Who would have cared if they were caught anyway? Not his Dad, that's for sure.

"As if you could do a spell to make a cat morph into different colours without actually realising it," Albus scoffed at Malfoy, fully aware he would hurt his ego instead of making him regret leaving the cat alone, as he had certainly started to do.

Scorpius turned to him playfully, holding out his hand. "You're on," he said. "Next time we see her, I'll make her morph."

The green crystals representing Slytherin sat plainly in the hourglass, representing the ever-growing amount of house points. The boys around them craned in, eager to join Potter and Malfoy's conversation. Scorpius' sharp green eyes shone mischievously in the candlelight from the ceiling as Al grinned, certain he'd already won this bet.

"One sickle," he said, taking Scorpius' hand and shaking it roughly. One silver sickle.