InsaneJournal

Title: Shallow, part 4/12
Characters: Albus Severus Potter/Scorpius Malfoy, James Potter II, Lily Potter II, Harry and Ginny Potter
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Slash, language, and thematic elements (eating disorder).
Word Count: 3,945
Summary: "The only difference between the two instances, though, is simply that Scorpius is too sick at heart to eat, whereas, for whatever reason, Al just won’t do it. And now that he’s alone in the clutches of Bloody James, there’s no doubt that things will only get worse."
Disclaimer: They're all JKR's kids or the kids of JKR's kids; I'm just playing with them.
A/N: Al and Scorpius as seen here are highly based on the Al and Scorpius played by myself and Sally (aurieal) in our private storyline; Scorpius is her boy, and many thanks to her for help with his characterization. Additional thanks to 0928soubi, whose fic search gave me this plotbunny.
Links to Previous Parts: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3


Under most normal circumstances, Scorpius doesn’t mind the holidays, any of them, and Christmas is easily his favorite. Christmas is when Grandmother comes home from her travels across the world, with photographs, and souvenirs, and stories about interesting practices amongst Indian Wizards, or about the strange and beautiful beliefs of certain African Wizards, or about how uncivilized American Wizards are. Christmas is when Mother and Father are at their closest, and when they pretend that their marriage wasn’t arranged – and, more importantly, it’s when they have absolutely nothing to say about Al’s parents, since they got over saying things about Al after meeting him at the platform before fourth year. Christmas is when Minister Shacklebolt and Al’s Uncle Percy leave Grandfather alone, which means that the old man is generally in a good mood, even when he gets drunk on Christmas Eve and starts referring to Al as, “that corrupting Potter boy,” or “that negative influence in your dormitory,” or “that little surprise” – or, at the worst of it, he gets drunk and demands to know why Father allows Scorpius to continue seeing Al at all. Scorpius used to take issue with these nicknames and accusations, until Father taught him that Firewhiskey generally makes people say stupid things, and reminded him that Grandfather is from a generation that doesn’t fully understand things that seem so simple to Scorpius.

This year’s Christmas hols, though, he can’t seem to enjoy. Everything is as it should be – Mother has had the House Elves make all the traditional Christmas food, as well as a few of Scorpius’s favorite dishes; right when he got home, Father slipped him an early Christmas present, a new Errala Kern book on the “magic gene” theory; Grandmother was home early, and Grandfather was in a better mood than usually – but nothing feels right. He knows why this is the case, too: all he can think about is Al. Usually, this would be a good thing – he could think about Al’s smile, or Al’s laugh, or the adorable way that Al insisted on having all his books alphabetized by author, title, and color of the cover – but, this year, thinking about Al just upsets him. How can it not? After all, Al’s not here for Scorpius to protect; he’s alone in his parents’ house, with his stupid prat of a brother, who spends every waking moment picking on him. Merlin only knows how he’s holding up. Given how things have been recently, it’s probably badly, and there’s no doubt in Scorpius’s mind that he isn’t eating enough, and he’s bound to be ill – he looked so pale, and peaky, and vaguely green on the platform that Scorpius didn’t want to let him go.

He had to, though. Both of them had families to go home to, which meant letting Al go, and then not seeing him until January 2nd. The thought alone was murder, and, after the night before he had to watch Al leave, Scorpius is quite sure that thinking on Al anymore might kill him. Merlin knows it’s certainly not doing his nerves any good – he’s already gotten jumpy over being approached by one of grandfather’s albino peacocks, and he’s been surrounded by the things since his birth – and he’s joined Al in hardly eating now as well. The only difference between the two instances, though, is simply that Scorpius is too sick at heart to eat, whereas, for whatever reason, Al just won’t do it. And now that he’s alone in the clutches of Bloody James, there’s no doubt that things will only get worse.

That last night together, though – Scorpius doesn’t want to think about it, and, yet, he just can’t help himself. He’d come back to the dormitory from yet another fruitless session of, “What the Hell is wrong with Al?” with Maddie, Rosie, Lily, Tommy, and Hugo, and, for nearly half an hour, he’d been alone. Gavin, Brody, and Damien were all off giving various manners of “farewells” to their various girlfriends, and no one knew where Al was. He’d briefly made an appearance at dinner, he’d eaten three carrots, and then he’d disappeared. All throughout the meeting, Maddie kept mentioning that she knew where he was and what he was doing, but, for whatever reason, she couldn’t remember it. So much for being Ravenclaw in their little collective who actually lived up to the expectations of her House. (Honestly, it isn’t that Scorpius doesn’t like Tommy Davies, and it’s certainly not that he can picture Tommy in any House besides Ravenclaw, but the simple fact of the matter is that, as far as Ravenclaws go, Tommy is rather at the shallow end of their gene pool. He isn’t particularly bright, nor is he particularly subtle, especially not when flirting with Al, and, as far as memory goes, Scorpius has seen sieves hold more in them than Tommy’s brain.)

Finally, Al came in, distinctly later than usual and trying to act as though there was nothing different, nothing that wouldn’t happen any other night. He looked a little peaky – pale, sleepless, and far too thin, though that was becoming an increasingly normal part of life – but, more importantly, he looked so sad that Scorpius couldn’t just leave him be. Never mind that he rather seemed to want solitude, with how he sat quietly on his bed, reading one of his beat-up Muggle science fiction novels and only answering questions from Scorpius with as insubstantial of a reply as he could manage. “Monosyllabic” was the word of the night, or so it looked, and Scorpius was determined to reverse this. There wasn’t any way he could just go off for Christmas hols without a little bit of quality, Al and Scorpius time, and, even though Al was trying to ignore him, he knew that his boyfriend felt the same.

So he joined Al on his bed, and he went about reclining and otherwise attempting to attract the boy’s attention; for all appearances, it was entirely focused on the bloody book. Scorpius had to try other methods, then. He nuzzled Al’s delicate neck; he put a hand on Al’s thigh, trying to ignore the fact that his hand covered almost half of it; he rubbed his own knee against one of Al’s dangerously jutting ones – he even kissed Al’s sharp, protruding collarbone, and Al would still not be moved. Finally, Scorpius had to resort to drastic measures. Being as careful with the book as he could, he took it away; to silence Al’s whining protest, he kissed his boyfriend quite properly – open-mouthed and on the lips. Much to his pleasant surprise, Al kissed him back, finally giving him proper acknowledgement. Now that they were properly sending each other off, the kiss intensified quickly and Al, who was surprisingly exhausted and even tasted of the effort he was putting into making this a perfect farewell, leaned back first, pulling Scorpius with him onto the mattress. Being careful with his skinny boyfriend, Scorpius straddled Al’s hips, to make kissing him horizontally that much easier; for once in far too long, things seemed like they were going the way they used to, the way that made Scorpius fall in love.

Then he went and stuck his hand underneath Al’s shirt.

It seemed harmless, at the time! He hadn’t meant for things to go so wrong! They were already snogging – and having a very bloody good snog, for that matter and for the first time in far too long – so why shouldn’t he have thought to touch his boyfriend? Every other couple was allowed to be all over each other, so why couldn’t he just touch Al? Apparently, Scorpius had done something wrong though, because he’d barely had time to notice how sharp Al’s hipbones were before he felt Al’s legs kicking and then found himself on the floor, a sharp pain shooting up from his arse.

“Al!” he shouted, without thinking. “What the Hell was that for?”
“Don’t touch me!” came the shrieking reply.

When Scorpius looked up, his initial anger immediately dissipated: Al looked absolutely petrified, as if a Dementor had entered the room without them noticing; all the color had drained from his face, he’d backed up against his headboard and pulled his knees up to his chest, and Scorpius had to protect him. Come Hell or Hungarian Horntails, no matter what it took, he had to protect his Al. Whatever was wrong, he had to put it right, or else what kind of boyfriend was he? Desperately, he pulled himself up off the floor and got back onto Al’s bed. Out of some kind of respect, he kept a little distance, but he didn’t think that reaching out to stroke Al’s (thinning, now that he noticed it) hair; Al slapped his hand away.

“Al…” he begged.
“Don’t touch me!” The shrieking was gone now, replaced with something far more effective: whimpering. His eyes were misting over with tears, and he looked so helpless. “Please, Scorpius, just… I can’t tonight, alright? Don’t touch me.”
“Al, what’s wrong? Let me know and I’ll-”
“There’s nothing wrong! Merlin’s pants, first Maddie, now you – why does something always have to be wrong?!”
“Just tell me and I’ll fix it-”
“You can’t fix what isn’t wrong, Scorpius!”
“Something is wrong-”
“No it’s not! I just can’t tonight, and that doesn’t mean anything!”

Scorpius reached out to touch Al’s face, but it only earned him another slap on the hand and the return of the shrieking: “Don’t touch me!”

He soon found himself on the floor again, and, when he looked up, Al’s curtains were closed. Even though they sat in the same compartment on the train the next day, Al barely agreed to have Scorpius’s arm around his shoulders, and Scorpius had to fight to get a goodbye kiss out of him. Never before has it been more obvious that something’s wrong with him.

Scorpius just wishes that Al would tell him what, because all he has are symptoms, and not a one of them makes sense.

***

James Sirius Potter is quite aware of his many reputations, please and thank you, and the simple fact of the matter is that most of them are quite undeserved. The one about him being Slughorn’s pet, for example, just comes from the fact that he gets good marks in Potions, and the one about him being McGonagall’s pet is just that his best mate, Jeremy Smith, has been peeved since James made Prefect in their fifth year. Never mind that, if McGonagall had thought Jerm Prefect material, he would’ve made it instead of James, and further never mind that Jerm smarms up to McGonagall far more than James ever has; James has the badge, so, clearly, he’s McGonagall’s pet. The popular opinion that says that he’s a brilliant snog is completely true, but he’d suffer through every single misconception just to clear up one: the one that says that he’s an arrogant toerag.

Honestly. If he could make everyone and their gran’s puppy stop thinking of him as some arch-villain – the stuck-up, loudmouth Gryffindor Prefect with the heart of frozen iron – then everything in his life would be perfect. More importantly, though, he needs to make Al and Lily believe that he’s not out to get them, like that’s ever going to happen. They seem to think that everything he does is meant to cause him pain, when, really, he just wants to protect them. They’re Harry Potter’s kids, for Merlin’s sake; there’s too much out there that wants to make them miserable, or make their lives difficult, or publicize them beyond all belief, for better or for worse – and then there’s Rita Skeeter, who can do all three at once without putting her mind to it and without hardly lifting a finger. Her series of Witch Weekly articles about Al last summer weren’t the first time she’s been mucking around in family matters – and, even though Al seems perfectly content to forget this fact, James has been on the receiving end of Skeeter’s Quik Quotes Quill before. “James Potter: Prefecting Playboy” – honestly! Al thought that the first article about his expanding arse had been bad! At least that Skeeter bitch didn’t accuse him of sleeping around with half of Hogwarts, including Professor Vector.

Of course, Al refuses to acknowledge this. He never acknowledges things like this. They inconvenience his worldview – wherein he’s the poor, pitiable victim who needs hugs, and loves, and constant bloody sympathy – and, as such, he’s incapable of admitting that his older brother isn’t a monster. Lily’s only slightly better than he is for the sheer virtue of keeping him and James from ever physically going at one another. Naturally, though, James wouldn’t go at Al even if the little prat particularly deserved it. There’s just no joy in winning when victory gets handed to you. If you’re going to win, you have to work for it, or it’s like having Chocolate Frogs every day: it gets old, it’s not exciting anymore, and it just feels so pointless you have to wonder why you bothered with it at all.

It’s because of that rule that James has always been perplexed by, and, as a consequence, worried about, his little brother. In addition to refusing to accept that James isn’t some vicious scoundrel who’s only out to make him miserable, Al is just so bloody weird about winning, or doing well at all, for that matter. Whenever he used to win at games, or win in arguments because Mum almost always takes his side, or win anything, he never got excited about it. James always used to rub it in Al and Lily’s faces when he won, and Lily can still be a right little snot about being right and doing well, but Al’s just so sedated about it. It’s more like he’s relieved that he didn’t lose. He’s the same way about getting good marks on tests and essays; anytime James has had to deal with him after he’s gotten his usual set of praise-worth marks, he’s just been thankful that he didn’t do badly. He barely responded when James told him, “Nice game” after their match against each other. And he’s always been like that. It’s just not right.

What also isn’t right is how he’s keeping everyone waiting on Christmas Day. It’s almost noon and he’s still in bed. He knows that no one’s allowed to open any gifts until everyone’s downstairs, and he knows that his siblings are actually interested in matters like whether or not they got a new broomstick servicing kit (James) or the new Lysander Leviosa disc, and he still hasn’t dragged himself out of bed yet. Mum and Dad are even up, and they were both up late last night – Dad and Uncle Ron got an emergency call out to Staffordshire, on suspicion of Dark activity, and it even wound up being a false alarm; and Mum had to go over to the Burrow to help Gran with something or other related to Christmas supper. Al went to bed early. Al was in bed before ten o’clock, before James and Lily even considered turning in, and he got out of doing too much work because Mum thinks he’s ill, so there’s no bloody reason for him to be in bed.

To be honest, James is sick of this. He doesn’t care how everyone else feels; he wants to have his proper Christmas, and Al is getting in the way of that. Lily’s taken to reading one of her utterly ridiculous Elizabeth Q. Amortine novels with the muscular wizards and well-endowed witches on the cover, and Mum and Dad are both nursing cups of tea. James wishes he had a Snitch to play with or something, but, as it stands, all he has is a sugar quill, which he’s nearly done with. And which he’s just plain lucky to have, with how Al’s been about sweets, the past few months. Mid-July, he threw out every last sweet in the house, even the ones that weren’t his, and James hasn’t seen him go near anything sugary since then. It’s probably some bloody miracle that he hasn’t come and pitched James’s box of sugar quills yet, so James is enjoying them while he can.

“James,” Dad sighs, right as James finishes his quill, “will you go get your brother out of bed?”
“I should go,” Lily snaps, right as James gets to his feet. “He’ll listen to me.”
“You’re too nice to him, Lils,” James huffs. “He knows he can manipulate you, so you’ll be in there twenty minutes and he still won’t come out.”
“That’s not true! I can be firm with him!”
“Yeah, you say that now. Tell me that again when he pulls out that whimpering, wounded unicorn act-”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on, he uses it on you all the time. You try to make him do something, and he starts pouting, and making big, sad eyes, and acting like he’s going to cry-”
“He does not!”
“James, Lily,” Mum interjects, giving both of them a very stern look. “Stop arguing and one of you go get your brother out of bed.”
“I’m already up,” James points out.

Without even waiting to see Lily’s face, James heads up for Al’s room. He’s completely unsurprised when he gets there and sees what Al’s up to: sleeping. So much for him having a Hufflepuff work ethic like everyone likes to say. No self-respecting Hufflepuff would sleep until noon, let alone past it, as Al’s done here. He’s even cocooned him sheets, which is just ridiculous, given their parents. Dad’s suffered every inconvenience imaginable. Mum plays in the worst conditions imaginable. Their uncles, Gran, and Grandpa can tolerate extremes, James can hold his own against the elements and so can Lily – and Al has himself wrapped up in a comforter, and no doubt a mountain of sheets and blankets underneath it, and he’s in a heated house. Ridiculous.

“C’mon, Al,” James sighs loudly, coming fully into the room. “‘S Christmas. Time for gifts.”

All he gets is an indistinct whine as Al rolls onto his side.

“Come on, Al,” James says again. “It’s noon already and everyone’s waiting for you.”

Al whines again and adjusts his covers.

“This isn’t funny, Al.” James huffs as he strides over to the bed, hands on his hips, just like Gran. “Lily and I would like to have a proper Christmas, you know. And we’re not allowed to ‘til you get up.”
“Go ‘way,” Al groans, rolling onto his other side.
“No. It’s noon. Time to get out of bed.”
“’m tired.”
“So? It’s Christmas.”
“Tell Mum and Dad to open gifts without me.”
“Because Mum will honestly let us do that.” Rolling his eyes, James goes to the other side of the bed. “Come on, you lazy prat. Up. Don’t make me use magic to get you out of here.”
“Leave me alone, y’pillock,” he whines, rolling over again. “’m sick.”
“That sympathy trick isn’t going to work on me, Al. Get up.”
“‘m sore.”
“And I’m going to use magic to get you out of here if you don’t come yourself.”
“Go away!”
“You’ve got ‘til three. One.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Two.”
“James!”
“Three!”

James has never been one for making empty threats. Apparently, parents like to do it, hoping that fear will be enough to keep their kids in line, but he has no use for beating around the bush. As such, he doesn’t wait to take out his wand and point it right at Al’s sheets. Calling out an, “Accio,” he Summons the comforter off Al’s bed. Of course there are more blankets than Al needs underneath, and James Summons those off too, leaving Al in his pyjama bottoms and one of his sweaters from Gran. …A sweater? Honestly? Where does he think they are, Antarctica? Well, he’s already curling up from cold, so maybe taking it would qualify as cruel, but, then again, he’s behaving like a little prat. And, when children misbehave, children get punished. Al’s not of age just yet, and his behavior isn’t that of an adult. Ergo, Al must be punished. He whines loudly when James Summons off the sweater, and being without it makes him curl up even more. Although he genuinely doesn’t want to keep going, James Summons off Al’s pyjama bottoms next, adding them on to the growing pile of his stuff; he still won’t budge. Rolling his eyes at just how stupid this all is, James takes drastic measures and Summons off Al’s t-shirt.

And then, he has to stop. He catches the shirt by virtue of reflex alone. He’s not at all surprised by how Al’s pale skin stands out in sharp contrast against his dark green sheets and dark green short pants; Al’s always been pale, like Uncle Percy, and neither of them get out that much, so the matching shades of their skin make sense. What is surprising though is how Al looks. No wonder everyone’s been thinking that he’s ill: he’s so skinny that he has to have something. His elbows are bony, and his knees stick out, and James can tell that his legs are only touching when they do because he’s forcing them together. It’s all James can do to keep from getting sick when he notices Al’s ribs, and then he has to go and sit up; his face is, if anything, even worse than the rest of his body. Even though he’s been sleeping, his eyes look like he’s been up all night, and his cheeks are sunken in. James has seen kids in the Hospital Wing look better than Al does, and the pictures of the prat when he had Dragon Pox at eight look healthier; wordlessly, James flings the shirt back at him.

“What’s that for?!” he groans.
“Put your shirt back on,” James tells him, running for the door.
“Don’t bloody give me orders-”
“Mum!”

It doesn’t take long for the whole family to be in Al’s room, with Dad looking him over, peering down his throat and checking his temperature and all that rubbish. Mum and Lily look sick to death, fretting over Al and asking what they can get him. And all Al’s really doing is insisting that he just has a cold and he doesn’t need a trip to Saint Mungo’s.

And James just hangs back by Al’s bedroom door, watching the scene between the other four unfold. He sees what happens, and he vaguely hears everyone’s words, but he has an almost inhuman detachment from everything that’s going on. All he can think about is how thin Al’s gotten. Of course, he knew that Al lost weight; no one got to do anything without hearing about that, especially not James, who also got the threat of being taken on by Slytherin’s new star Seeker – but, for Merlin’s sake, he thought Al stopped. He should’ve stopped; he’s downright skeletal by now. He made a big scene at Halloween about how he was stopping, and now, with a little make-up or some charm-work, he could pass for an Inferius. James is wracking his brain to remember when this happened, but all he’s coming up with is a memory from summer. It isn’t even a distinct one, just the sound of his own voice and all the times that he taunted Al.

He knows Al’s sensitive – he knew it over the summer. He knew, or should’ve known, what mocking him would do.

He’s done this to his brother. And he’s a sodding Gryffindor.