Put Your Curse In Reverse [Part 2]

Chapter 4 - Curse

Albus's eyes gradually softened. His head cocked to the right a tiny bit, his brow furrowing. "What?"

"The—you know."

"The 'you know'? What happened to Malfoy the Thesaurus?"

"He's writhing in torment right now, please call again later." A pause. Scorpius dared to scoot a tiny bit closer. He ducked his burning face. "Your eyes. You know."

Albus did not know. When Scorpius met his eyes, Albus looked incredibly confused.

"My eyes?" He frowned. He lifted a hand up and covered them for a moment. "You don't like them?"

"No—I love them!" He assured Albus, stunned by the mere suggestion. He could feel Saul's eyes on him, but that didn't matter. He had to make sure that Albus knew he liked his eyes. "They're great. Everything about you—" there was now a slow smile forming on Albus's face and a blush on Scorpius's "—everything's great."

"Then what's the problem?" Albus persisted. "I'm confused."

"They're..." he trailed off. Immediately, a slew of adjectives took root in his mind: hot, burning, smoldering, intense, magnetic, sexy. Uh oh. "Oh."

"What?" Albus demanded, annoyed.

Scorpius reached up and buried his red face into his hands. "Nothing."

"Really, er, because it sort of, you know. Seems like something?" Albus pressed, skeptical.

"Er..." Scorpius slid from Albus's bed. He needed to be away from him—immediately. "Teeth. My teeth. I should brush them. All of them. Right now."

He accidentally knocked into the edge of Albus's four-poster in his rush to escape his arousal. He hobbled towards the door leading to the bathroom, limping, his arousal trailing right on behind him. Go away, go away, go away—

"Malfoy," Sig called loudly. Laughter was brimming in his tone. "Don't you need a toothbrush?"

"Yeah, you all right, Malfoy?" Omri added, snickering. "Need us to leave for a moment? You're looking a bit randy."

Scorpius jumped a couple inches into the air. He was so red that he could feel his pulse thrumming in his face as all his blood migrated there.

"I—! I am—not!" Scorpius shot a quick look towards Albus. Oddly, Albus looked entirely relieved and—oh Merlin—had a tiny grin in place. "I. Forgot. My. Toothbrush."

Scorpius could feel everybody's eyes on him as he hurried over. He wanted to crawl into his trunk and shut the lid on himself.

"Malfoy, Potter," Omri began. His deep voice was brimming with withheld laughter. "I know we're not Ravenclaws, but we're far from idiots."

Scorpius looked up in shock. He watched Omri and Sig collapse into fits. Malcolm joined in shortly after, leaving only Saul looking at Scorpius like he was inherently disgusting, but then again—he'd always sort of looked at him that way. Scorpius glanced towards Albus. Albus looked back at him.

"So much for that," Albus shrugged. They shared a shy grin.

Scorpius was exhausted, but when Albus joined him in the bathroom and suggested they go down into the common room, he wasn't even the slightest bit inclined to say no.

Being the first night back, it was fuller than it usually was. Groups of threes and fours were piled atop of sofas, couples were sitting together in singular chairs, the entire group of seventh years was engaged in a Gobstones competition. Scorpius and Albus made their way to their customary seat—a leather sofa against the far wall, just beneath the massive window the Giant Squid frequented during his daily swims. Scorpius plopped down onto the left; Albus plopped down onto the right. After a brief moment, they met eyes and slid over to meet in the middle.