Tears and Tribulations, the drama of Hogwarts School

Disclaimer: Of course I own none of the major important, take no profit from this fanfic and worship the ground the most excellent creator of this universe, JKR, walks upon hoping she does not hate me for this.

Chapter 1: First tears.

Scorpius was crying again, he seemed to be doing that a lot these days. Sitting on his bed in the empty Slytherin 6th year boys' dormitory, and yet again it was over Albus Potter, his best friend but also his secret crush. The problem with it being secret though, was, the fact that while Scorpius continued to turn away dates, making him feel more lonely as the only single guy in his dorm, Albus now had a boyfriend and this along with a couple of other factors was why Scorpius was now crying.

Some of the other factors did relate to the first, such as the fact that, obviously with having a boyfriend and all, Albus was openly gay and if Scorpius had just had the courage he could have had the boy of his fantasies probably ages ago, for another thing although Albus was "out" Scorpius was not and this made the whole dating someone and get over it thing hard as he couldn't actually date anyone who could actually help him get over it and anyone who could help he obviously couldn't date. Scorpius also knew he didn't actually want to get over Albus, he just wished Albus had felt the same way for him and made the first move. Another problem facing Scorpius was the daunting and scary aspect of Miss Rose Weasley, who, to her father's great dismay, was not only friends with Scorpius but the head of the "I love Scorpius Malfoy" club (no I'm not joking she had made an actual club, and apparently there was more than one member). These were all part of the reason Scorpius was on his bed right then. The rest of his dorm were out with their girlfriends/boyfriend, as it was a Friday evening in mid-Autumn and for Hogwarts students that meant date night, down by the lake or in secluded courtyards around the school. The teachers didn't stop this because they knew this was easier for them to monitor than the alternative of letting them attack each other in the dorms.

Just as he was contemplating turning in early so he wouldn't have to deal with the return of the others, Albus at the forefront of these thoughts, Scorpius heard a brief and jagged knock on the door to the dormitory. Getting up in a bemused state Scorpius went to open it and see who on earth would be knocking at his door on a Friday night, and praying it wasn't Rose with another desperate attempt at getting him to come out with her, Scorpius was shocked to find Lily Potter standing in the door way with Albus draped over her shoulder and weeping silently. Looking to the younger girl Scorpius raised an eyebrow, but not to his best degree due to his own crying moments before. Lily looked him over with a sad, knowing look on her face; Scorpius suspected she was the only one who had noticed his infatuation for her brother as she was probably the most observant out of her entire and extensive family, before stating quickly and plainly, obviously trying not to make either boy start blubbering, "Alex just broke up with Al, Scorp. It seems Albus went to meet him in their normal spot and found a letter saying he couldn't be with Al anymore, no real explanation just that. I found Al about ten minutes ago crying his eyes out with an empty bottle of Firewhisky next to him and muttering Alex and your name consecutively. Now if you don't mind can you put him to bed I need to get to my own dorm before curfew." And with that she heaved/pushed her brother onto Scorpius before turning on her heel and heading to her own dorm on the other side of the Slytherin dormitory.

Albus was still sobbing lightly as Scorpius got a better grip on him and started leading the inebriated boy over to his own bed, which happened to be next to Scorpius'. Just as he was laying Albus down the sobbing stopped and the muttering started. It seemed to Scorpius that Albus was saying "He knew. He knew I didn't love him, couldn't love him.

Why? Why did I have to fall for him? He's straight and it's been three years why can't I get over him?"

Scorpius looked puzzled at this, "three years"? Albus hadn't been dating anyone three years ago, Albus hadn't even been thinking about dating anyone back then, Scorpius knew that because they had talked about that sort of thing incessantly back then because Scorpius had already started to like Al then and didn't want to be out of the loop if Albus did start to like someone. He was slightly masochistic that way. Slipping into his own bed Scorpius decided to just ignore it, it had to just be drunken ramblings.

The next day shined bright, and way too early for Scorpius' liking. Groaning as the rays of sunshine were filtered into the dorm room, Scorpius looked first to the time by casting a quick tempus spell and then over to the bed next to his where Albus seemed to be comatosed. Deciding to let his crush sleep in after the previous night Scorpius got up quietly and started getting ready for his Saturday. As he dressed three of the other boys in the room woke and started getting up as well; by the time Scorpius headed off for breakfast two of the others were joining him leaving their third companion behind in a very long shower.

Reaching the Great Hall Scorpius almost groaned aloud to see how many people had risen early that Saturday. Sure it was a Hogsmeade weekend but still at 8:00 o'clock in the morning it was odd to have just over half the school already in the hall eating. Walking over to the Slytherin table Scorpius caught sight of Lily Potter and following her own glance, which seemed to be screaming bloody murder, Scorpius found the younger girl was looking at Alexander Finchley in Gryffindor, Albus' now ex-boyfriend. Shooting a quick death glare at the boy himself Scorpius turned his attention back to his breakfast which consumed his still groggy brain for a while. Scorpius was so entrenched in his own thoughts that it took the arrival of the morning post and a soft, still raw, voice next to him to rouse his attention. Turning baffled to Albus Potter, who had at some point slipped in next to him, asked the boy to repeat himself.

"I said it looks like you have a package from home Scorp. See your mother's horned owl is coming in."

And Albus was right, looking up Scorpius saw his mother's owl Ignatius fly towards him with a package in his claws but flying in behind him was Artemis, his father's eagle owl. As the two birds descended, Scorpius began to wonder why they were both there as it was very rare for him to get anything from home by the family owls, let alone both of them with packages. Ignatius landed first in front of Scorpius and perching on top of the rather large package it had brought stuck out its leg for Scorpius to remove the string. As Scorpius set to the task Artemis landed not behind Ignatius but in front of Albus and extended his own leg to the now confused teenager in front of him.

"Well open it. Artemis hates waiting and I want to know what's inside." Scorpius muttered towards Albus as he continued to work on his own twine knot. It didn't take long for Scorpius to remove the knot from his mother's bird and before taking off the owl gave an affectionate hoot, stole some of Scorpius' bacon and swallowed it whole. Jumping up the giant horned owl soared from the Great Hall leaving a still befuddled boy behind him. Next to Scorpius though Albus was having a spot more trouble freeing his package. Artemis, along with still wanting the knot removed, had taken to a game of pecking Albus whenever the boy touched the owl's leg rather than the twine. Laughing silently to himself Scorpius watched this game continue for a time before reprimanding the female owl and helping Albus get the package and bird separated. When his father's bird realised it was free it hooted sharply before ruffling its feathers and taking flight. Still laughing as the second owl departed, Scorpius looked down at his own parcel. There seemed to be a note attached to the outside and knowing his parents would never forgive him for opening a parcel before a letter took to opening it up. The brief message was in his mother's almost calligraphic script and stated that she and his father had heard through the grape vine that the Hogwarts boys would soon be needing the items inside the packages and they had thought that along with getting Scorpius' they may as well get Albus'. Scorpius' parents had long since given up on being upset about the two boys friendship, really most people had excepted it by now with only two advocates standing against it, Mr Ronald Weasley, Albus' uncle and Rose's father and Mrs Ginnerva (Ginny) Potter, Albus' mother. Scorpius understood their reason for disliking the friendship but just wish they could learn to accept it as everyone else had. His thoughts were yet again interrupted by the sound of Albus, this time though the other boy wasn't speaking to him but rather tearing open the parcel in front of him, anxious it seemed to find out its contents. Scorpius looked back to his own parcel and began to tear away the outer paper. Once the brown paper was removed both boys found identical cardboard boxes but the objects inside the boxes were anything from similar. They were dress-robes, the difference was where Scorpius' were silver and black and obviously made to hug his slender but godlike body, Albus' were emerald and grey, the colours put forward to accentuate his eyes while the cut would plainly show off Albus' light but strong covering of muscles. Looking at each other the boys shrugged wondering as to the need for such clothes but before long they no longer seemed to be worried by this fact and were both admiring their new garments.

Albus didn't speak of the previous night with Scorpius that day, the two sixteen year olds distracted themselves with a trip down to the lake where they could watch and gossip about their fellow classmates before heading off to the weekly tea they had at Hagrid's house. By the time lunch rolled around the two of them seemed as they normally did when in each other's company, happy, relaxed and just naturally comfortable. It was lunch time though that things started to go wrong. Deciding to head into town for lunch Albus and Scorpius head off out of the grounds. On their way into Hogsmeade though they ran into a group of Gryffindors from their year, one of them being Alexander. Stopping dead Albus grabbed at Scorpius' hand unconsciously as if his friend's mere touch could protect him from what was about to occur. Most of the Gryffindors seemed to ignore the two Slytherins but as they past Alexander and two of his closer friends hung back. Alexander seemed to be smirking in a very un-Gryffindor like manner as he looked over Albus and Scorpius, before opening his mouth with words Scorpius wanted to hex right out of his system, "Sorry about what happened Albus but I'm sure you understand why I did it. Our relationship wasn't going anywhere, it never would've and I could live with that. Anyway now you can try and get what you always wanted can't you?" And with that he motioned for his friends to leave but before they could go anywhere Scorpius stepped in front of Alexander, letting go of Albus' hand at the same time, but as Albus whimpered slightly behind him Scorpius just glared up at the Gryffindor before stating in his most venomous tone, "If you ever harm Albus like you did last night again, Finchley, I swear you won't be as smug the next day as you are right now." With that Scorpius grabbed Albus' hand, which was still lingering near Scorpius and almost dragged the other boy towards the Three Broomsticks and away from now three speechless Gryffindors.

Sitting down at a table in the pub Scorpius motioned to Madam Rosemerta to send over two butterbeers before turning to Albus, who still seemed mildly out of sorts after their encounter moments before. "Al, are you ok? Do you want to talk about it? I mean he seemed to be suggesting that he had broken up with you because you liked someone else, but that's ridiculous he was your first boyfriend you must have loved him, right?"

Albus just looked at Scorpius for a moment before shaking his head absently and muttering in an undertone, "No, he was right Scorp. I do like someone else, I liked them even before I started dating Alex, I just thought dating him would help me get over this other person but it obviously didn't and he seems to have picked up on it. It doesn't matter though, this person is probably still out of my reach even if I did admit my feelings for them." Here Albus' voice seemed to cut off as he swallowed what felt like his heart. Scorpius just looked at him for a time, not saying anything but as their butterbeers arrived and the two boys started to drink Albus wondered what the blond in front of him could be contemplating.

Scorpius sat there after Albus' revelation, considering all of the guys Albus could possibly like, going by his choice in Alex, it was probably someone with tanned skin, brown hair and blue eyes, they would probably be a Quidditch player, because even though Alex wasn't on the Gryffindor team he had still tried out the last three years and was constantly practicing. And going by this Scorpius deduced that the guy Albus liked was probably the complete opposite of himself. Scorpius was slim, blond haired, with grey eyes and with more love for books than he could ever have for the Quidditch pitch. Smiling into his butterbeer Scorpius almost laughed at his own lunacy of even contemplating that Albus may have been interested in him. They were friends and that was it.