Yes, Professor Malfoy?

t h i r t y - t w o

"Scorpius, where's my concealer brush?"

He looked over from where he was crouched over his open trunk, clothes and belongings spilling out of it and onto the sea of mine on the floor, merging in waves of blues and blacks as he dug around. "Right over there - I put it back in exactly the place you screamed at me to."

My eyes scanned the vanity, all brushes and creams and powders and palettes lined up in rows. "No, it's not, there's a gap. Look."

The platinum blonde strode - or rather slid in his socks across the limited gaps on the slippery floorboards - and checked the desk himself, briefly catching my half-done reflection in the mirror.

"Um, Clarabelle..."

"What?"

He pulled something off the top of my ear. Resting between the jewelled cartilage and my head had previously been the brush.

"Why are you so stressed? Is the Queen of England coming over? Or the Queen of France?"

"France doesn't have a royal family, as such, only the remaining... descendents. The monarchy ended with the French Revolution." The concealer brush was now dabbing a little too aggressively under my eyes as I spoke, grip on its handle nearing vice-like.

"Right. Pardon me." He snorted. "But please can you calm down? You're lowering my vibrational energy."

I glanced at him in the mirror, pausing my hand movements and noticing his cheeks tint a soft pinkish colour. The room was quiet, and I turned to rest my forearm on the back of the chair, facing him expectantly, awaiting an explanation.

"The twins are getting me into crystals and everything- I don't know." He shrugged.

"You're starting to sound a lot like him." I commented and spun back around to hastily continue working on my face. "Evan, I mean."

"We've been spending a bit of extra time together recently. But back to the present, help me. Please."

I quirked a brow to myself curiously at the first piece of information and watched him pace the room, indecisively holding up the same items of clothing as five minutes prior. "Keep on those suit trousers, and wear that dark green knitted jumper there."

"Are you going to address the elephant in the room now?"

How could I? I couldn't exactly tell Scorpius everything. Or much of it, to be honest.

"I'm just stressed because I'm around my father. He's... intense and affectionless and- he lies a lot. Everything has to be up to his standard of perfection. Not a toe out of line when I'm around him."

"Wow, your dad sounds fun."

"Oh he is." I retorted with the same level of sarcasm. "It's fine. Tonight will be over before we know it."

-

It wasn't. To say the evening was a drag was an understatement.

As of now, the living room, hallway and entrance to the dining room was filled with a wide circle-shape of people. Scorpius stayed glued to my side as the pair of us dodged Fliss, who eventually took a seat on an armchair with my grandmothers, next to father; the Diggorys and Draco were stood to our left, and were by far the happiest-talking group.

"My God, this is torture." I drained the glass of another pre-dinner drink, savouring the salt around the rim as Scorpius chuckled, still leaning against the banister.

"So far it's okay. Your house does look amazing, though. It's bloody huge."

I winced slightly at the emphasis on the words 'so far', not forgetting he didn't even know the half of it.