Chapter 39 / His Only Salvation

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Lily watched the lone figure loop rapidly over and over again around the Quidditch pitch, and sighed in concern. She'd never seen Albus like this. He wasn't dealing with his problems well; or safely. The speed he was flying at through the icy winter chill was dangerously fast, and with his head not in the right state of mind, Lily's heart was clenched in fear that Albus would lose control of his broom and fall.
She descended down to the pitch and then climbed up the spiralling steps of the closest spectator stand. When she reached the top, she stood at the very edge of the frosted railing and called out her brother's name.
"Albus!"
He did a double-take when he saw her, and but didn't slow down. Instead, he increased his speed and raced around the tower she was standing on, perilously close to the structure. If he reached out with his hand, his fingers would brush the wooden posts. Her hair whipped around her face at the gust of wind that he propelled.
Lily's breath caught in panic as she cursed her brother's stupid stubbornness. But he didn't seem to mind an ounce as he continued to loop around the pitch, his gaze hard and focused as if the Snitch were in flight.
"Albus! Slow down!"
He heard her; she knew he did, but his pride forbade him to answer her. Or what was left of his pride, Lily mused. She didn't know the full details of what happened yesterday between he and Scorpius, but she knew his pride had been crushed and torn apart, and now he was dealing with it the only way he knew how. It frightened Lily and she decided she needed to intervene. But he clearly wasn't going to make it easy for her.
"Can you talk to me, please?"
"Go away!" he yelled as he pointed his broom upward and shot vertically up into the grey sky. He raced towards the cloudy blanket above until all Lily could see was a tiny dark speck hung among the chromatic expanse; like a small fly caught in a web much bigger than he.
After an extended moment in which Lily held her breath, his dark speck grew larger and larger at a rapid pace. Her heart was in her mouth, as she watched Albus perform the deadliest stunt a Quidditch player could do. Down he plunged, the tip of his broom directed squarely to the centre of the snow-crusted pitch below. His hair was plastered back, his body hunched to a streamlined position, as if the speed he was at wasn't enough. He wanted more.
"ALBUS!" Lily screamed, terrified. "PULL UP! PULL UP!"
He didn't. He kept going, closing the distance between himself and the ground by a dozens of metres every second.
Bizarrely, time felt like it was slowing down as Lily watched her brother plummet to his sure death, even as Albus continued to speed up. Her breath sharpened. Lungs locked. Eyes wide-open. Fingers curled helplessly around her wand. Was he really trying to kill himself?
Just as there was nothing left between Albus and the ground, Lily squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't watch Albus die.
Then—
—laughter.
She forced her eyes open. There was Albus, sailing casually along ground level, having pulled out of his dive, laughing.
Teeth clenched, Lily was enraged. She stared hard at Albus, who finally had the sense to come to her. He flew up until he was parallel with her.
He was still laughing.
Lily couldn't stop the tears that suddenly built up from within her and filled her eyes.
"What," she ground out furiously, "is wrong with you, you egotistical idiot?"
"Just having some fun." He grinned and shrugged, and Lily was filled with the desire to physically grab and shake him until his nonsensical urges left him.
"Fun? FUN? What, plunging to your death is fun?"
"I wasn't going to die," he said in his maddeningly calm voice. "I know how to control a broom, Lils. I knew what I was doing. Just a harmless Wronski Feint."
"Harmless? It's a windy day, and it's snowing, Albus, anything could have happened! Do you know how easily you could have lost it?" she beseeched him, trying to stave off her tears. She didn't want Albus to see her cry.
He finally dropped his infuriating smirk, but anger took its place. "Are you done? Had your rant? Can I go now?"
She was about explode in anger at him, but he didn't give her the chance. He directed his broom around and made to fly off again. So Lily forced herself to let go of all her rage and say the only thing she could think of that would keep him there. "I talked to Scorpius!"
It wasn't exactly a lie. She had talked to him, but not for long and not about anything Albus would want to know about. Still, Albus responded.
He paused his broom, and with his back to her, said, "Good for you, then. You've got a one-up on me."
She closed her eyes briefly and took a breath. "He wants to talk to you," she desperately made up.
He turned around to her. "No, he doesn't. He wants nothing to do with me. He made that very clear."
"Then why is he so upset?"
Albus threw his hands up in frustration. "Hell if I know! Hudson probably doesn't know how to suck face right!"
"Eamon has nothing to do with that," she tried to reason, silently relieved that Albus was still incredibly jealous of Eamon.
He smirked darkly and Lily saw what little light there was in his face, die. "You're right. It's all about me and the bastard I am."
She shook her head adamantly. "Scorpius doesn't think that. You're not a bastard." She didn't know this for sure, but if Scorpius' feelings for Albus were even still a fraction of what they were, then Lily was certain Scorpius could never think that.
Albus hung his head. "You weren't there. You didn't see him, hear him." He wet his lips. "He hates me."
Lily summoned all her courage and cried out, hoping to incite some feelings of righteous anger in her brother, despite knowing she would cop a lot of crap because of it. "So what, you're just going to do nothing? You're not even going to try to get him back? You're going to let Eamon win? Not just Eamon, but Mel and Matt, too! They wanted to pull you guys apart and it looks like they've succeeded!"
Albus' eyes fired up in indignation, exactly as Lily wanted them to. "There's nothing I can do, Lily! There's nothing else I can do! I've tried everything! Scorpius doesn't want me anymore. He's had enough! So I'm finally gonna listen to him for a change and back off!"
"Scorpius doesn't want that at all!" Lily exclaimed. "Are you over him? Because I can assure that he's not over you!"
Albus gripped his broom tight. "Of course I'm not over him!" he exploded. "I would do anything for him! I threw my whole life away for him! I no longer have any friends, or a girlfriend!" He clenched his jaw and looked away. "But none of it matters, because I don't have him either."
Lily was sure Albus was coming to realise his true feelings even as he was saying them. This wasn't previously thought-out. This was the first time Albus was truly exploring himself in ways he didn't know he could.
"Albus," she said, looking at him and seeing hurt and pain and regret filtering through his eyes. "This isn't over. I know it feels that way, but it's not."
They were silent for a few moments, until Albus finally shifted forward, directing his broom towards Lily. He jumped off and landed next to her on the Quidditch tower.
They sat down next to each other. Lily noticed that his hands were gloveless, and his fingers looked reddish-purple. She hastily grasped onto his palm and rubbed his hand, encouraging warmth to flood his icy skin.
Eventually, he spoke up. "What do I do, Lils? Tell me what to do."
She took a deep breath and gathered her best sympathy-giving arsenal together to answer. "You need to be his friend again."
Albus looked at her with a humourless glare. "Lily, that's what I've been try—"
"No, you haven't, not unless attacking his boyfriend is what friends should do."
"But I hate Eamon."
"But Scorpius doesn't," she rebutted. "You won't win any points if you keep trying to split them up."
Albus sighed angrily, but didn't try to correct her.
"You need to respect that Scorpius is with Eamon now, and I know that sucks, but your priority is to get Scorpius back, not to push him away."
"Okay, fine, I respect Eamon,\"" he spat in a tone that only proved he didn't. "Then what?\""
Lily was silent for a moment, deciding how best to tackle the rest of this conversation. Lily would have loved to suggest that Albus slowly try to 'woo' him back, but Albus had yet to admit that liked Scorpius in that way, and although all the signs were noticeably pointing to that, he wasn't ready for it. "Support Scorpius, spend time with him, offer to carry his ridiculously heavy bag ... Do everything you did before, and be a perfect gentleman, and trust me, Scorpius will notice," she advised. "He'll be confused at first, but you need to initiate this. He's waiting for you to step up."
Albus scrunched his brow dubiously. "He is?"
She nodded, and then tried to put herself entirely in Scorpius' shoes. "He's sick of waiting for you, or anyone for that matter. That's why he's with Eamon right now; because Eamon offered him something he never got from you."
Through her peripherals, Lily saw Albus subtly shake his head, as feelings of remorse and guilt swept through him. She went on, "But I told you before, Albus ... it's not over, because even though he may not admit it, and even if he doesn't act like it, he's still waiting for you. He wants you to fix this."
He expelled a breath and slouched his shoulders. "That's what I've been trying to do, Lily. Every time I speak to him long enough to say something that will fix it, he either tells me to leave or he leaves."
Deciding to play devil's advocate, she said irritably, "So that's it then, I suppose. You tried; it didn't go as you planned, so now it's okay to give up."
Albus glared at her. "You're not helping."
"Neither are you!" she huffed right back, pushing his shoulder with her arm. "Stop complaining and start doing. Life doesn't always go the way you want it to, but you've got to deal with it and try harder to get what you want. And if you're too dense to figure out what that is, in this case, it's Scorpius!" Albus said nothing, but he at least appeared to be in deep thought, mulling over her words. "I'm not saying it'll be easy, but I am saying it'll be worth it."
Silence descended on them, but Lily wasn't as perturbed this time. Her message had struck a chord with Albus, which was more than she had hoped for. All that was left was for Albus to follow through.
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Three weeks ago, avoiding Albus had become his number one priority, and he had done far better than he had first expected for some time. But now, it was almost impossible to ignore him. His eyes, inadvertently, were being drawn to him, and whether he wanted to or not, he was always wondering what Albus was thinking. Even now, midway through their Charms lesson. Scorpius couldn't remember ever deliberately disregarding the Professor at the front, but it was like someone had hijacked his mind and charmed it so that Albus was always on it.
Albus was sitting alone. This was the first bit of evidence that proved to Scorpius Albus had actually broken up with Mel, who was sitting, unsurprisingly, with Matt and the other boys at the back. She was glaring heatedly at the back of Albus' head like a hawk for most of the lesson, which was his second shred of evidence. Not that Scorpius needed it; he had believed Albus when he first told him. But seeing its effects had cemented the truth: Albus and Mel were no longer an item.
Scorpius had wanted to hear those words for so long; he had wished to feel the absolute and complete joy that those words would inspire. But all he felt was a surreal sort of numbness, which left him gasping his breath for something more, as if that fact alone wasn't enough. There needed to be more. Of course, Scorpius tried to tell himself, it should no longer matter to him. Albus was out of his life now.
Half of him laughed at himself for believing for one moment that that was true at all.
"You can stare at him for as long as you like, but it won't change anything," Andrea whispered to him.
"I'm not staring," he said immediately, jerking back so he was facing forward. "Staring at who?"
Claire, who was on the other side of Andrea, sighed loudly. Andrea tsked and rolled her eyes. "'Staring at who', honestly! Albus, sweetheart, Albus Potter. Remember him? The man of your dreams?"
"He is not," he hissed, and picked up his quill, trying to make sense of Professor Flitwick's notes on the blackboard. "And I wasn't staring at Albus." Scorpius didn't know who he was fooling.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought the moon-eyes you were making were directed at him and not the brick wall behind him. My apologies," she said. Scorpius could almost see her sarcasm drip onto the parchment in front of them.
"Who invented the Obliviate Charm, would you say?" he whispered loudly, looking intently down at his desk.
Andrea chuckled. "Change the subject if you want, but you can't deny it."
Scorpius whirled to face her and snapped, "There's nothing to deny. Okay, yes, I was looking at him, but not with moon-eyes, or whatever you want to call it. Is it such a bad thing to stare at someone?"
"Why were you looking at him?" Claire asked, completely ignoring his question.
"I don't know! I just was," he hissed.
"Because you can't stop thinking about him, perhaps?" Andrea prodded further.
It didn't escape his notice that she was completely correct, but he wasn't about to say this out loud. "I wasn't thinking about him at all, if you must know."
"Bull," she challenged. "I'm willing to bet my favourite denims that Albus Potter is all you can think about."
"Then you better hand them over, Andrea, because you are incorrect," he shot back, lying through his teeth. Woe unto him if anyone found out she was right. Since their talk in the dormitory two days ago, not even Eamon's proposition for another Hogsmeade date was enough to divert his attention off Albus. Alarm bells were ringing in Scorpius' head, letting him know that he was descending into dangerous territory again, but it couldn't be helped. Albus was his addiction.
"Now students," Professor Flitwick piped up, temporarily stopping Andrea from biting back with a witty retort, "there is quite a large difference between a Selective Obliviate Charm and an Absolute one. Can anyone tell me why individuals might prefer to use the Selective Obliviate Charms on themselves?"
As expected, Rose Weasley's hand shot up from the front of the class, inciting a collective eye-roll from everyone else. Professor Flitwick, to his credit, politely asked her to allow other students to contribute. She lowered her hand hesitantly, as if the idea of not answering a question was as absurd as getting anything less than an O on a test.
While a few people sniggered at her failed attempt, no one else rose to the occasion. Blank stares were shared around the classroom. Scorpius knew the answer—it was fairly obvious, after all—but found he didn't want any attention on him at that moment. He was fine with sticking to the shadows.
To everyone's utter astonishment, Albus slowly raised his hand. The looks he received were akin to if he had suddenly announced he was quitting Quidditch forever.
"Mr Potter!" Professor Flitwick chirped happily, almost teetering off the edge of the tall pile of books he was standing on.
All eyes trained on him, Albus swallowed and spoke. "Well ... people might want to use a Selective Obliviate on themselves if there's one thing they really want to forget, but not everything." He paused. "Like ... maybe there's something they regret doing ... or saying ... that they wish they could take back, but can't."
"Very good, Mr Potter! Indeed you are right! You see students, it is not quite so dangerous ..."
Scorpius tuned out of Professor Flitwick's speech fairly quickly, keeping his eyes locked in Albus' direction. He would have to have been blind and deaf to have missed the double entendre in his answer. As it was, he heard it loud and clear. Staring at the side of Albus' head, he wondered, yet again, what was going on in that infuriating mind.
Albus seemed to have felt Scorpius' gaze, and turned to face him.
Every one of Scorpius' instincts urged him to turn away and break their eye contact, but he couldn't. The pull between himself and Albus was too strong to resist, and he succumbed to his piercing green eyes, which were silently telling the story of Albus' guilt and heartfelt apology. It was a stare that gave Scorpius that feeling once more—the one that made him feel like Albus was dying and Scorpius was his only salvation. There was a plea hidden in his gaze, asking Scorpius to allow him into his life again.
Deep within him, Scorpius wanted that more than anything; he wanted Albus back.
But his heart had been shattered once already, and Scorpius wasn't sure if he could risk it again.

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Next Chapter: Albus takes Lily's advice, Scorpius begins to thaw, and a friendship starts to come together again.

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