A/N: literally just wanted to say I love you guys, enjoy the chapter!
"What was that about?" Scorpius asked cheerily when Al came back into the dorm. Quickly he noticed Al's bright, gleaming eyes and frowned. He knew straight away it wasn't not-done homework.
Al decided to leave out the lie he'd told Stanford, and how he'd played the victim. Instead he shrugged, flopping down on his bed. "It was about changing houses," he said casually. "But wait till you see his office, Scor, it's so neat and tidy! The whole time I was there I was thinking how mad he would get if we just snuck in there one night and..." He trailed off as he noticed Scor's vacant expression. "What?"
Scor picked at the corner of his green blanket. The wind whistled at the window and past everyone's open trunks, half packed. They were leaving in two days. "You're actually leaving?" Scor asked. He looked absolutely wounded. Al wondered what the matter was. Scor knew he'd wanted to leave all along, so what was the problem now?
"Well, I had to pretend like I was getting all bullied and stuff, but Stanford bought it and I'm going to find a charm or something that gives me a black eye so he thinks I'm getting proper beat up," Al said. Surely Scor would approve of him moving, when he just knew it was right for him? He watched Scor's vacant expression turn to the patterned wallpaper on the side of the room, his limp blonde hair flopping onto the pillow like a dead animal.
"Spoken like a true Slytherin," he said.
There was an eerie silence in the little room. The mahogany beds creaked under their green and silver curtains, and Al's blood ran cold. He was certainly not acting like a true Slytherin! He wasn't being hateful, or judgemental, or cunning, nothing like anyone else in his house. What would Scor know? He was going to say anything to make Al feel like he belonged in Slytherin, right?
But then as he took a moment to think, suddenly the green seemed to seep into his veins, making his heart almost stop. He was acting like a Slytherin.
How could he be so blind? He had, just now, tricked Stanford, using his unknowing father, into thinking he had to move for his safety. Stanford didn't know he made that all up on the spot. Al had even whipped up a few tears, for goodness sake. And now he'd just blabbed about getting a spell to make him look injured, so Stanford would definitely take him seriously. This whole time he'd been at Hogwarts he'd been ambitious, driven to get into Gryffindor, cunning in trying to worm his way out of the trap he was in.
A trap he was supposed to be in? Ambitious and cunning, just like a Slytherin.
Scorpius had guessed from his silence that Al had been mulling over his last words. "You're more of a Slytherin than I am," he huffed.
Christmas came around soon enough. Scor told Al a disheartened goodbye, and they went their separate ways into the snow, their breaths condensing in the cold air and falling as little droplets to join the white carpet below. The castle seemed to jingle as they left it, the Christmas spirit following them out in a flurry of bells and gold dust. James met him outside the Great Hall, followed swiftly by Rose, who was saying goodbye to Sam. Al smiled and nodded at him too, and he smiled back. For a second he wondered how things would be different if he had been in Gryffindor. He certainly wouldn't talk to Scor so often, and perhaps him and Sam would be friends, like he'd envisioned on the first train ride in.
However, he didn't really think about being in Gryffindor much after what Scor had said.
Still, now they were back on the train. Scorpius wasn't there, his father was picking him up straight from the castle, because he apparently had a meeting with the headmistress about something important, so the carriage was just the four of them. James was going on and on about Quidditch, and how next year he could be playing against Albus.
"Like you'd beat me," Al scoffed. They'd played with broomsticks since before they could walk, and if he was counting, he was pretty sure James had suffered more injuries than he had.
His brother picked a bit of fluff off his reindeer Christmas sweater that Rose had been staring at in a sort of disgusted manner for most of the trip. "I always won when we were kids," he said, and Al was ready to start up another counter-argument because that was definitely not true at all, when they noticed the train was slowing, and the lights of the station were coming into view. Al couldn't wait to see his parents, and have the same old Christmas they always had but that he loved so much. They bewitched the house overnight, every Christmas Al could remember, so they woke up to candles and music coming from every corner, Christmas wreaths growing from random parts of the house (although one year that went wrong and the holly blocked up the door to their kitchen for a week). Al favourite was the little flying Santa that brought snow over the dinner table, that his Dad had learned from Christmas with the Weasley family when they were at school. The whole family came round to the Potter's, with their grandparents, whose hair is as red as his Mum's, even in their old age, and his Aunt and Uncle, Ron and Hermione. It was the best time of year.
His Mum and Lily greeted them on the platform with sloppy kisses and rambling questions, and Albus and James talked without taking a second to breathe, all the way home from London. To his mother's surprise, Al started raving about Slytherin and the Malfoy's, but she changed the subject once Al suggested they invite Scorpius round for a holiday sometime. He didn't care though, it was another chance to argue with James about Quidditch. The Muggle roads twisted and turned, and the three kids and Rose, who was coming home with them, started complaining about why they had to drive all the way home when there were so many wizarding methods of transport. Al was sure there were plenty of fireplaces in King's Cross Station.
After another hour of torture (and having to stop off twice down some small lanes because Lily was desperate for a pee), they got home. As their Mum pulled up in the driveway to their little country house where the wind whistled through the overgrown garden, Dad was waiting for them with open arms. Obviously, they both avoided that, because they were just way too cool for hugs now. Al could hear Ron's voice cackling from inside, and he smiled. The chill in the air was less now they weren't in the snowy grounds of Hogwarts, but Christmas was still upon them.
Later on, after they'd had a meal and sat around the fire while Ron told some old stories, Al went up to his room alone. James and Rose had been talking about Gryffindor for ages, and however happy he'd been to see his family after months of just occasional letters, he did seem a tiny bit out of place. He was the only one in the room downstairs that was in Slytherin. He tried to write Scorpius a letter to pass the time, but he couldn't really think of anything to say. They hadn't left it on a good note. He settled with:
Hi Scor
Hope you have a nice Christmas
Sorry I wanted to be in Gryffindor, I'll stay in Slytherin with you I promise
See you soon,
Al
...but he thought that was too soppy, so he screwed it up and threw it away. Scor would forget about the Gryffindor thing by the time they went back to school, and that way he could avoid apologising. Christmas music and laughter filtered through the floorboards from downstairs at first, then just the occasional chuckle, and then Al heard his Mum coming upstairs with the kids to put them all to bed. Al's window was darkening, and the stars were starting to show. His Dad had explained to him many times that they were big balls of fire burning thousands of miles away, but he knew that was a load of rubbish wizards made up to make muggles feel like they discovered something. Albus had a theory that when a great wizard died, another light flew up into the sky to commemorate them. He knew his Dad would be up there one day.
He realised he was thinking morbid thoughts too close to Christmas, and quickly thought about something else. He'd told Scor about is stars idea, and he just laughed because he thought they were muggle things too. Al knew they were too dazzling to be muggle.
There was a knock at his door, and his Dad poked his head round. "You are in here," he said, smiling and coming in. The bottom of the door wedged against a pile of dirty clothes Al had already left on the floor after changing out of his travelling clothes, so his father go stuck for a moment, but squeezed past and kicked Al's socks out the way. He sat down next to his son on his white and red striped Christmas duvet cover and stared at the photos Al had up on the wall opposite his bed. "You've been by yourself for ages," his Dad said gently. "Is everything alright?"
Albus shrugged nonchalently. He hadn't really been doing anything, why would his Dad think things weren't alright? It was Christmas, after all. "Yeah, it's fine. I was just writing letters and stuff," he said. He noticed his Dad staring at a moving picture taken of him and Scorpius that he'd added to his wall. It was taken after they'd decided to change their dormitory decor one day and got into huge trouble over it shortly after, but in the photo, Al was laughing, with his arm around Scor who had paint on his face and a large swipe across the wall behind them. It made him laugh. Afterwards, they'd had to clean it up without magic, which was impossible since the paint had come from a potion for paint that changed colour according to the mood of the artist that they'd read about in class once. They hadn't been taught how to actually make it, for the exact reason that vandalisation might happen. Al had simply stolen the book and suggested his idea to Scor, and they'd done it late that evening. It was quick, but hard to get right. The first batch had been completely black, the second changed colour so quickly that it hurt your eyes to look at it, and the third caught fire. They'd got it at last, however, and the carnage that followed landed the two of them in detention for a week with angry letters being sent back to their parents. Al looked at his Dad, who was smiling at the photo too, even though he remembered the incident with memories that were less than fond. "The others were just talking about Gryffindor a lot, and I don't really care, but I couldn't join in the conversation exactly," he added.
"I know," his Dad said, sighing. "I did think you would have been better off in Gryffindor, but the hat has the final word," he said, looking down at Al, who shook his head. If he'd been in Gryffindor from the start, he wouldn't have had nearly as much fun not doing any work with Scorpius.
"I don't want to be in Gryffindor anymore, Dad," he replied, and to his surprise, Dad smiled. Maybe it was because Al admitted his Dad was right, and that was something he rarely did.
"Well, thats good. I don't care what house you're in or who you're friends with. I should have known you could be completely different to us."
Al frowned. He couldn't be that much different. "Remember you said that the hat took our choices into account?" he asked, suddenly realising his Dad had got something wrong. "Well, I thought really really hard about Gryffindor, and it didn't listen."
His Dad shrugged. "So perhaps I was wrong, and that doesn't happen every time," he answered, his hand reaching up and ruffling Al's dark hair, causing him to recline quickly and fix it. He didn't care about the house anymore. It had suddenly got so irrelevant, and the older years hardly ever bothered him anymore.
"I was just thinking," Al said, changing the subject again. "We always have the Weasley's round, and we even had your cousin to stay one time, even though he left before Christmas Day because he didn't like all the magic, but maybe now I've made new friends, next year we could get the Malfoys to come over?" he said, even though he knew it was a long shot. His Dad shook his head before he even started talking.
"I don't think the Malfoys would want to come over, Al," he said, and that was the end of it. With a command to get into bed and a quick flick of the lights, his father left him, and he fell asleep to the familiar comfort of his own bed and the chirping of animals outside.