Chapter Text
Albus Potter had never imagined adulthood as something grand or extraordinary. He didn’t crave fame or chaos or some heroic storyline—his family had already given him a lifetime supply of all that. What he wanted, though he rarely admitted it even to himself, was something quieter. A life built on calm mornings and predictable routines, the comfort of knowing exactly how his day would unfold. Maybe he’d go to class, maybe grab a couple of beers with friends if he had the energy, but mostly he just wanted things simple. Steady. Manageable.
And Scorpius Malfoy had always fit into that version of life without ever needing to be invited into it. There was nothing flashy about it. It wasn’t a revelation or a moment of clarity. It was just… constant. The kind of constant that slipped into Albus’s life so gradually he didn’t realize how much he relied on it until years later, when the idea of making decisions without considering Scorpius felt strange. Wrong, even.
So when Hogwarts ended and adulthood showed up awkwardly at their doorstep, they didn’t decide to live together.
They simply didn’t decide not to.
It happened the same way everything between them happened: quietly, without ceremony, slipping into place as if the choice had been made years earlier.
One afternoon in the Potter kitchen, Albus was scrolling through flat listings with all the enthusiasm of someone reading tax documents.
Without looking up, he muttered “Flat viewing on Friday at five. Total crap hole near Euston. D’you reckon you can make it?”
Scorpius didn’t even glance away from the parchment he was annotating for magical law apprenticeship applications.
“Five works. Are we taking the Tube or the Floo?”
And that was the entire conversation that determined the next several years of their lives.
Except the “crap hole near Euston” never stood a chance. Draco Malfoy took one look at the listing—Albus would swear on Merlin it was literally one—and declared, in a tone so perfectly Malfoy it deserved to be placed in a museum, that his only son would not be living in “a shitty little place like some average muddy college student with no clear focus in his life.”
Albus rolled his eyes so hard he nearly strained something. But he didn’t refuse when Draco offered—insisted—to pay the deposit on a much larger, brighter, frankly gorgeous two-bedroom in a cozy Muggle neighborhood known for bakeries, dog-walkers, aggressively wholesome brunch culture, and far too many cool bars.
(Albus absolutely did not gush about the natural light in the kitchen. He only admitted—once, under duress—that it was “fine.”)
The location ended up being perfect. Albus was studying two majors—Business and Gastronomy—at a Muggle university because, apparently, one degree wasn’t chaotic enough. His dream was to open a café someday, somewhere he could bake in peace and occasionally enchant a pastry to cure heartbreak or ease stress.
Scorpius had gotten into an extremely competitive magical law program. He wanted to specialize in Quidditch law—represent players, negotiate contracts, maybe work for the English Quidditch Association. It fit him in a way nothing else ever had: sharp, principled, impossibly dedicated, and a little too competitive for someone who claimed he “didn’t care about winning.”
Their flat sat right between their two worlds, two Tube stops from Albus’s campus and a fifteen-minute walk from the wizarding legal district.
It was home.
Their home.
They already knew each other’s rhythms. Seven years at Hogwarts and two in their flat had practically turned them into a single, oddly functional unit.
The truth was simple:
They’d been living together for half their lives without even realizing it.
It was a normal thursday night, and the flat smelled of buttered toast and parchment ink—an aroma Albus associated with safety, routine, and Scorpius Malfoy existing peacefully within arm’s reach.
Scorpius sat pretzel-legged at the far end of the sofa—an elegant academic pretzel—with a thick Magical Law textbook open across his lap. The lamplight softened everything about him, turning his blond hair into molten gold. A quill hung from the corner of his mouth, wobbling with every turn of a page. It was an atrocious habit for someone aiming to become a lawyer, but Albus didn’t mention it.
He rarely commented on anything Scorpius did. Mostly because he liked Scorpius exactly as he was.
Albus lounged at the opposite end, half-watching a cooking show he’d put on the TV out of obligation to their thursday study night tradition. These nights were routine. Quiet. Predictable. Their favorite kind of silence—the shared kind, not the lonely kind.
“Al?” Scorpius murmured without looking up.
Albus answered with a hum, the verbal equivalent of a shrug.
“Can you move closer?”
Albus shifted without thought, sliding across the cushions until their shoulders nearly brushed. The warmth that radiated off Scorpius seeped into him instantly—familiar, grounding, the emotional equivalent of sinking under a soft blanket.
“Better?” Albus asked.
Scorpius didn’t respond. His hand lifted—steady, gentle—and slipped into Albus’s hair.
Albus let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. Not startled. Not embarrassed. Just relieved, like the world had subtly fallen into the correct shape. Some knot behind his ribs loosened as his spine curved into the cushions, his whole body quieting under the touch he didn’t even register as unusual anymore.
Scorpius’s fingers traced slow, absentminded circles across his scalp—the same pattern he’d used since they were eleven. Back then, it had been nerves. Scorpius grounding himself on the nearest safe object. The nearest safe object had always been Albus.
Ritual became instinct.
Instinct became habit.
And habit became something Albus never questioned. Everyone had quirks, he figured.
“Scorpius,” he murmured, eyes closed. “You nervous about tomorrow?”
A soft hum vibrated through the air. “A bit. The exam counts for a ridiculous percentage of the final grade.”
Albus cracked one eye open, studying Scorpius with a lazy sort of affection. “I can tell—you’re doing it again.”
Scorpius frowned without looking up. “Doing what?”
Albus gestured vaguely above his head. “The hair thing.”
Scorpius blinked, as if coming out of a trance, and glanced down at his hand like it had betrayed him.
“Oh. Right.” He began to pull away. “Sorry—habit.”
Before the hand could retreat, Albus’s own rose in reflex, fingers curling around Scorpius’s wrist.
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s fine. Helps you concentrate, right?”
Something softened in Scorpius’s face—something small, almost imperceptible, something warm. His shoulders eased. That unspoken warmth flickered unmistakably in his eyes before he resumed the motion, slower now, almost careful.
Albus felt himself melt back into the sofa.
A comfortable, intimate quiet settled over the flat—the kind of silence that belonged only to them. The TV buzzed softly. Scorpius murmured legal terms under his breath. And Albus felt warm and safe and inexplicably anchored, as though nothing outside these walls required his attention.
At some point, he drifted off. One moment, Scorpius’s fingers were threading through his hair; the next, a familiar blanket smelling faintly of lavender detergent settled over his shoulders. He felt the ghost of a breath near his temple. A soft exhale. Then the gentle click of Scorpius’s bedroom door closing at the end of the hall.
And Albus slept.
Deeply.
Trustingly.
As if the world made perfect sense exactly like this.
Morning sunlight crept across the sofa in a slow, lazy sweep, warming Albus’s cheek until he blinked awake beneath the familiar weight of Scorpius’s blanket. His neck throbbed in protest from sleeping at the wrong angle, but the flat was quiet in the way he liked—soft, lived-in, unbothered by the outside world.
His phone buzzed once on the coffee table, the vibration oddly loud in the stillness.
Had to leave early for a study session.
Will be late tonight.
Thank you for keeping me focused last night.
A small smile tugged at Albus’s mouth, the kind that never appeared when people were watching. He pushed himself upright, folded the blanket over the arm of the sofa, and slipped into his morning routine. Shower. Coffee. Toast. Nearly tripped over the water bottle Scorpius had abandoned by the sink—because of course he had—and muttered a half-hearted insult that held more affection than annoyance.
By the time he stepped out into the sharp air outside his building, he was back in the world he knew how to navigate: the muggle campus with its concrete blocks, hoodie-layered students, and eternal queues for mediocre coffee. A place where nobody cared about the Potters, where nobody checked his last name before talking to him.
Here, he was just Albus.
Tired. Under-caffeinated. Almost always late.
Human.
Economics, however, was determined to kill him.
The lecture dragged on in a monotone so flat he was convinced the professor had been assembled from spare cardboard. Graphs blended together, terminology blurred, and Albus felt himself drifting out of his own skull several times just to survive.
When class finally spat him out into the courtyard, the sun felt too bright and his brain too fried. That was when he spotted his muggle friends—the accidental group he’d collected in first-year Marketing. He’d only meant to do a single project with them. Then they’d made him laugh. Then they’d fed him terrible pizza. Then he just… kept them.
They were loud and chaotic and somehow comforting. Jeremy was already waving him over—tall, sandy-haired, buzzing with the exact hyperactive energy that James radiated naturally. It annoyed and amused Albus in equal measure. Apparently the universe found it hilarious to supply him with James-coded people in both worlds.
Albus didn’t know why he and Jeremy worked so well together. They just did.
“Dude, you look like death,” Jeremy announced. “Economics kill your soul again?”
“Multiple times,” Albus said. “I think I astral-projected out of my body for the last forty minutes.”
“That’s normal,” one of the girls said, patting his shoulder. “We’ve all been there.”
They drifted toward the campus café. Jeremy immediately began reenacting the lecture with dramatic monotone impressions and wildly inaccurate graph gestures. Albus snorted into his iced coffee hard enough to choke.
Then his phone buzzed.
Text by James.
A quiet, involuntary tension pulled at Albus’s shoulders—subtle, but enough that Jeremy caught it instantly. The guy had the observational skills of a suspicious cat.
“Your face just died,” Jeremy said. “Who texted you? Scorpius finally told you you’re not his favorite human being or something like that?”
Albus blinked. “What? No— it’s my brother,” he sighed, already bracing himself for whatever chaos James Potter had decided to unleash.
“Oh, I love that dude!” Jeremy declared, way too enthusiastically. “Always the best party when he’s in town.” He paused, taking in Albus’s look of dread mixed with early-onset exhaustion. “I mean… less cool than you, obviously.”
Albus rolled his eyes. “Stop flattering me. He is cool—he’s just an idiot. And too much.”
Another buzz. Another message. Albus read it, and something in his stomach dropped.
“Shit,” he muttered. “He’s actually here. I’m ditching beers tonight—he wants to meet now.”
“Tell us if you guys go out later!” Jeremy called after him.
But Albus was already walking away, waving to the rest of the group as he typed frantically—because calling James would only speed up his death.
Why on earth are you at my uni, you idiot?!
The reply arrived before he even reached the corner.
I miss you, baby brother!
Albus groaned loud enough to earn stares.
He followed the pinned location and nearly stopped in his tracks.
James Potter was impossible to miss. Even in the muggle world. He wasn’t doing anything—just leaning against a brick wall—but he looked like he’d been professionally placed there for a photoshoot. Tousled hair, easy grin, broad Quidditch-sculpted shoulders. A small crowd had gathered around him as if he produced his own gravity field.
“Do you model?”
“Are you an actor?”
“What’s your Instagram?”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Can I get your number?”
He hadn’t even opened his mouth and yet people flocked to him.
Albus wanted to walk into traffic.
When James spotted him, his entire face lit up. “There you are, Bubu!”
“Never call me that in public,” Albus hissed, mortified.
But James only looked delighted. Then—because he physically could not behave normally—he threw an arm around Albus’s shoulders, dipped in a ridiculous half-bow, and told the onlookers.
“Sorry, everyone! Family emergency. My baby brother needs me.”
“I do NOT,” Albus whispered furiously as James dragged him away.
People actually waved goodbye. One filmed them. Someone tried to follow. The moment they turned the corner, Albus smacked James’s arm.
“Can you be normal for ONE minute?”
James blinked at him with the innocence of someone who had never been normal a day in his life. “I am normal.”
“You attract strangers just by existing.”
“I’m friendly,” James insisted, tightening his arm around Albus like he was steering a toddler.
Albus narrowed his eyes. “Why are you here? I didn’t know you were in London.”
“I told you—I missed you.” James beamed. “So I’m taking you to dinner. Proper dinner on me. No arguing.”
Albus opened his mouth to protest, but the argument fizzled out before it reached his tongue.
Because beneath the chaos and theatrics, James was here for him. And Albus—Merlin help him—had missed him too.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, rolled his eyes for dignity’s sake, and muttered:
“Fine. But I’m ordering the most expensive thing on the menu.”
The restaurant James chose was the kind of place Albus only ever saw in movies—movies starring people who ironed their shirts, said things like darling, and could identify six types of wine glasses on sight.
Crystal chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, scattering warm gold across velvet seats and silver cutlery arranged with military precision. Even the menus were dramatic—thick as textbooks, embossed in gold lettering that felt ridiculous between Albus’s ink-stained, calloused fingers.
He sat there in jeans and a hoodie, painfully aware of how much he didn’t fit in. He looked less like a customer and more like someone who’d wandered in through the back door delivering produce.
Meanwhile, James looked like he owned the place.
James Potter could step into the middle of a dragon reserve and somehow blend in; this high-end restaurant practically rolled out a red carpet as soon as he entered.
“You could’ve warned me,” Albus muttered, sinking a little deeper into the velvet booth.
James beamed, cheeks faintly pink from shamelessly flirting with every member of the waitstaff.
“You look great. All gorgeous and grumpy as always.”
“I look like I’m here to clean the kitchen,” Albus said flatly.
James ignored him in the way older brothers were built to ignore their siblings—effortlessly, mercilessly—and reached across the table to pile vegetables onto Albus’s plate. Exactly like Harry used to do when they were kids.
“How’s uni?” he asked. Casual. Easy. But beneath it was that undertone James never quite managed to hide with Albus—a softness, a quiet sort of intention that made Albus sit a little straighter without meaning to.
“Good,” Albus answered automatically. Then he paused, fork mid-air, and added—quieter, more real—“Actually… really good.”
James’s expression shifted in that small, almost invisible way only brothers noticed. The tightness near his eyes softened. His shoulders lowered. Something eased in his face—pride, relief, something warm.
“Yeah?” he said gently. “Keeping up with both majors? Not killing yourself? Eating actual meals? Sleeping?”
Albus snorted. “I’m alive, Jamie. Better than alive, actually. I like my classes. I like my professors. I even… like my group.” He shrugged, surprised by how honest he suddenly felt.
“Feels like I’m building something. Slowly. But… something.”
James nodded once—firm, certain—like that alone had been worth the trip to London.
“Good,” he murmured. “I know I don't text enough—don’t glare at me, I’m already ashamed—but I think about you all the time. I’m always wondering if you’re drowning in homework or cooking or forgetting to eat and living off caffeine for three days straight.”
“That happened one time.”
“That I know of,” James said, raising an eyebrow.
Albus kicked him under the table—lightly, mostly because James deserved it. James laughed.
For a few minutes, they ate in easy, companionable quiet. Knives clicked softly against plates; the low hum of expensive conversation floated around them. James kept stealing vegetables off Albus’s plate.
Albus let it happen. Tonight… he didn’t mind.
Eventually James leaned back with a dramatic sigh, the kind that reliably preceded nonsense.
“So,” he said brightly, “do you want to know what happened in my last three months?”
“No.”
“Perfect, I’ll tell you.”
And he did.
James launched into a story with the energy of a Bludger—rambling about Quidditch injuries, chaotic teammates, cursed socks from deranged fans, a disastrous date involving a witch who lectured him about ethical potion ingredients, and a cat who, according to James, followed him across three Apparition hops.
Albus listened like someone watching a thunderstorm from behind glass—half-exasperated, half-amused, quietly fond.
He loved James. Truly. But James was… a lot. So very slowly, very strategically, Albus nudged his drink closer whenever James paused. If James drank more, he talked less. This was a long-proven scientific method.
By dessert, James’s words were beginning to slur around the edges.
By the time they stepped outside, London had already gone dark, clouds glowing faintly around the moon. James stared up at the sky like the moon was looking back lovingly.
“Let’s party!” he declared.
“No.”
“Oh, come on—”
“No, James. You’re wasted.”
“So? That’s—hic—when I’m fun.”
Albus exhaled through his nose. “Where’s your hotel?”
James blinked at the street like it might reveal the answer.
“I didn’t book one.”
Albus stopped. “Why?”
James swayed a little, voice dipping into something softer, something that tugged right behind Albus’s ribs.
“I just wanted to see you,” he murmured. “Lils goes to Barcelona all the time. You never visit. So I thought… I should come to you. And stay with you.”
Albus stared at him for a long moment.
And there it was—that warm, guilty ache in his chest. The one he’d been trying to avoid. The distance he’d put between them lately wasn’t from lack of love—it was just that James burned too bright, too big, too loudly. Albus often felt like a fragile little matchstick held too close.
“…fine,” he said at last, voice softening. “You can stay. But we’re not going out tonight.”
James threw his arms up triumphantly, nearly smacking a streetlamp. “Tomorrow then!”
Albus groaned into his hands. “We’ll see.”
Albus had reached his limit of James Potter–related chaos for the evening, so instead of walking home like a normal person, he grabbed James’s arm and apparated straight into the flat.
They landed in the entryway with a soft thud.
The flat was quiet—the particular kind of quiet that told Albus Scorpius still wasn’t home. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the faint buzz of London drifting through the windows.
Albus flicked on the hallway light, blinking as warm gold filled the space. Behind him, James stumbled in like an exceptionally tall, exceptionally drunk toddler.
Albus crossed the living room, opened the linen cupboard, and tossed a pillow and blanket onto the sofa.
“There. Couch. Goodnight.”
James stared at the sofa as if it had personally betrayed him.
“…Why am I sleeping here? What happened to the guest room?”
Albus blinked, genuinely baffled. “Which guest room? We don’t have a guest room.”
James frowned, turning toward the hallway with the wobbling, suspicious caution of someone trying to remember a detail they were suddenly very unsure about. James was not been there since the housewarming two years ago.
“Then… what’s the second room?” he asked slowly.
Albus followed his line of sight. Two doors.
His room.
Scorpius’s room.
“Oh. That’s Scorpius’s,” he said. “He’s in exam season, so it’s messy as hell. Don’t go in there.” He moved automatically to shut the door before James could get any bright ideas.
But James didn’t move. He just stared at the closed door—quiet, blinking—like something in his worldview had tilted a few degrees.
“So it’s… a study space?” he asked, careful, testing the words.
Albus stared at him. Then at the hallway. Then back at the door.
He genuinely tried to picture Scorpius’s room as James must have imagined it.
There was a desk. A messy one. Parchment, quills, law books, three half-finished mugs of tea, and a plant that had definitely died a few months ago. Clothes everywhere.
“You could say that… yeah,” Albus said finally. “He studies there sometimes.”
James’s shoulders dropped, relief washing over him in a way Albus couldn’t begin to interpret.
“Oh. Right. A study space,” he repeated, nodding too quickly. “Of course. Makes sense. Makes total sense.”
Albus squinted at him. “It’s just his room, James.”
James hummed, still oddly soothed, and Albus shrugged. James was weird sometimes—well, always—and Albus had never seen the point in interrogating it. Especially when he was drunk.
“I need pyjamas,” James mumbled, swaying on his feet.
By the time Albus returned with an oversized T-shirt and joggers, James was already sprawled face-first on the couch, snoring loud enough to vibrate the windowpanes.
Typical.
Albus checked the time—just past eleven—and sighed. Scorpius still wasn’t home. Not unusual. After big exams he always ended up out with his classmates in some pretentious wizarding bar with exposed brick, overpriced drinks, and names like Phoenix Tail Spritz or Firewhisky Noir.
Completely Scorpius-coded.
Albus, meanwhile, chose peace. He decided the only sensible way to survive the night was with a ridiculous number of bubbles and the perfectly rolled joint James had shoved into his hand outside the restaurant.
The bathroom filled with eucalyptus steam, warm and heavy, fogging up the mirror and curling around him. He sank deeper into the tub until only his chest and knees broke the surface. The joint burned in easy, slow pulls, melting every remaining thought into something soft and quiet.
He was drifting—pleasantly, aimlessly—when the front door clicked open. Light footsteps. A coat rustling. Then Scorpius’s voice, warm and amused:
“The flat smells like fancy weed and alcohol. Which can only mean your brother is here.”
Albus cracked one eye open, too relaxed—and too high—to care that he was mostly naked in a tub. (Thank Merlin for the dramatic amount of bubbles.)
“Your powers of deduction are terrifying,” he said.
Scorpius leaned against the doorway, letting it fall half-closed behind him. The sight wasn’t unusual; Scorpius wandered into the bathroom when Albus bathed the same way some people wandered into kitchens. It had become its own domestic ritual—Scorpius brushing his teeth, sitting on the floor to talk through a reading, giving Albus updates about classmates he’d never meet. Their lives overlapped without permission or planning, folding together in ways neither questioned.
The dim light caught in Scorpius’s blond hair, turning the ends silver. His cheeks were pink from the cold, his shoulders loose with exhaustion, but his eyes—bright, steady—made something warm unfurl in Albus’s chest.
“You didn’t tell me he was coming,” Scorpius said, holding out a hand toward the joint. No accusation. Just curiosity.
Albus passed it over without thinking.
Scorpius took a long, practiced drag, exhaled upward, then tapped the ash neatly into the sink before handing it back.
“I didn’t know,” Albus said, watching as Scorpius folded himself onto the floor beside the tub with that effortless Malfoy elegance. He tilted his head until it rested lightly against the porcelain near Albus’s arm.
“He woke up today with some sort of… brotherly crisis. Flew here. Bought me fancy dinner. Gave me this.” Albus wiggled the joint. “He’s probably dying and hasn’t told me yet.”
A soft smile tugged at Scorpius’s mouth. “Pretty sure he just missed you. You’ve always been his weak point.”
That warm flutter in Albus’s stomach returned—unwelcome, unexamined, stubborn.
“What about your exam?” he asked, letting his head tip back until their temples nearly touched.
“Went well,” Scorpius said, passing the joint back. “Easier than I expected.”
Albus groaned. “You’re unbearable when you say things like that. If I were your classmate, I’d despise you. You walk out smiling while everyone else dies emotionally. I hope they make you drink until you pass out on the pavement and a stray dog pees on you.”
Scorpius laughed—bright, warm, unfairly pretty.
“My classmates don’t hate me. They actually like me.”
“Shame,” Albus muttered.
Silence settled—soft, familiar. They shared the joint in slow turns, wrapped in steam and that strange, peaceful closeness that only existed between them.
Scorpius’s eyes drifted shut, the exhaustion in his face easing at last. Without the world watching him, he looked younger. Softer. Real. Albus let himself watch for a moment, just a breath. High and warm and relaxed, he stopped filtering what slipped out of his mouth.
“Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to live with you,” he murmured, voice lazy and honest. “It’s nice.”
Scorpius blinked his eyes open—slow, heavy-lidded—and his smile softened, loose at the edges.
“I’m the lucky one,” he murmured, voice dipping into a warm slur.
He lingered there, gaze drifting over Albus like he was memorizing something without trying to. Then he pushed himself up in a long stretch, shoulders rolling, limbs unfolding with that unfair grace he kept even when half-stoned.
“I’m exhausted, and the joint really hit me.” He sighed. “Going to bed.”
He paused, gaze flicking over Albus one more time—softer than the steam curling around them.
“Don’t stay too long—you’ll freeze when the water cools.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Albus hummed.
Scorpius snorted—fond, familiar—and padded out of the bathroom, leaving the door half open the way he always did.
As if the flat wasn’t divided into two bedrooms at all, but into one shared life they drifted through without ever fully parting. A home they lived in separately—and somehow not separately at all.
At the end it was a good Friday, much better that Albus expected, but what Albus didn’t know—what he couldn’t possibly have known—was that this would be the last quiet, steady, predictable night of his life. And if there was anyone to blame for the disaster that was about to upend his entire existence, it was that black-haired, sleepy-eyed moron he’d known since birth—because nothing good ever came from James Potter being involved.
End Chapter 1