Albus (A Next Generation Harry Potter Fanfiction)

The Common Room

"I don't feel too good," Matilda spoke up quietly, still sat down. "I'm gonna go lie down, so I'll see you later."

A chill went down Al's spine. He thought she was better. "Flipping heck Matilda, not again," Scor said tiredly. Her eyes were large and pleading, dark circles already starting to form around them. Al could see how she was in the hospital bed, an image that had stuck in his head for months without going away. It was almost like a ghost of that sickly, thin and pale girl was coming through her.

But she laughed, and that was enough of the old Matilda to put his mind at ease. "I'm fine. Just tired from the trip," she said happily.

•

As the evening got darker, Al slowly noticed Scor getting more and more fidgety and restless. He talked less, too. Al didn't blame him. He knew he would be the same if it was his family on the line, so he just let Scor get on with things and only said a couple of words to him, to make sure he knew Al still existed. Matilda spent the whole of dinner in bed, and even when they knocked on her door she didn't answer, so they spent a few hours without her in the common room before going up to the Owlery. The fire blazed, reflecting off the shiny marble fireplace that reminded Al of a similar one at home, their silence only being interrupted by wind and rain, and the brief scribble of quills as they both attempted to do some overdue homework as a distraction.

"Scor?" He spoke up after an hour or so of this, because the waiting was getting really boring.

His friend acknowledged him briefly, before turning back to his work that he wasn't concentrating on. Al knew how hard this whole thing was for Scor, but he was tired and he wanted to hurry up to the Owlery before they got caught out of bed too late. "When are we going upstairs?"

Scorpius still looked anywhere but his eyes. If he really didn't want Al there he might as well have said so. "Mum said it would be a late one."

Al sighed, looking at the clock that stood next to the little silver Slytherin emblem on the mantelpiece. He thought he saw a small puff of smoke emerge from it, but it was probably just the exhaustion setting in. It really was getting too late for this.

He picked at a loose thread on the inside of his robe. "Then can we go in the morning?"

Scor shot him a death-bringing stare. "No," he snapped, and Al immediately shut up. Of course Scorpius wouldn't want to wait until morning. Albus imagined himself lying in bed late at night, the knowledge that a letter of his future was waiting just a few floors up eating away at his brain, the endless hours of the night wasting away slowly before the sun rose and his best friends inevitably wanted to do something else before visiting the Owlery. Of course waiting until morning would be torture.

"Then can we just go now? And wait upstairs? I'm fed up with the common room," Al asked. The portraits had, by now, all dropped off to sleep, and with nobody to talk to or make rude hand gestures at, Al was wanting to follow them into bed. He'd probably fallen asleep a few times just in his chair, discontinued homework on his lap.

Scor put his book down, his lips curling. Al couldn't tell if he was angry, tired, or ready to burst into tears. The whole thing was becoming such a palaver that even Al wished his parents would simply suck it up and get on with each other. "Fine. We can go now," he sighed, standing up and brushing dust which had settled, after the many centuries (at least, that was how it felt) that they'd endured in those same positions. Al's eyes were suddenly wider and more awake as he stood up with Scor, excited to break some more school rules. A portrait grumbled in his sleep, making them both jump. It was common knowledge that if the Slytherin portraits caught you out of bed, they'd make a huge racket unless you paid them a lot of money not to. They were a heck of a pain, but Al betted that was one of the main reasons Stanford kept them around.

Their shoes seemed to squeak and thump a lot louder in the still dark that had settled around them, firelight casting long shadows in front of them. Scor tiptoed in front of Al to the big door and pushed it carefully open, a large creak sounding that Al was certain had never happened before, and he'd opened that door many times. He shushed Scor quickly, checking the portraits. They slept on, unaware of the lives continuing around them. Still, his eyes flitted from the portraits to the door and back again until he was out safely, in the stone corridor with nice, non-Slytherin portraits and resonant rock that gave you a 5-minute warning if footsteps were coming your way.

Al and Scor had snuck off multiple times, especially during class, but this was the first time the castle had been completely silent. The halls and rooms were a lot more eerie and dangerous, reminding Al constantly that this was a magical school, with surprises that caught even people like the Headmistress out of guard. Now that they'd escaped their common room portraits, the only thing that really frightened him, apart from the generally spooky aura of the castle, was the prospect of coming across Peeves. Then Scor really would be waiting until morning.