Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/10159163. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: M/M, Gen, F/M Fandom: Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling Relationship: Harry_Potter/Ginny_Weasley, Hermione_Granger/Ron_Weasley Character: Minerva_McGonagall, Neville_Longbottom, Original_Character Additional Tags: Slash_sex, Sexual_Content, Spoilers, Drama, First_Time, Humor, Parody, Romance Collections: HPFandom Stats: Published: 2007-11-03 Words: 4080 ****** Common Misconception ****** by RockehLovexxx [archived by HPFandom_archivist] Summary Scorpius and Albus are starting their fourth year at Hogwarts. Everything appears to be going smoothly, that is, until strange new feelings arise. At that their friendship starts to crumble under the weight of jealousy. Rose takes notice of the tension between the two and starts a journey that could either destroy what little remains of their friendship or create something more. [Scorpius/Albus] [M+ for safe, will change] Notes Note from SeparatriX, the archivist: this story was originally archived at HP_Fandom, which was closed for health and financial reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on HP_Fandom_collection profile. Oh great, another Harry Potter fanfiction. Lol. This lovely little product of inspiration, boredom and the need to know, in a sense, what actually happened after the epilogue by making it up ourselves. This is written both by myself (the person typing) and Laura-chan, who wrote the vast majority of this first chapter. (I wrote like… 436 words or something.) Anway. Full Summary; Scorpius and Albus are starting their fourth year at Hogwarts. Everything appears to be going smoothly, that is, until strange new feelings arise. At that their friendship starts to crumble under the weight of jealousy. Rose takes notice of the tension between the two and starts a journey that could either destroy what little remains of their friendship or create something more. Disclaimer; We don’t own Harry Potter or the mentioned characters. But, fortunately, we own their personalities. We also have control over what they say and do (within this fandom, OMG YAY). Also, as a side note, we also own any original characters that are here on mentioned throughout the story. --------- Screaming. Yelling. Mutters. Conversations. That was all Albus could here, a meaningless string of words from all different directions, from all different people. He couldn’t make out anything, except on occasion a few yelled names or little bites of conversation he managed to accidentally eaves drop in on. The fourteen year old boy wove his way between the crowds as well as any person could while pushing a trolley with his trunk on it. Behind him and next to him walked his family. His mother Ginny, his father Harry, and his brother James and sister Lily. Albus looked up from the ground, eyes scanning through crowd around him for his best friend Scorpius. He supposed it was pointless, considering he couldn’t see past one foot in front of him. Since when had boarding the school train been so hard? He groaned in heavenward. It was at that moment that something decided to clip the back of his head, thrusting it forward. He glared at his trolley for a moment before the thought struck him that no, that wasn’t the offender. He turned around slightly, since he had stopped walking when he was hit, and directed his heated gaze to the rightful recipient. “Scorp, Jesus, you know I hate it when you hit me in the back of my head. You could make me blind!” “Only if I hit you hard enough… Maybe I should try that next time.” I pouted, and he smirked. Oh! That bastard! I turned away from him, pushing my trolley forward and heading towards the train. We said our goodbyes to our families and quickly disappeared. After we escaped (I swear mum never gets over the fact that we’re actually going to school, which we’ve been doing for the past three years, nor her goodbye kisses and hugs) we boarded the train in relative silence, preferring to have our conversations in a more private area, one where we weren’t loosing our hearing. We found an empty compartment, which surprisingly wasn’t hard, but then again most of the students where still outside. I took a moment to put my trunk above our heads on the luggage rack, with the help of Scorpius, and then I helped him with his. When that little chore was done, we sat near the window. We spoke about our holidays, which we mostly spent with each other, about what we were looking forward to this year and about other meaningless things until Rose barged in. She put away her trunk and took a seat. We both smiled to her. “Hey Rose.” We both said in unison. “Hey boys.” “How were your holidays?” Scorpius asked. “Ooh, they were fantastic! Daddy and Mummy decided to go to Australia! It’s such an amazing place and the wizarding history there was so interesting! Did you know that the 43rd US President, George W. Bush, used the Imperius Curse on the 25th Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, for 5 years?! Gosh, I was incredibly shocked. The poor Australian Muggles. I wonder how the Wizarding Minister reacted. How could they not have noticed? It must’ve been a pretty well placed curse, but it’s surprising, seeing as what I’ve read about Mr. Bush makes him out to be rather idiotic. Oh, and also-“ I zoned out. Rose wasn’t going to have a voice at this rate. Scorpius has always amazed me with his ability to tolerate Rose’s blathering. Actually, I’ve noticed that she and Scorp had been getting closer since last year. A surge of what felt like jealousy shot through me. I blinked, slightly shocked. Where on earth had that come from? Scorp had been my best friend for four years now. He wouldn’t just drop me for a girl, especially my bossy, studious cousin. I scrunched my nose in disgust, before a frown appeared on my face. Or would he?   Scorpius’ POV Oh My Goodness! Doesn’t she ever shut up? I sighed when she took a break from talking to breath, before she started blabbering about bloody Australia again. For the past half hour, I’d been sitting there, watching her mouth move at a rapid pace and nodding, ‘hmm’-ing and ‘ah, yes’-ing in all the appropriate places, just as my father told me to do in a conversation of no interest to you with a ‘lady’. If Rose is a lady, then I’m a squished- oh! Oh, she did not! Ah, yuck, she just spat on my face. Geez, say it, don’t spray it. Although, I’d rather her not say anything anymore. I took a quick glance at Al, in the hope that maybe he might save me from his rabid, spitting cousin. His emerald green eyes were glazed over in thought and he had his mouth screwed up in a frown. I stared. From memory, I’ve hardly ever seen Albus frown. He was such a happy guy, always optimistic. Yet here he was, looking like a grumpy old man. Now practically ignoring Rose, who was somewhat oblivious to the fact that she’d lost her audience and was simply causing more Carbon dioxide to pollute then she should, I leaned over and poked Al. No reaction. I then waved my hand in front of his face, one, two three… On the fifth try, he jolted out of his trance and stared blankly at my hand and then… … Licked it. … What the hell is with people wanting to put their most bacteria filled bodily fluid on me today? I simply wiped it back on his face, making him squeal. Yes, squeal. Like a girl. Because, seriously, he is one. “What was that for?!” He yelled, rubbing his right eye. I stared blankly at him. I mean, really, he was the one who licked my hand.   Albus POV   Ow. What was that? Was there a stick stabbing me? Or, oh my God, maybe it was a deadly disease that was trying to infiltrate my body! Oh God, I don’t want to die yet. I felt like crying. I was too young to die and whatwasthat? Ah! There it is again! And again. Hmm, it looks like a hand. A very familiar hand. It was pale, slightly larger then my own and hand long, slender fingers. Scorpius? Before I knew what I was doing, my tongue emerged and licked the hand that was about to go for a sixth wave in front of my face. It stopped, jerking slightly with the sudden lack of momentum before wiping the cool, slimy saliva back on my face and straight into my right eye. I squealed. Like a girl. I hated the fact that my squeal was girlier then my little sister’s. It was humiliating and I was going to chop off Scorpius’ hand. I hope it’s the one he writes with. “What was that for?!” I yelled, my hand reflexively going to my eye to rid it of the extra, germy fluid. My eye was stinging like mad at the moment. Maybe little parasites were eating away at my eyeball. Yuck. Scorpius just stared at me blankly. “I was just returning what was yours.” Oh, the nerve of him. I’m going to get- …oh, right. Haha haha ha… I dropped my head in defeat. “You know, it feels like my hand is burning.” I looked up to see him closely examining his hand, the fingers on his other hand rubbing at the area I’d licked. Before I could think of a witty comeback, I heard the door being slammed opened and a sudden red flash of hair before my second favourite cousin and Rose’s younger brother knocked me onto the floor, causing me to fall off my seat and knock my head on the little table provided in the carriage. I saw Hugo’s freckled face before blacking out. That’s the last thing you want to see before dying.   Scorpius POV I watched Albus glare slightly at me, obviously trying to think of some lame- ass comeback, before there was a bang and I was suddenly being pushed right back into the worn, yet comfortable, seats of the carriage as Hugo pushed his way past me and Rose to tackle Albus. I saw Al’s eyes widen in shock before he fell off his seat and fall backwards before hitting his head on the ridiculously small table next to the window. I looked over at Rose, who had actually decided to stop talking. She was clutching her chest, breathing heavily as though she was about to have a heart attack, her mouth gaping wide open. Ah, so utterly dignified. I then rushed over to Al, pushing Hugo off him and proceeded to slap Al’s face in the hopes he’d wake up. While doing so, I heard Hugo whimpering and sniffling behind me as his older sister, who’d finally snapped out of it, was telling him off in her bossy voice that was so much like her mother’s. “Albus!” I called. “Wakey, wakey!” I whacked his face a bit harder, leaving a red mark behind. Why wasn’t he waking up? Was he dead? I checked his pulse. Nope, he’s still going. But I was still worried. I think I was on the verge of panicking, actually. Yes. I am panicking. Oh god. Slap! Oh god. Whack! Wake-up! Thwack! Please, please wake-up! I think I’m hyperventilating. I’m breathing quite heavily, really. And I think I’m crying too. But I shouldn’t be too worried about that right now, Al still hasn’t woken up. I grab him by the shoulders and watched, slightly detached from my mind, as his head bobbled around like one of those Muggle- playstac, I think it’s called- toys with oversized heads that grin evilly at you. “Damn it, Al! Wake up!” His hands suddenly rose up to stop me from turning him into a human milkshake and I was staring into his green eyes. I stared back before letting out the breath that I didn’t I had been holding and pulled him closely too my chest, hugging him tightly.   Albus POV   “…-us.” …hmm? Whack! Ow… “…key, wakey.” Slap! Ow! That one was harder then before! Bastard! Twack! Argh, ow! I felt someone gripping my shoulders tightly before my head was steadily being shaken off. “…-it, Al! Wake-up!” I opened my eyes slightly to see Scorpius above me, tears rolling down his cheeks, his hair in disarray and his hands shaking me about. I slowly, and somewhat painfully, lifted my arms up to stop him from making my head fly out the window. He stopped instantly, his silver grey eyes widening in shock as he stared down at me. I saw an extremely worried Rose and a sobbing Hugo standing behind him before my sight obscured by Scorp’s sweater clad chest. I could feel his body shake as he sobbed quietly into my hair, making it slightly damp. I snuggled in closer to Scorpius, gripping his back tightly, closing my eyes as I inhaled his scent. Hmm, he smelt delightful, like rain with a hint of vanilla wafting through it. Wait a min- what was I just thinking?! My eyes jerked open and pushed Scorpius away slightly, blushing and turning my head away from him. I heard Rose’s voice. “You gave us quite a scare, Al. Scorpius here was panicking his pretty little blonde head off.” I looked at her quickly, before taking a peak at Scorp. He was glaring at Rose; pale cheeks tinged pink which were still damp from tears. He then looked over at me, obviously not expecting me to be looking right back. His blush darkened and he started looking anywhere but me. Sniffling then reminded me that Hugo was still with us. I turned towards him, smiling. “What’s up, freckle-face?” He let out a big wail before rushing towards me, sobbing what I presumed to be an apology. “Al! I’m so -hic- sorry! I didn’t mean too, I really didn’t!” I looked down at his red, freckled face, his blue eyes swimming with tears. I almost laughed. God, he’s almost as dramatic as Scorp. “Don’t worry about it, Hugo. It was just an accident and I’m still alive, aren’t I?” I heard Scorpius mutter “Barely”, a pout on his face. I grinned at him. “Thanks for worrying so much, Scorp. Nice to know you care.” I chuckled as he made his pout more prominent as he moved to sit back on the seat. I followed his actions and just as I sat down next to him, the lady with the trolley pulled up at our door. I decided I’d shout everyone something. I got Scorpius some Licorice wands, scrunching my nose up against the sickening smell as I passed them to him, bought some Drooble’s for Hugo, handed a bunch of Cauldron Cakes and Pumpkin Pasties to Rose and grabbed myself a hoard of Chocolate Frogs. I closed the door as the lady tottered away and returned my seat next to Scorpius as we sat out the rest of the journey to Hogwarts.   Scorpius’ POV “Jesus, we’re finally bloody here. I swear, the ride to Hogwarts gets longer and longer every year.” I heard Albus mutter as we stepped off the toasty train and into frigidly cold air. I instantly tried to bury myself deeper into my Slytherin robes as we made our way towards the carriages. At stared at the spot where a horse was supposed to be standing. The thought of being pulled up to the school by something that apparently wasn’t there creeped me out a bit. Rose, unfortunately, caught me staring at the vacant space. “Mummy and Daddy told me Theastrals pull the carriages. They said that you have to have seen someone die for the Theastrals to be visible for you.” I simply stared at her as she stalked of somewhat haughtily towards an empty carriage. Was what she said supposed to make me feel better? I shuddered and hurried after her. We made it to the castle after ten or so minutes to find that it was raining and that we’d have to dash through the heavy surge of rain to get into the warm Entrance Hall. I pitied the First Years. I watched as students rushed towards the steps as I prepared to launch myself into massive droplets of rain. Just as I was about to make a run for it, Albus pushed me out of the carriage and I nearly fell into a puddle, only just managing to avoid the humiliation of me being wet and muddy. I saw his grin as he raced past me. From behind I heard Rose mutter “Idiot”, before she dashed towards the steps. I realized that I was already soaked from standing there like a goof for three minutes. I hurriedly made my way towards the steps. As I entered the Entrance Hall, I took note of many girls trying to dry their robes of by gripping the end and twisting it so that the water would leak out of it. I rolled my eyes at their stupidity (they were Witches, for Merlin’s sake!) before using a drying spell on myself and walked into the Great Hall. I saw Rose and one of her cousins chattering away at the Ravenclaw table, obviously talking about how excited they were about starting classes again. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes before glancing at the Gryffindor table, where I spied Al’s idiotic older brother, James and his cousin, Fred. Fred was whispering excitedly in James’ ear, the smile on his face looking more and more like the Cheshire Cat by the second. I sincerely hoped the prank didn’t involve turning everyone’s hair a colour that reflected their mood at the current time. I was, unfortunately, happy at the time the spell was cast and was forced to deal with bright yellow hair for the rest of the day. From then on, I detested the colour yellow, as it clashed horribly with my pale skin. I quickly glanced at the Hufflepuff table as I passed and saw Hugo grinning widely as one of his friends, who had an equally wide smile, told him about his holidays. As I reached the Slytherin table, I caught Albus smiling at me cheekily and waving. I glared as I got closer to where he was sitting and pointedly ignored him as I sat in between him and Neil McCraw, a 6th Year Prefect. I looked to see who was sitting across from me and saw fellow dorm-mates Adam Nott and Eric Rickey. To Adam’s left, I saw Clarice Stormgrey, a 3rd Year, trying to catch his eye, but he continued to ignore her as he watched more students wander though the Hall doors. Eric was jabbering away to Carren Zabini, a 5th Year, whose face was expressionless as he quietly listened to Eric talk. Nearly the whole time I was ignoring Albus, he was poking my side, jabbing his stubby fingers deep in my ribs. He was making it awfully difficult. Just as I was about to relent, Professor Longbottom, the Herbology teacher and Head of Gryffindor, walked through the doors with a bunch of short and positively drenched First Years, following him like lost little ducklings. I watched as the nauseous look on their faces slowly disappeared, being replaced by a look of utter awe as their eyes drank in the sight of the Great Hall. As they came to a stop in front of the Staff table, many faces started to pale and be tinged with green. They watched as the Professor went to grab a stool and a decrepit and fraying wizard’s hat. He placed the stool a little ahead of where the Headmistress sat and placed the Sorting Hat gently on top of it. As he wandered back over to the First Years, the seams at the brim of the hat opened to form a mouth and it began to sing.   Albus’ POV I was starting to get rather bored. Poking Scorpius to get his attention as he ignored me could only amuse me for so long. I noticed his patience waning as I continued to jab him in the side. He was about to snap when he was interrupted by the First Years, lead by Professor Longbottom, walked into the Hall. Damn, I hate those blasted little snots already. Those brats were depriving me of the joy of seeing Scorp mad. It was always a hilarious sight to see him all riled up. I watched the First Years go towards the front of the Great Hall. I spotted a couple of my cousins and possibly, second cousins, in the large group. I don’t think my family will ever stop breeding. I started to zone out as they reached the Staff Table and Neville went to get the stool and Sorting Hat. I was completely out of it when the Hat started to sing. I looked over at Scorpius, who was looking and listening intently to the Hat’s annual song before slumping against the table in a bored stupor. I jerked up when I heard Professor Longbottom call out “Andrews, Lana.” She pratically skipped up to the stool, where Neville placed the hat on her head before it screeched out “Ravenclaw!” where the table erupted in a polite smattering of what they called an applause. Jeez, what snobs. ‘Anton, Matthew’ was sorted into Hufflepuff, who gave a far more generous cheer then the previous lot. I watched distantly as a red head girl with freckles, someone that might’ve been related to me, was sorted into Gyrffindor. After her was a blonde girl going to Ravenclaw, then a brunette to Hufflepuff, before Stephanie Clairson was made our first Slytherin First Year. Numbly, I took in the ceremony, clapping and whooping whenever a new Slytherin was made. God, why was it so boring? It’ll only be interesting when I actually care. At last, it was over, with Slytherin having acquired nine First Years. The food suddenly appeared on the golden plates, typically awing all the new students and some Second Years, who still hadn’t gotten over the fact that yes, food did magically appear on gold platters. A roar of conversation immediately arose in the Hall, deafening the clatter of cutlery against plates. After three servings of roast chicken, lamb and beef, mashed potatoes, buttered vegetables, fries, a few humbugs and a dish of my favourite dessert, Treacle Tart, I was well and truly prepared to just collapse at the table from sheer exhaustion and fulfillment. Headmistress McGonagall made her usual speech, warning us not to go here, there and everywhere and reminding us that, even though we really didn’t care, that all the products from Weasley Wizarding Wheezes were banned, seeing as we smuggled them in anyway. The First Years were still chattering madly as the Slytherins, lead by the Prefects, made our way out of the Great Hall and down into the Dungeons towards our Common Room. I stumbled along, occasionally bumping into walls before we stopped in front of the hidden door, the Entrance to the Common Room. A couple of the First Years were looking around, wide-eyed, obviously not knowing where the door was. I saw Scorpius smirk knowingly at them. Of course he’d known where the entrance was all along, seeing as his father and grandfather had told him. I was just as confused as these kids when I first turned up in front of this very spot. “Parseltongue.” Neil had spoken directly to the dark wall, where an outline of a door appeared. He opened it ad walked through, the rest of the Slytherins following. Most of them spread throughout the Common Room, to catch with those they weren’t sitting near during the Feast, not many seeming worried that classes were tomorrow. I immediately trundled upstairs, Scorpius following. I walked until I reached the door saying “Fourth Year”. I opened the oak door to a green, black and silver themed room. mine I found my bed and trunk pretty quickly, and searched for my pajamas as Scorp sat on the bed next to mine, watching as I dragged out books, equipment and articles of clothing in my desperate search. That was one of the great things about Scorp. He was always listening, watching, never questioning things, unless it was to learn something new in class. But when he did talk, whatever he said was well thought out and witty, something that either made you think or laugh. “Gah, finally.” I dragged out my pair of black trackpants and a white t-shirt. I stripped off my robes and gratefully dragged on the more comfortable clothing. I turned towards Scorpius as I made my way to the side of the bed. He was now going through his own trunk, pulling out his pair of unsurprisingly neatly folded PJ’s, a light pink tinge gracing his cheeks. Hmm, I didn’t think it was that warm in here. Maybe he’s feeling ill. “You feeling okay, Scorp?” “…sorry? He looked distracted. “You look like you’re getting a fever or something.” His face darkened. “Oh, uh, no, I’m fine. It’s just kind of warm in here.” He turned to change into his pajamas. I shrugged it off and I climbed into bed, pulling the drapes shut. “Night, Scorp.” “Goodnight, Al.” I snuggled deeper into the cover and buried my head into my pillow. I was now warm, full and sleepy as I drifted off to sleep. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!