Chapter Text
Albus Potter sat on the floor of his bedroom pondering his upcoming term at Hogwarts. It was late in the evening on the 31st of August, the end of a long summer, and while he loved his family, he was ready to get back to school.
Who would’ve thought that two years he’d be saying he wanted to go back to school? His fifth year had been much more subdued than the previous one, between studying for his OWLs and studying for his OWLs all his remaining time was spent studying for his OWLs.
He was quite glad the exams were over.
His summer had been filled with lazy days with his family, anxiously waiting for his OWL results, cheering when they came and relaxing before he went back to the craziness of hundreds of teenagers shoved into a castle in the middle of nowhere. Now that he thought of it Hogwarts was really a terrible idea. All those hormones bouncing around the walls? No wonder the teachers were so irritable.
He also spent most of the summer avoiding thinking about something, well someone, and developing a plan to get over that someone because it was very bloody clear that that someone wasn’t interested in him unless he’d suddenly grown curly hair and his surname was Granger-Weasley.
Yes, he was avoiding his thoughts from drifting to Scorpius at all costs, which naturally meant he spent most of his summer thinking about Scorpius.
Albus had worked out he was gay fairly early on in life. Uncle Ron would always tease his nieces and nephews and ask them if they liked anyone. James always replied with the latest addition to the Holyhead Harpies, while Albus, at a mere ten years of age, had replied that the Chudley Cannons beater Riley Knight had ‘very nice arms.’
There was a pause at the monthly Weasley family dinner when that had come out of Albus’ mouth, but just as quickly his dad came over and hugged him tight while his mum agreed that ‘his arms are rather lovely.’
In hindsight Albus realised how lucky he was. Wizarding families, especially pureblood ones, could be rather conservative, but his family had always accepted him wholeheartedly.
When it came to school he was yet to really advertise his sexuality. James and Lily had thankfully kept their mouths shut about it. If someone had directly asked him he wouldn’t have lied but he wasn’t exactly flush with friends. He’d had a rather tumultuous start to Hogwarts and in the process of trying to maintain the one friendship he did have he hadn’t planned on coming out anytime soon. Besides with Scorpius willing to lick the floor beneath Rose’s feet he had had enough romantic drama for the two of them.
To top off the fact that he was gay, he’d also gone and fallen for his closest, and only, friend.
He was hopelessly in love with Scorpius Malfoy.
Even declaring his love in his internal monologue was painful. Scorpius was his best mate, but that’s all that he saw when he looked at Albus. It was heartbreaking. After five years of suffering Albus Potter needed a plan to get over his best friend. Clearly things weren’t working in his favour by staying in the closet at school and he needed to change his tactics. He needed to finally get onto doing some of the amorous activities that normal sixteen year old boys would be participating in.
He needed a boyfriend. Preferably a really hot boyfriend that he could do really hot things with. Yes, that would be ideal.
Albus finished packing his trunk and hopped into bed, he wanted to be well rested for tomorrow where the first phase of his plan would begin. He needed all eyes on him as he entered the Hogwarts express. It was time to put the genes of his mother and father to use and get himself a boyfriend.
And most importantly get Scorpius Malfoy out of his head.
It was 10:50am on the 1st of September and the Potter family were rushing towards Platform 9 and ¾. Albus could hear the musings of muggles as he pushed his trolley deeper into the station heading towards the Hogwarts Express. His mum was hot on his heels, while his dad was helping Lily push her trolley quickly towards the platform. Albus felt slightly guilty about the situation as he was the one to blame for their tardiness. Part of his plan involved looking as hot as he possibly could on the first day of term, unfortunately he hadn’t realised how long it would take to make himself look hot resulting in his family running hideously late to get to the train. With his mums’ penchant for getting to places ridiculously early, he copped a glare from her the entire trip over.
‘Hurry up Harry!’ His mother called over her shoulder. ‘We don’t have a bloody flying car they can use if they miss the train!’ His mum shot him another glare before picking up her pace towards the platform.
The Potters’ burst through platforms 9 and 10 at exactly 10:55 at which point Lily gave her parents a quick hug and dashed off to meet her friends. Albus tried to do the same but was stopped by his parents.
‘Albus,’ his Dad said hurriedly. ‘I don’t know what is going on with this,’ he paused, glanced Albus up and down and shook his head ‘- look of yours but you know you don’t have to change yourself for other people right?’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘What your father means,’ his Mum chimed in, ‘is that people should like you as you are. If you want to change how you dress or behave that’s fine, but you shouldn’t be doing it for others. Just be yourself.’
Albus snorted. Both his parents were famous and charismatic. They had also prevented the world from being ruled by an egotistical, discriminatory madman. Simply put, it wasn’t hard for heroes to make friends. While Albus’ self-confidence had improved somewhat since his earlier years at Hogwarts, he wasn’t naïve enough to think that he was in any way popular. He needed a boyfriend and if he had to change himself a little to get one it wasn’t something he was ashamed of.
‘You’d best go get on the train.’ His father and mother hugged him tight and he dashed off to find a compartment. Feeling slightly unsettled at his parents words he began to search the train for Scorpius. He was considering telling his best friend his plan in the hopes that he may be of some assistance. Maybe they could even come up with a plan together, Scorpius for Rose and Albus for currently unnamed future boyfriend. However that involved coming out to Scorpius and Albus wasn’t sure if he was ready to do that. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed, but he had kept his love a secret for so long that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to share that he was gay before he had a big fat cursh on someone else.
He really couldn’t survive Hogwarts, or life in general, without Scorpius and he wasn’t going to put that in jeopardy.
However in the middle of his musing he literally ran into his solution.
Big green eyes, rather similar to his own looked down at him. A boy – no wait – a man smiled at him, concerned.
‘Sorry mate,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You ok?’
Albus blinked up at him.
Quite frankly this was the hottest man he had ever seen.
‘Oh sorry!’ Albus’ voice came out oddly squeaky. ‘I didn’t see you there,’ he finished lamely, staring down at his hands. He was struggling to keep eye contact with such a glorious face.
The man chuckled and held out a hand to lift Albus to his feet.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He smiled at him and swiftly lifted Albus to his feet.
‘Ah well, sorry again!’ Albus was almost yelling at this point and promptly turned around and ran off in the other direction.
Shit he was ridiculous! What was the point in putting all this effort into his appearance when he couldn’t back it up with a cool demeanour! He was going to have to prepare some lines for when he saw the man again.
He came to a stop when out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of white blond hair sitting in a compartment, his nose in their new charms textbook. Albus sighed with relief and ducked inside to see his best friend.
Scorpius looked up and grinned at him. Scorpius looked rather different from when they had met on this same train 6 years ago. In the last year he had grown quite a lot, to the point where he was almost the same height as his father. His chest had filled out and his eyes seemed to almost sparkle when he looked at Albus.
‘Hi Albus,’ Scorpius’ smile faltered as he took in his appearance, ‘y-you look a bit different.’ He clutched his book tighter and held it over his chest.
‘Hey Scorp,’ Albus tried out his new suave voice he’d practiced into his mirror at home. The one that he should’ve used on the guy he just ran into in the corridor. ‘Yeah I’m trying out a new look this year, what do you think?’ Albus did a swirl to show off his new clothes.
His clothes had been specifically chosen to ‘bring out his strengths’ as his Aunt Angelina would often advise them when it came to fashion. He focused on his eyes as his most striking feature and had invested in a wardrobe with lots of green. That sneaky bastard of a sorting hat had done him a favour in the looks department by placing him in the house with the most flattering colours for his complexion.
Albus had also cut his hair shorter on the sides and left it long on the top as was fashionable with the cool kids that would never give him the time of day. James had taken him into London to go to some fancy barber. They provided him a number of products that would keep his hair in place for days and had given him a lesson in how to apply them.
The other thing Albus had wanted was a piercing, but James said he valued his life too much to let him get one. Albus already had plans to get one in Hogsmeade, surely dropping the name Potter would get him somewhere in that department.
Albus had also decided that it was time to take advantage of his surname. He had spent years intimidated by the fact that he was the son of Harry Potter and not enough time enjoying all the benefits it offered him. Perhaps it was vain and rather Slytherin of him but Albus was sick of feeling like nobody's choice. He just wanted to be desirable for once in his life and if his last name played into that then he wasn’t ashamed to use it anymore.
Scorpius paused for a few moments before nodding at Albus.
‘Ah, yeah Albus you look great.’
Albus plonked down opposite him and grinned.
‘Did you bring any food? I’m too scared to buy any off the Trolley lady and I’m starving.’
Scorpius grinned and reached into his bag. He pulled out a chocolate frog and chucked it at Albus.
Albus beamed back and settled into his seat. He bit into his chocolate frog and thought about how good this year was going to be. He had his best friend, he’d found a potential target to redirect his affections towards and he was ready to take the school by storm.
In hindsight the best laid plans often go awry, but Albus on that train had no idea of the emotional rollercoaster that was to occur.