You Make Me Wanna Be A Sadist

The woods are lovely, dark and deep....

The road stretched out, a long, tortuous, winding snake- slinking off somewhere into the distance. The landscape was white, dotted here and there by those resilient, grey pines that looked like tiny cones from so far away. The only vegetation that dared brave the desolate weather. Nothing but arctic desert stretched out in sight, like a black-and-white photograph out of those old Prophets. The manor was in a remarkably deserted part of Wiltshire. And probably beckoned miles of walking before glimpsing a sign of civilization. Rather obvious, considering the use of this place during the Third Wizarding War. It was almost easy to forget that this had been the once-formidable Malfoy Manor, headquarters of Voldemort, decades ago.

And there it was. The M-word had cropped up in his mind again, for a third time today. It verged on unfair. After the years that he had spent keeping it out of his skull. After all the painstaking effort made to shut it out, construct impenetrable stone walls....it wasn't fair that it could creep back in so easily. That too with only one glimpse of the man who owned the name.

But I have promises to keep......

The snow crunched fitfully under the soles of his shoes, cold liquid seeping inexorably through leather and wetting his socks. This January was proving to be murder on the boots, no matter how expensive or thick-soled the salesmen claimed them to be, and on the immune system. Albus could feel the persistent itch, clawing somewhere at the base of his throat, ever since the meeting had ended: forcing him to clear his throat repeatedly. And the expected heaviness of the head, which led to the Glamour dissipating as soon as he was ten metres away from the house.

A long, frozen road that seemed to sweep his feet off to nowhere and everywhere, an incubating sickness and the cold clasp of loneliness settled over his chest. It wasn't a good combination.

And miles to go before I sleep....

Then why was he walking? Why not simply Apparate? Maybe because as the distance had increased between him and the manor, so had the noise persisted. The sound of boots crunching over snow. The one which echoed his own.

And miles to go before I sleep..

Not even Frost could cure this.

Albus refused to listen to the part of his mind which whispered that the footsteps sounded familiar. That was just wishful thinking, and from which part of his brain it had originated, he couldn't be less inclined to know. Even if that sort of thinking wasn't that ludicrous.

No, what was ludicrous was that he could smell the liquorish from over five feet away.

"When," His voice carried over the distance, even without him turning back. "Are you going to realise that you are absolutely atrocious at following people?"

It had been bugging Scorpius throughout the entire meeting. There had been a face, a man, which the blonde hadn't known. Scorpius had observed himcarefully, and had found himself unable to come up with even the slightest inkling of what the mystery man's name might be. That part wasn't too odd, there were new Death Eaters occasionally, and even a Malfoy couldn't know everyone.
 
What didn't sit right with the wizard was how familiar the other male had seemed. There was something about his mannerisms, the way he spoke, the way he held himself, that had Scorpius's mind practically screaming that he knew the man. Knew him well. The dilemma was that Scorpius was completely sure he'd never seen the male before in his life.
 
This meant one of three things. Firstly, that he was so tired and overworked that he was feeling and thinking things that made no sense. That this man was a complete stranger, and his sister had been right upon telling him that there would be consequences if he didn't stay hydrated and whatnot. The blonde had to admit to himself, that this was the most likely of the three options. The second possibility, was that the man merely had very similar characteristics to someone he knew, and he was blowing the whole situation out of proportion. The third possible outcome was that the man was someone he knew in disguise.
 
It was possible that the lawyer was overreacting a little, trekking through the cold, following what was most likely a complete stranger whom he'd never met. But, the ex-Slytherin had needed to check, needed to be sure, needed to know.
 
Because there was a chance that it might be Albus.
 
It had taken a while, but Scorpius had finally pinpointed exactly who the stranger reminded him of. It was Albus Potter. He'd been thinking about Albus a lot lately, almost as much as he had in the months following The Incident. The blonde repeatedly found himself wondering what Albus would say or think in certain situations, even wishing that the Potter was there with him. Scorpius knew that he shouldn't have been thinking such things. After all, it was Albus who had wronged him first, Albus who decided to shun and not forgive upon his completely warranted retaliation.
 
Then the man had called out to him, and Scorpius had known it was Albus. The familiar tone and effortless snark made the blonde’s heart skip a beat. He’d missed that voice.
"And when are you going to admit," Scorpius said only a beat later, before cutting himself off. The man couldn't bring himself to complete the train of thought, that he knew Albus better than he knew himself, that the other man could never hide from Scorpius. So instead the man finished with, "you're horrifically jealous of my dashing good-looks."
 
As soon as the words had escaped his lips, the wizard braced himself for when Albus turned around. There were two reasons for this, the first being that at least one of them was surely going to get punched within the next few minutes. The second reason, and Scorpius would never admit to this, was that the sight of Al's face would be painful.

He wouldn't.

After hexes that drew blood, words which dug in deeper and years of systematic avoidance, surely not. It seemed decades since Hogwarts, even if it wasn't, and Albus felt the years' drain on his mind. Surely, surely Scorpius Malfoy was less of an arrogant berk now. Grown up, maybe. Mature, even serious. If not that, at least hesitant, or mildly apprehensive of their past history, and the conditions under which they had last parted.

He wouldn't. He really wouldn't.

"And when are you going to admit," A highly suspicious pause. "-you're horrifically jealous of my dashing good-looks."

He did.

Albus twisted on his heels, and felt something satisfying crack under his knuckles as his fist swung towards the pale face before him. Probably that pointy nose.

But satisfaction was short-lived, because pain immediately shot through his fingers like a searing vice, making his eyes almost roll back in their head with the force of it. "O-..Ow." They both staggered back from each other, Scorpius clutching his nose, Albus cradling his fist...and the day was bright again.

"G-god Malfoy...." The words gasped out, as he tried rather in vain to straighten his fingers. "Why are your bones always so bloody hard?"

"I can't help it if I've got superior face structure. Its hereditary."

"No Scorp, what is hereditary is your attitude. Tell me, do you really get it from the Malfoys of yore, or is it just your daily dose of Essence of Prat?"

"You're cranky when you're hurt."

"Of course I'm hurt, you twit! And I was the one to punch you.......well remind me not to do that again, I swear that nose can bore holes in the wall or something...."

There was almost no time to be dazed at his actions..... the influx of memories and Scorpius' annoying voice had ensured that. Albus Potter Didn't Get Into Brawls. Seventeen year old Scorpius would have added that to his list of Do's and Don'ts to Being the Moste Boring Potter (and he had never seen such a list, but he'd hardly be surprised if Scorpius had one stuffed up somewhere). But that was the thing, wasn't it. Ever since they had met. Scorpius gave up on impressions and impressing around Albus, sucking on his liquorish and putting shoe-d feet up on tables and beds.......while Albus gave up all pretenses of reason and control, and for once did whatever his instinct commanded him to. And he had thought that the i-word was long since dead in him, but it had not only fluttered out of somnolence when Scorpius drawled.....but practically commanded that those 'dashing good looks' be ruined immediately.

He held out his other hand, palm upwards, to the blonde man currently upended on a very undignified, un-Malfoy-like position on his butt in the snow. His eyes were quite determinedly fixed in another direction, voice the very personification of impassiveness. "Up." Then, just like an afterthought. "And if you ask me what was that for, I swear you won't have a face to preen over in the mornings."

Scorpius had been half-expecting the fist that flew through the air and into his face. It had been a dumb move on his part, to half-expect the punch. He should have been fully expecting it. Perhaps then he wouldn't have ended up on the ground.

"Bloody Ow, you b@stard," the Malfoy muttered under his breath, clutching at his nose with both hands and looking up at Albus through half-open eyes. Even through the pain the wizard could admit that he'd deserved that one, at least a little. Granted, he wasn't happy about the fact that blood was trickling out of his nose, but he could accept the fact. It even felt nice, in a twisted way. Albus and Scorpius were fighting again. For a moment, everything seemed right in the world.

For a split second, the blonde's thoughts went to an old scroll of parchment that was buried at the bottom of the large pull-out drawer inside his desk. Written on the parchment was a long list of Do's and Don'ts. The list had started being written in Scorpius's first year at school, and was constantly added to through his last one. The list was titled Why Potter is Boring and Would NOT Make a Good Best Friend The Moste Boring List of Albus Potter: Best Friend. Scorpius would have to pull the old thing out again. After all, it would be a pity to let the list get out of date after all the work he'd put into it all those years ago.

If he had been in the presence of anyone but Albus, Scorpius would already be scrambling back onto his feet. He'd be attempting to heal his nose, and certainly would have cleaned the blood off of his face by now. However, it was only himself and Albus, and the fact of the matter was that Scorpius didn't care what he looked like in front of the other wizard.

"Why do you always go for the nose?" the blonde whined, grabbing Albus's offered hand and pulling himself up using the leverage. Scorpius's left palm was still cupping his bleeding face, blood seeping in between pale fingers and running down the back of his hand like red tears.

"Seriously Al, what do you have against my nose? It's a perfectly nice nose, and it's certainly never done anything to you," the Malfoy said, rambling slightly. Despite the undertone of teasing amusement, Scorpius was genuinely curious. The dark-haired wizard had aimed for his nose more than once, and was the only person to ever do so. That wasn't to say that Scorpius never got punched, he found fists flying in his direction far more often than one would presume. However, they were usually aimed at one of his eyes, or even at his jaw. Albus was the only one to ever have a go at breaking his nose. The Malfoy couldn't decide if it was because Albus knew him far better than any other, or if the Potter was just the only one dumb enough to aim for the spot that would hurt him a decent amount as well.

Registering what else Albus had said, Scorpius took as large step backwards as if the words had mortally offended him. "I do not preen," the lawyer denied, not having to fake the indignation in his tone. Knowing the face that Albus would be making at his statement without even needing to look, the blonde sighed over-dramatically. "Fine, I preen a little," he corrected reluctantly, drawing his hand away from his nose to wipe the blood on the front of his thigh, "just a little."

"Because its the only part of your face that bleeds satisfactorily when I break it, that's why." The mutter escaped his lips, even as Scorpius started patting over his own face as if they were the Queen's crown jewels. Which to the Malfoy, they probably were.

It was far easier, Albus reflected, breaking off a friendship and meeting after years, when the person standing opposite to you actually changed. No, the man was just as big of a self-obsessed prat as always. And he, still hadn't given up despairing on it.

Or, on the ridiculous indignation. Yes, he knew Scorpius had become a lawyer (yes, he also pretended that the man didn't exist, but he wasn't ignorant; and it was bloody well obvious, really), but that didn't mean the blonde was entitled to defend the most ludicrous statements made in the history of wizardkind. 'I do not preen'. Really. And it wasn't lost on Albus how often his mind liked to use the words 'ridiculous' and 'ludicrous' in conjunction with the best friend that he had once upon a time, and it was equally probable that 'boring' and 'patronising' was used just as frequently by said ex-best friend in relation to yours truly.

And battiness was contagious. Because surely, Albus had not just used the phrase 'ex-best friend' inside his head.

"You preen just as much as the albino peacocks that so gloriously litter your ancestral ma-......oh, sorry. The peacocks that litter the D'Eath manor." His dry voice spat out generously.

Low, Potter. Despicably low.

Albus sneered inwardly at his own conscience, pivoted on his boots and swirled around in an almost furious movement, and began walking away.

But the conscience would still prevail. Because his mind still refused to think of Apparition, and the residual ache at the ends of his knuckles had started feeling addictive. It was like a feline predator that had tasted human blood. It wouldn't be content with animal flesh now. He had condemned himself the second he had grown weak enough to stop, and call back. Now his fists wouldn't be content with a single punch. His wand was vibrating in his pocket. There was too much history lying between them for a few jokes and snarky insults to bridge the gap; they couldn't forget that easily.

So the part of Albus that still called Scorpius Malfoy a friend, prayed that for once in his life, he would have the good sense not to stop Albus from walking away, and let things be. Otherwise, none of them would be escaping this arctic desert unscathed.

A bigger part of him, hoped desperately that Scorpius would try to stop him. Because he had a bone yet left to pick.

It had stung, Albus's comment about the manor. If it had been made two years ago or by anyone else, the person would have been hexed and on the floor before they could blink. But it wasn't two years ago, and it certainly wasn't anyone but Albus Potter that he was talking to. Not a soul would be able to mimic Albus well enough to trick him. Not in the past, not now, and not ever.

Scorpius had spent part of his childhood in the manor. Not all of it, but enough. He'd been terribly upset upon loosing it, but there were a lot of things that young Scorpius had gotten upset over on a fairly regular basis. The only one who hadn't been at all upset about loosing the manor was Cesca, but his youngest sister was sensible like that. He could still remember the way that the little girl had looked at him and told him that it was "just a building." Scorpius hadn't allowed himself to get attached to a single structure of stone since. Except for Hogwarts, of course. But Hogwarts was hardly just a building.

Albus spun around just a few moments later and began to walk away. When it didn't look like he was going to be stopping after a step or two, Scorpius had to accept how very little he disliked the Potter's turned back. There was still so much he wanted to know, so much he wanted to ask. The Death Eater question, for a start.

Scorpius had always wondered what Albus would think of him being a Death Eater. He'd never really been able to figure it out. No matter how often Albus' voice had echoed in his head upon Scorpius saying or doing something stupid, the voice had always gone completely silent when the blonde was around fellow Death Eaters. The wizard had become very good at pointedly not thinking about when that might mean

But then Albus himself had shown up at a meeting, questioning Katrina-Carlotta in a way that made it obvious he was unafraid of the terrifying assassin, and Scorpius couldn't stop thinking about it. There were so many different reasons for the Potter to have been there, but Scorpius was almost certain he knew which one it was.

It wasn't fair. The ex-Slytherin had spent years, entire years, dedicated to Albus's darkness. Getting Albus to open up about it, accept it, understand that it wasn't bad or something to be ashamed of. Where Scorpius had failed, someone else had succeeded. He'd been watching the stranger during the meeting, watching his eyes. The man in the Death Eater meeting had not been a light wizard, not even a grey one. Albus was dark.

It had taken him long enough.

But now Albus was trying to walk away from Scorpius. It wasn't fair, for his old dorm mate to walk back into his life only to storm back out again moments later. While Scorpius had never been someone to play by what's fair and what's not, he was very not okay with another four years of no contact from the man whom had once been his best friend. And yes, Scorpius was man enough to admit that now. To himself. After many long years of denial.

Closing the distance between them in a few long strides, Scorpius grabbed Albus's bicep and roughly tugged the other wizard around to face him. Broken nose and patronizing comment aside, he'd missed the twit. "If you're going to try and insult me, at least get your bloody facts straight," the blond said in a blunt and unimpressed tone, "the D'Eath's got rid of the peacocks. No idea why, the grounds don't look half as impressive without them."

There were a few delayed seconds of silence, where Albus' boots continued to crunch through the snow, walking away- and there was no response. The swiftly falling, swooping feeling in his stomach could almost be mistaken for disappointment. Regardless, it was stamped out with professional efficiency. He couldn't care less.

Then a hand strong as his own seized grip of his arm, he was whirled around to see mussed blonde hair and spitting grey eyes- and Albus concluded that self-delusion was overrated, and more of Scorp's thing anyway.

His eyes were still and unwavering, even as Scorpius blared on something about getting facts straight. He used to do that, always. Allow the meaningless words to filter past his ears even as his eyes scored past the pretense and the long strings of sentences, to focus on what the blonde was really hiding. If the put-together air was simply a cover for the wrongly-buttoned shirt, and Scorpius was saving Albus' feelings by pretending that he hadn't pulled tonight. If the bragging that resulted from a blinding O on their latest History of Magic test was actually a thank you for sitting up with him the entire night, revising the Goblin Rebellions. If the plea to sneak into Hogsmeade in the dead of the night was actually a desperate attempt to forget that Draco Malfoy was being an arse, again. If pretending that Scorp was bored and had nothing else better to do, was actually an excuse to accompany Albus on his yearly visit to his father's grave.

Non-dramatic tone. Careless, nonchalant words. Hard face. Roughened voice. All the signs were there- the comment had pricked Scorpius. Nudged its way into one of his chinks in the armour he liked to pretend he didn't have.

He didn't know why he bothered to hide anything at all, really. For a Slytherin, his best mate had the most open, honest eyes he'd ever seen.

And that last sentence, frittering past his mind even as the blonde's lips stilled, waiting for a response; sealed it.

"Facts, is it." The words lingered in the air, nice and slow and enunciated. His lips stretched out into a smile that was polite enough to burn. "Lets talk about facts, then. Like the fact that the last time we met, we almost killed each other." The words were delivered calmly, with the all the subtlety of a blunt knife. Only the smile hinted towards anything untoward. Like the pent-up anger, and frustration and the constant whywhywhy accumulating over years, were finally finding an outlet. "Like the fact that I, churning in guilt, walked up to the hospital wing the next morning to apologise. Only to see my best mate filling up my girlfriend's head about how I, clearly, was the Darkest wizard in all of existence, and practiced Unforgivables and torturing children in my leisure time."

His face inched forwards, hand jerking by his side to throw off, reject the man's grip on his arm in a fitful motion; shoulders vibrating tightly in their place, indicative of barely reigned control, face wiped of all weaknesses except that thrice-accursed smile. Green eyes scanned, searched, ripped across grey to find one........one sign of hate. Disgust. Contempt. Something.....anything. Because surely there could be no other reason for Scorpius doing something like this to him. Surely Albus Potter had read Scorpius Malfoy wrong for seven years, because apart from utter and complete deceit, there was simply no other explanation for this.

"Like the fact that I spent years wondering why the only person I trusted with my life; could so easily...so....casually....take away one of the two people in the world who cared for me. Ah....apologies." His voice paused, quietly, in the dry, faintly mocking tones of self-reprimand. "Could so easily take away the only person who cared for me. You....evidently, didn't." Lips curved to the side, broadening with quiet ease. "Must have laughed at my naivety later, didn't you Malfoy?"

Eyes stayed still even as words fell silent, for one complete, empty moment. Then they averted, running down the Malfoy's soiled shirt, that had surely been pre-ordered six months in advance and was acclaimed by so-and-so, and cost more than a family's monthly income. His hands rose up, slowly, and straightened the collar of the man standing opposite him, best mate, best enemy. Fingers folded with deft efficiency, setting the white crease just right, palms rising and brushing off lint and dried specks of blood in a motion downright painful in its familiarity. His lips barely moved. "If we talk of facts, lets atleast talk of the right ones....hm, Scorp?"

Scorpius could do little but stand there and listen. Albus's words were like a punch to the gut, and the heart, and the balls. All at once. Multiplied by five.

The blonde couldn't believe that he'd forgotten, of all the things to forget, that Albus could do this. Both men were eloquent, always had been, but in very different ways. Scorpius was the charmer, the persuasive one. He could make friends out of strangers before even exchanging names, could make opponents back down with the arch of a single perfect brow.

Albus couldn't do that, not really. But what he could do was, in Scorpius' humble opinion, far more dangerous. The wizard could take words and mold them, twist and turn and put together and take apart. He could take words and change the meaning until one felt as though that word had always been used in such a way. It was like watching a sculptor, an artist. He had the talent to take words, transform them into tangible emotions, and then throw them hard at whomever was unfortunate enough to be listening.

Scorpius was pretty sure that Albus still wasn't aware of how much power his words could hold. He hadn't the last time they'd met, at least. If he learned how to use it in every situation, Albus could be better at manipulation than anyone he'd ever met. And considering the people the Death Eater surrounded himself with, that meant a lot. The emotions that Albus could bring forth when he spoke, and the way he could break through any wall was terrifying. If the words hadn't been so painful, Scorpius would be tempted to say that he'd missed it.

The Potter had taken his words, and twisted them around to use against him. The lawyer should have expected that. He really should have. The two of them had always liked to do that. Sometimes it hadn't been enough to prove themselves right; sometimes they needed to prove that the other was wrong too. Scorpius was getting caught off guard a lot today. It was a wonder that Albus hadn't brought that up as well.

Then again, the other ex-Slytherin wasn't really one to talk in that respect. Scorpius had caught him out, after all. To be fair, Albus probably hadn't expected to see him there. The blonde hadn't had any interest in the Death Eaters while they'd been in school, it had just happened. But really, dark magic and politics were two of Scorpius's favorite things. It had been bound to happen sooner or later.

The Malfoy heir met Albus's eyes head on, knowing what Albus would see there. Pain. There was more, of course, but it wouldn't be easy to see. The pain would be too strong, covering up any and all other emotions. Scorpius took a deep breath, tempted to just turn around and leave without a word. It would be a defeat, but a quiet one, and his pride could probably manage that. But the thought of leaving now made him queasy, and so he stayed.

"She shouldn't have listened," the blond snapped back quickly, knowing that it was the wrong thing to say, but continuing anyway, "she should have known better than to listen to me of all people, really Potter. Besides, if she cared for you all that much she wouldn't have believed a word of it." There was a short pause where Scorpius took a breath, having been speaking slightly too fast. "Besides, I never liked her anyway."

The blonde squeezed his eyes closed tightly, as if unable to even look at Albus anymore. His fists were clenched tightly at his sides, and his chin was tilted downwards. When Scorpius opened his eyes, they quickly focused on the ground a few meters behind Albus. He didn't move them.

"I should stop it with the excuses, shouldn't I?" the wizard asked rhetorically, voice soft and pained. The difference between how he sounded now as opposed to a few moments previously was like the difference between night and day. With the mask, and without it.

"I trusted you with my life too. And then you almost took it, and I snapped. Wanted to show you what it was like to feel betrayed and angry and disappointed and lost. She was convenient, and it worked. If I had known..." Scorpius trailed off, voice weaker than it had ever been.

"And f*ck you, Potter," the blonde near-shouted suddenly, blazing eyes shooting up to reconnect with Albus's own, "for even suggesting that I didn't care! That I laughed." Scorpius sneered the last word, mouth twisting to such an extent that the sounds were hardly recognizable.

"I'll be honest, if that's what you're after. Laying in that hospital bed, I didn't feel an ounce of remorse. Not one bit," he said sharply, before taking a shuddering breath, "but after? Once I realized that you wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't even look at me? Yah, I felt remorse then. Caldrons of it."

"We were a brilliant team", Scorpius stated, "you remember. That wasn't fake, couldn't be fake. You asked for the truth? I miss that. Miss you." The man shut his eyes ones more, not wanting to see Albus's reaction to the words he was about to say. "So this is when you punch me again or tell me you missed me too. And don't take forever, you know I'm pants at waiting."

But wait he did.

((OOC: No excuses for the horrifically late reply, except lots of pleading and grovelling *makes pitiful face* ))


The urge to grip, there, right there at the wrinkled portion of the shirt over the shoulder and shake hard was almost overwhelming. His teeth pressed tightly together, numbing the nerve endings, eyes fixed unemotionally on Scorpius’ grey. Because f*ck he had had quite enough of indecision and doubts in his life, and his mind would implode with them if they accumulated any more. Scorpi- damn, Malfoy, Malfoy- loathed him, he wouldn’t have so precisely, so deliberately wrecked Albus’ life otherwise, and while he would never quite be able to make peace with the fact, he had dealt with it. Accepted it five years ago, and then proceeded to methodically erase it from his mind and pretend that there had never been a blonde-haired madcap in his life who had refused to let him stew in resentment and pulled him out of his blankets every day and cheerfully insulted the world which bore down on them in perennial disappointment. Because he had kept Malf- Merlin, Scorpius, always Scorpius- calm and grounded, and Scorpius kept him living and hoping, and it had been them against the world and once you got a taste of perfection, it really was impossible to be satisfied anywhere else.

But yes. He had compromised with perfection. Because perfection didn’t want him anyway, and till now he really had been doing a remarkable job with the whole Scorpius-Malfoy-isn’t-my-best-mate anymore issue. Trust the ass to show up at a Death Eater meeting and stalk him afterwards and stare at him with painfully honest eyes all the while having the audacity to justify himself.

“Of course she shouldn’t have listened, what do you think I am, a moron?” That came out much more uncontrolled and impulsive than he liked, and vision flickered before his senses, darkening dangerously as he quietly exhaled, visibly reining back control. And the fact that Scorpius had betrayed him shouldn’t have hurt more than Avariella’s rejection. But nothing of that appeared in his cool, almost nostalgically ironic tone, the same tone he picked whenever he wanted to vex the blonde. “And of course, my love life runs on your approval. I wish your dislike had been news, but the death glares every time she was within a ten-mile radius were rather obvious.”

And nostalgia was a b*tch, because it was difficult, downright excruciating, to stop the impersonal smile on his face to morph into a real one- remembering all the times Scorpius Malfoy had picked out chocolates for Albus’ then-girlfriend on Christmas, the saccharine sweet smiles, the barely restrained insults, all the while Albus put on a straight face, the strain of not trying to laugh almost killing him, nodding along whilst pretending to be fooled.

But it was no time for fond memories, because Scorpius’ voice was bringing along darker ones- memories of misdirected rage and frustration finding an outlet, a wand: the burning stitch in his side, the ducking and rolling and the crashes as curses whizzed past them, directed at one another, the innocuous Latin words slithering off his lips like Parseltongue, the tip of his wand glowing a dark, almost sickly black, Scorpius’s bloodless, pale face with dark stickiness dribbling past his forehead as he was blasted back across the hallway, crumpling on the floor like a ragdoll. And the stones, like anchors weighing down his footsteps, pinning it to the floor beneath as he turned and walked, mindlessly, away from the boy who lay motionless on the floor.

“You’ll have to admit, it is a rather splendid way of showing you care, spilling your best mate’s biggest secret to his girlfriend and poisoning her against him for the singular, pure purpose of hurting him. For revenge.” Albus’ tone was mild, and cold, like the winter sun. But his treacherous mind whispered in turn- And almost killing your best friend for anger. Anger. His teeth unclamped and bit down, mercilessly on his inner lip. “You must permit me to be confused, Scorp.” No one else cares, after all.

But anger was slipping out through his fingers like wet sand, the harder his fists tightened, the faster the grains escaped- for what defense did one have, really, against the will of a Malfoy? A Malfoy with eyes tortured with guilt and yet nose raised high in stubbornness, who sacrificed all pretenses of ego and had been prattling on for the last five minutes but yet had miserably failed at directly saying the most important thing. What he’d been driving at and beating around the bush for- but obviously would never actually say out loud without prodding and blackmail and proper teaching and guidance. And Albus had been Scorpius’ unofficial, unappreciated tutor ever since that first History of Magic class.

“As fine as ‘remorse’ sounds.......the word you’re looking for is ‘sorry’.” He cleared his throat, breath rushing past through raw, sored insides. It sounded strange to his own ears. “Go on, it isn’t that difficult. Repeat it after me. Sorry.”

And if Scorpius’s bloodless cheek, resting against a cold castle floor flashed past his closed eyelids as he blinked in the second that followed, mouth shaping strangely over the ‘o’ of the word, pressing wide at the ‘y’........then he said nothing. Maybe they were both emotionally inept. Maybe they were both making excuses, incapable of directly saying what they truly meant.

“We were a brilliant team........you remember. That wasn't fake, couldn't be fake. You asked for the truth? I miss that. Miss you."

Scorpius Malfoy, you great girl’s blouse.

So rowan slipped, a slender, long stick- out from the sleeve into a waiting palm. The wand rose up, fingers wrapped secured around the base, the tip pointing straight at the little ridge of bone between Scorpius’ eyes. Several beats passed in silence. Then his lips moved, and it sounded like the beginning of a new friendship.

“Episkey.”

Albus told himself, that he didn’t feel pleased at the vengeful, almost certainly painful sound of the nose snapping back to place, resetting itself, even as he turned around and started trundling up the snow-packed road again. He was lying. Badly. He didn't forgive that easily.

“Do you plan on standing there all day?” His voice carried over, borne on the wind. Then paused, and added rather helpfully. “Left, then right, then left again. Its called walking.”

((OOC: Sorry it's kinda short, replied from my phone.))

Clutching at his now-healed nose, Scorpius felt the left side of his mouth quirk upwards slightly. He'd been worried for a moment there, that Albus had been going to curse him. Not just curse him, curse his face. As much as the blond had missed his friend, and if Albus ever brought up how much of a sap he'd been the Potter would be the one with a broken nose, he most certainly had not missed all of the threats to his poor face. It was one thing to target a Malfoy, but it was another thing entirely to target their best features. Malfoy's were nothing if not vengeful creatures, something that Albus had not fully understood until their last year of school.

Making a face at Albus's taunts, he knew how to walk thanks, Scorpius changed his pace to walk in stride with the Potter male. "Look, before we sweep this under the rug never to speak of it again," the blonde paused for a moment, tensing his muscles and scrunching his face slightly as if preparing for a physical blow or someone thing equally harmful, "sorry."

"I still think she" wasn't good enough for you "was an idiot, but what I did was" wrong "not nice. There, that's the best you're getting from me, Potter. We're even," Scorpius said with a smirk. He knew that what he had done that day would always come back to haunt him, no matter what was said now. They could both pretend that it would be forgotten about, but the next time the wizards got into a serious argument, one of them would be sure to pull out what happened at the end of their seventh year. It was just how they worked, but for now Scorpius would be more than happy to pretend that it was all in the past and forever would be.

"So Al, now I'm going to drag you to the nearest pub, and you're going to tell me all I've missed in The-Ever-Boring-Life-Of-Albus-Potter. Boring because, of course, I wasn't around you keep things interesting," Scorpius joked, face reflecting none of the sorrow and conflict that it had only minutes previously. "Oh, and Albus," the wizard added abruptly, face suddenly serious, "if you made any blonde Slytherin friends who are half as brilliant as me, you better tell them to run. You know how Malfoy's can be with competition." Serious face cracking to reveal an amused smirk, Scorpius clasped Albus's arm and dissaperated.