A/N: No update in a long time, sorry! Still posting chapters I've written beforehand. I haven't written in months though, and I'm not sure how far it'll go. :( I'm pretty rusty.

Hope you guys enjoy it, regardless!

2nd Year: 4/5

PROMPT: Affection

The dungeons were cold.

Al thought this glumly, bundled up with his blanket and various Weasley sweaters, trying to finish their Defence Against the Dark Arts essay on the Patronus Charm. Flipping through 'Popular Spells of the 21st Century', he sneezed as Scorpius entered the dorm room.

Before he could think up of a feeble greeting as the others in the dorm had done, the taller boy had thrown an amused glance at Al's apparel.

"It looks like someone ate something particularly nasty and threw up all over your sweater," he mused with a grin. "How does one achieve that wonderful vomit green color?"

Al scowled when he heard various snickers and mumbled, "My mum made it for me," before returning to his books. Scorpius looked considerably impressed that Al had actually taken some initiative to study but then again, he was reminded that DADA was Harry Potter's best subject and he supposed Al couldn't fail it.

"Who's going back for hols?" asked the boy as he flopped onto his own sheets. A few grunts met the question and Scorpius cracked his knuckles. "Guess the whole place is cleaned out, huh?"

Al looked over his textbook strangely. "Are you not going back, Scorp?"

"My parents are picking me up early," Scorpius replied shortly and started to rummage for his own textbook, despite having finished the essay a few days ago. "Mother's doing some extensive renovations…or something silly like that. It's the first time I've seen Father looking like he was going to cry." He grimaced and wrinkled his thin nose.

Hadrian snorted and peered out from his own set of drapes. "What, Malfoy crying? Does your mum wear the pants in the relationship or something?"

"It's costing a pretty galleon," drawled the blond with a severe smile, voice rising slightly in what Al presumed to be an imitation of his mother, " - colour scheme is very important to us."

"Yeah, like modifying the colour of your bleeding mansion is going to do much," replied Derek, voice muffled from the quill he was sucking on.

Dom chuckled and shrugged, tossing his textbook to the floor. "Well I don't know, lilac stones sound nice don't they?"

Grinning, Al returned to his book. He always found it exceedingly difficult to concentrate when his dormmates were talking, simply because all of them had equally amusing commentary. They were possibly the most accepting of Slytherins; the seniors and prefects tended to look upon him and Scorp with distaste. Al assumed it was just stupid stories being passed down by stupid parents, which in retrospect, was most likely correct.

Al thought back to that one terse moment in Flourish & Blotts and he frowned, biting his bottom lip. That fair, dark-haired woman with the intense golden eyes who had sneered nastily at them when leaving, Al thought, was possibly scarier than Malfoy Senior himself. A little bit like mum but much more… dangerous?

For some reason, that didn't seem like the right word.

--

As Al pulled his trunk onto the Hogwarts Express, he felt notably heavier. It was an awkward feeling – he had almost expected to feel better – or at least lighter - without Scorp there.

Instead, there was a strangeness without the taller boy to talk to, but it wasn't… unpleasant? It wasn't like he missed him or anything silly like that; it was just the weird feeling of not having something you'd gotten used to.

Besides, he'd only been gone for… two days? And Al was going home, anyways. Home to Mum and Dad, chatty Lily, Teddy and Aunt Drom if she decides to visit… he had missed that.

Chewing his lip again, Al smiled weakly as James waved him up to their compartment. He was too comfortable with where he was, that was all. Even sitting with James and Rose seemed a little too far off for him. It was really… weird.

Reminiscing to the brief moment he had witnessed before Scorp had left with his parents via External Floo, the small Slytherin felt he had honestly intruded on something too private. Scorp had been subdued, quiet, but all the while warm without the distance that his friend usually employed to everyone, including him. He had insisted Al come to Hogsmeade that weekend and wait at the terminal – "because asking Hadrian or Dom would've been weird"; and Al couldn't help thinking, then, was he the safe choice?

Scorp had smiled – face lighting up when he saw both his parents and Al had wanted to turn away, because the scene felt uncomfortably embarrassing. They were his family; the ones who had taught him to walk, to speak in that patented drawl, to smile in a disdainful way, to stay guarded – and really, everything Uncle Ron had told him seemed to crumble effortlessly with Scorpius' smile.

It wasn't something he should have seen; it was too intimate, too private for him. But he had, and for some reason there was a sizeable amount of guilt brewing at the pit of his stomach.

"- ditch strategies once we get home – er, Al?"

The boy blinked up at his brother who was holding up Adelaide in one hand - the white owl hooted indignantly from her copper cage.

The smaller seeker jerked out of his apparent daze and looked up at his brother's bright brown eyes. "Um, sorry – what?"

James rolled his eyes and nudged Rose, who frowned at glared at him from her book.

"I said, we can come up with Quidditch strategies once we get home! C'mon, we're both seekers so we're bound to come up with something."

" – or he wants to try to get all your strategies for a real game," deadpanned the girl, not even looking up from the thick tome, "honestly James, you can be so transparent sometimes."

"I – hey! I just – trying to help him – " The eldest boy looked scandalized, mouth opening and closing in a gape like a fish.

Al tried to smile but turned his eyes to windowpane, watching small crystals of ice form on the glass.

He was still cold.