Disclaimer: I own none of the characters of settings to be found herein.

A/N: The first of the ficlets in this series was originally written shortly after DH came out (because with a pairing monikers like AS/S how could I resist?). Scopius and Albus Severus (how those names make me giggle still) are aged seventeen in this first ficlet/chapter and eighteen in all subsequent ficlets/chapters.

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As Albus Severus Potter saw the whole dreadful, sordid, humiliating scene playing out on the screen of battered old Muggle television set, about the only thing he could take comfort in was the fact that Scorpius was looking even more traumatised than he felt.

He wasn't quite sure why his dad had invited the insufferable Scorpius and his infamous father to their house. Nor was he sure why he'd been instructed to 'keep him company' whilst his father and Draco 'did very important grow-up things' upstairs. After all, it wasn't as though he and the Malfoy brat were friends or anything. Quite the reverse, in fact. Since being sorted into Slytherin five and a half years ago, Albus had been forced to endure a daily barrage of trying-to-be-cutting remarks courtesy of the boy currently sitting next to him of the sofa.

Still, as the cameras panned from the Rockfest 2021 crowds to Gregory Goyle, frontman of the notorious – and functionally illiterate – heavy metal outfit known as Goil(1), he couldn't help but feel a bond growing between them.

It was nothing so noble as camaraderie or admirable as compassion. No, it was more the kind of desperate empathy that's liable to develop upon seeing ones' respective mothers decked out in t-shirts bearing the logo Get Some Goil In Me and attempting to shove their way to the front of the stage.

Onscreen, Gregory Goyle took the microphone, eyes misted over with what might have been sadness, but could just as easily have been the after effects of a five hour fairy dust snorting binge.

I wrote this song for an old mate of mine from school who was killed in a fire. It's called 'Tits Out For The Antichrist'. I wrote it cos his mum always used to say that she thought he had to be the Antichrist and… and, he liked tits too.

The crowd cheered.

This one's for you Vince.

The first, very loud chord was struck as the former Slytherin began to relentlessly attack the song.

The crowd went wild as the cameras panned to Ginny and Pansy… who seemed to be intent on following the song's rather explicit instructions and shedding their outer garments in the name of the late Vincent Crabbe.

Albus wondered if it was possible to die of embarrassment.

"It's…." Scorpius trailed off, clearly too distressed to think properly.

"I know," said Albus, reaching almost unconsciously for his term-time tormentor's hand.

From upstairs came the sound of a dull thud followed by a loud and rather desperate groan followed a sharp 'for fuck's sake Potter use fucking a silencing charm'.

Scorpius shook his head and began to assert a desperate death grip on Albus's fingers. "It's even worse than the time I caught dad reading The Erotic Adventures of Rimulus: Volume Six."

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(1) Formerly All Hale Saytun.