Going back to the Manor feels a lot like admitting defeat, but that alone isn't enough to change his mind. He hasn't told Al. He hasn't even left a note—he wouldn't know what to say anyway, when it's all been said before and this is as much his fault as it is Al's.

"Scorpius?" The note of surprise in his father's voice sends a pang of guilt straight through his heart. He's been neglecting them—unconsciously but, all the same, he shouldn't have.

"Hello, Father."

"I didn't know you were coming for a visit," his father says. "Your mother will be delighted when she hears, I'm sure. Let me go find her."

"No!" His mother would take one look at him and know, she would hold him and tell him everything would work out in the end, and then he'd fall apart. It's been hard enough, keeping it together this long. "There's no need to trouble her now. I planned on staying for a while, if that's all right."

If he may. If they'll still have him.

His father blinks, then frowns. "Of course it is; this is still your home."

Scorpius tries a smile, but he can tell from his father's narrowed eyes that he's not making a very good job of it.

"What has he done?" his father wants to know. Not, What happened? Scorpius wonders momentarily how much of that is his father's timeless dislike for the Potters speaking, and how much he's actually guessed right. Scorpius has never told him, but he suspects, now and again, his father knows far more than he lets on.

He clears his throat. "I'd prefer not to talk about it."

He's entirely unprepared for his father's arms to close around him—his father has never been the most tactile person—and it makes him realise, rather sullenly, he really must look like crap.

"I knew it, I knew I shouldn't have let you—"

"Don't," Scorpius cuts him off mid-sentence. His father should never have to blame himself for letting Scorpius make his own mistakes. Scorpius is no longer a child. He appreciates that he's been given that much freedom, and he'll own up to his choices. "I moved in with Al because I wanted to. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

He doesn't add, And now I'm moving out because I couldn't handle it, but he reckons that's implicit.

He sees Al a few days later, when he shows up unexpectedly at the Manor.

By then, Scorpius' life consists largely of reading, eating meals with his parents and sleeping, and being occasionally glad no one has pushed him for answers.

Whenever he needs new books from the library, he Apparates directly from inside the house—the gardens are to be avoided at all costs; Al once mentioned he liked them.

He has, much to his mother's immense dismay, thrown sheets over every painting in his wing of the Manor, and started taking absurd detours when forced to venture outside it—all in the hope of avoiding Headmaster Snape's portrait because, while Al might not like this, it's still his namesake. He hasn't been flying—and he loves flying, but then again, so does Al.

He won't even play the piano—which Al can't actually do, but he's always loved listening to Scorpius, and Scorpius can't control what his mind chooses to throw at him when he lays his fingers on the black and white keys.

He thinks he could, by now, make a list of all the things Al loves and call it accurate. He just doesn't know if his name will ever make that list.

"Albus Severus is here to see you," his mother tells him, from where she's leaning against the door frame.

"Tell him to sod off and die."

"Language," she chides, but her lips twitch. "Besides, your father may have done that already, all to no avail I'm afraid. Albus Severus insists he won't leave until you agree to talk to him."

Scorpius glares down at his book before slamming it shut. "Fine. Where is he?"

"Still loitering in the parlour, I expect."

"Fine," he says again, more to give himself courage that anything else.

He finds his father pacing like a caged Kneazle by the door to the parlour.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks, eyeing Scorpius warily. "I could always hex Harry Potter's doppelgänger there into next week, and the Ministry would be none the wiser."

Scorpius rolls his eyes at the wishful smirk on his face. His father has been calling Al that ever since he first saw Al, standing on Platform 9¾, when both Scorpius and Al were first years. He's the only one to still find it funny.

"You'd love to, wouldn't you?"

"Can't say I have never considered it," his father admits.

"I'll be fine, Father, really." Scorpius takes a deep breath and, when it looks like his father might disagree, adds, "Talking to him is hardly going to kill me."

His father gives the door a level look, before nodding stiffly. "Go on, then. The sooner he's dealt with, the sooner he'll be off my property."

Al looks up with a half-smile when Scorpius steps into the room. He looks oddly subdued, his eyes red-rimmed and shockingly haunted, and his hair messier than it's been in ages; Scorpius badly wants to hug him, but he catches himself, clenching his fists by his sides.

"I figured you'd be hiding here," Al says.

Scorpius shrugs. "It is home, after all."

"Is it, now?" Al's eyes narrow. "See, I thought that might have changed when I asked you to move in with me."

"I can't do that anymore, Al," he says wearily. "Trust me, I've tried. It fucking hurt."

For a moment there, he almost expects Al to gloat—because this thing between them, this was Scorpius' arrangement after all; he was the one to suggest it in the first place, and Al did warn him it wouldn't end well—but Al does no such thing. Al just stands there mutely, looking very, very small, and very scared.

"I don't like to hurt you," he says at last.

Scorpius laughs grimly. "Could've bought that."

"It's true, I'm just—"

"I just don't think friends with benefits will ever work for me." Scorpius folds his arms across his chest, tearing his eyes away from how Al's t-shirt clings to his shoulders, outlining the taut muscles underneath. It won't do to get distracted now.

"I guessed as much when you vanished in the middle of the night, yes," Al says bitingly. "Merlin, you could have saidsomething. I was worried out of my mind. I thought there may have been and accident, I thought you—"

"I couldn't tell you," Scorpius says. "If I had, I wouldn't have left."

The ensuing silence is tense, almost unbearably so. Scorpius feels compelled to break it.

"I'm always going to want more, Al. I'm sorry."

"I know that." Al is closer now, and Scorpius can smell wood and smoke on him—probably from the wands, his mind helpfully supplies. It's still light outside; Al likely came straight from work. "But I don't want to lose you."

"For fuck's sake, it doesn't have to come to that. We can still be friends." Scorpius swallows thickly. "I can do that, okay? I just need the mixed signals to stop. Stop touching me, stop kissing me, definitely stop petting me. I don't know what to make of that, it's too..." Hard, confusing, frustrating. "I keep getting mixed up."

Al bites his lip, looking chagrined. "I'm not sure I want that to stop."

"Well, figure it out then," Scorpius snaps. "What exactly is it you want from me? Don't you think I deserve to know at least that much? You already know what I want; I've told you plenty of times. And now you know I'm also willing to go back to being just friends. So sort your crap out, Al. It's your choice to make, but you need to make one. I'm not going back until you do."

Al shakes his head, looking for a moment like he's going to object, but eventually says, "Fair enough."

And just like that, he's gone.

Two more weeks go by before Scorpius next sees Al, and this time, Al doesn't chance going to the Manor. He corners Scorpius at the library instead, and for a single bewildering moment, Scorpius wonders why Al is there at all, and not at work as he should be, and just how long he's been milling about waiting for Scorpius to show up.

"Please, please come back," Al begs, trailing behind him like a stray Crup, "I'll do anything."

Scorpius snorts. "No, you won't. What happened to not dating me?"

"Are you seriously planning to extort me into dating you?"

"Of course not, you bleeding imbecile." Scorpius rolls his eyes. "I'm merely calling you out on your lies."

"Good." Al glares. "Because I would, you know. But relationships end."

"So do friendships! You're looking at things all wrong!" It comes out much louder than Scorpius intended, and he looks around in a bit of a panic, because this is still a library and whatnot. And naturally, now everyone is staring at him not having a lover's quarrel with his non-famous not-boyfriend—who just happens to look enough like the Boy Who Defeated the Dark Lord Twice to fail sorely at being inconspicuous—in a place entirely too public, and entirely too crowded not to be awkward.

They even have the gall to look interested.

"Please don't leave me, please," Al says under his breath. "It gets awfully lonely without you." His face looks ashen.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'd never do that."

Scorpius can feel the librarian's glare boring into the back of his head, and he mentally waves goodbye to that tome on ancient Greek Seers, the one he besought her to borrow from the Restricted Section for him. He'll just have to go to Hogwarts himself and hope that, as farfetched as it seems, Madam Pince no longer recalls the tragic incident with The Dream Oracle and the malfunctioning Self-Writing Quill.

"Wouldn't you?" asks Al. "The way I see it, you already have."

"For a while, you useless sod, not forever!" Scorpius' words echo in the deafening silence. His cheeks burn when someone actually shushes him from one of the tables. He lowers his voice to a whisper. "You know my terms. I'll go back once you tell me what exactly I'm going back to. I thought I'd made that clear."

"Oh, you did, but how do I know you won't change your mind if I take too long? It's not like you can promise, is it?"

"I will go back eventually, and I can bloody well promise if I want to. Merlin, Al, how long have we been friends? How could you honestly think I'd just up and leave, and never be seen again?"

"Because it's scary," Al murmurs.

"Lots of things are. You can't go through life avoiding them all." Unsurprisingly, his mind chooses that very moment to point out that, for the past few weeks, Scorpius has done nothing but.

Suddenly, his choice of phrasing seems downright cringe-worthy.

Al shakes his head faintly. "You don't understand."

Al's fingers close around Scorpius' wrist. There's the insistent pressure of Side-Along all around him, a sickening ripple and, a moment later, when Scorpius staggers back into existence, they're both standing in their flat.

"Thanks ever so much for the warning," Scorpius says crisply.

"I'm sorry. It's just, there's something I need to tell you and... To be honest, it's going to be hard enough without the nosy onlookers."

"Well? I'm waiting."

"You were in the hospital wing when we studied Boggarts in Defence. You've never actually seen mine."

Scorpius blinks, trying not to look too unsettled by the sudden change of setting, of topic, of mood. After a lengthy pause, he says, "You told me it was a Dementor," because he's almost certain that's true, even if it was so long ago the details are now fuzzy.

"I lied." Al shrugs. "It wasn't a Dementor, that's dad's Boggart. Mine was you."

"I was your greatest fear." The sheer absurdity of that statement startles a laugh out of Scorpius—which is apparently the wrong thing to do, because now Al's face is clouding over.

"You, saying you hated me. Saying you never wanted to see my face again."

Scorpius stares, a million thoughts flying about in his head, because that was in third year, that was before sixth year on the Quidditch pitch and Al's lips on his, before sharing a flat and shagging, before slipping in and out of pain but never out of love, before everything, and maybe...

"Is that why you never wanted anything with me?"

"Oh, I'd say there were plenty of things I wanted from you, actually," Al says evasively.

"You know what I meant."

"Yeah, I do." There's a slow nod. A deep breath. "And it was. I thought as long as I kept you at a distance, I'd get to—" Al pauses, and Scorpius thinks, what a pair they must make, never getting anything right between them. "Well, to keep you. It sounds silly and selfish, but there you have it. And you have to believe me when I say I never meant to hurt you. I'm truly sorry I did."

"It's all right, Al. I survived, didn't I?"

"It's not all right." Al's eyes are wide with dread—the vivid green now dark, a shadow of its former self. He stands stiffly, his clenched fists frozen by his sides. Scorpius wonders if he's still breathing. "I just— you were everything to me, and when you told me you loved me... We were so young. I was so terrified. I couldn't bear to let you get that close, only to have you move on when you finally grew bored of me, or something. That's why I never gave you a chance. But I did want to. Merlin, there's nothing I wanted more."

Scorpius' heart skips a beat at Al's words. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because I still want that. And I don't want to be that person anymore," Al says in a rush.

"Okay." It's barely a whisper. Scorpius can feel the hope blooming in the way his chest feels tight, his throat dry. "What is it you want to be, then?"

"Yours." Al licks his lips. When he finally meets Scorpius' eyes, there's a little red in his cheeks. "If you'll still have me. In some ways, I think I've always been yours. And this time, I think it should be for real. I think I'm ready now."

"About time," Scorpius says with a small smile, just because he can.

Al shakes his head. "I love you, you wanker."

Scorpius bites his lip to keep himself from grinning like a loon, and wisely doesn't say, It's about time you admitted to that too. He does think it, though. He thinks it again and again, but what he actually says is, "I love you, too."