Two Little Cousins

Disclaimer: Characters property of wealthy and powerful entities who just left them lying about for the destitute fanfiction writer to play with.

Scorpius struggled through the corridors of the Hogwarts Express, unwilling to leave his trunk unattended in the luggage area. He clung to its handle and thought of his teddy bear and plush jarvey tucked away inside. It wasn't a very large trunk, and Father had cast a good Featherweight Charm on it. Scorpius saw no need to leave Mr. Mouse and Rudy alone somewhere.

Of course, that didn't make the item any easier to maneuver, nor did it free up any space in a compartment. Every window he looked into either revealed benches crowded with children his own age or an assortment of older students. He supposed that it was theoretically possible to squeeze into one of the latter, but he quailed at the idea of trying to introduce himself to a bunch of teenagers...or to anyone, really.

If only they hadn't given me such an old-fashioned name, Scorpius thought miserably. How did Cousin Teddy dodge that hex? He spent a few useless seconds wishing that Cousin Teddy were not so old and done with school already. Granted, he wasn't any fun anymore once he turned thirteen, but at least he wouldn't let anyone hex me.

Scorpius backed slowly into the next carriage, trying to make sure that his trunk would follow him through both sets of doors. He felt somewhat a traitor to his future owl for thinking so, but it occurred to him that it might be just as well he didn't have an owl cage to deal with.

Suddenly, something struck him between the shoulder blades. He yelped in surprise and a minor amount of pain.

"Oi, what's this?"

Scorpius spun to find himself face-to-elbow with an older boy...a boy with ominously flame-colored hair. Scorpius held his breath and braced himself for imminent doom, but the other boy merely looked down at him with mild irritation before sticking his head back through an open compartment door.

"Come ON, James, let's go. Bloody train is crawling with firsties. I'm tripping over them out here. Literally."

"Mum and Dad said I can't leave Rosie and Al by themselves," came a complaining voice from inside the compartment.

A third male voice chimed in with, "They're not by themselves..."

"...they're together," a fourth boy finished. Scorpius glanced around the sharp-elbowed redhead to see identical boys with long, brown, straggly-looking hair and off-puttingly-huge gray eyes. They blinked said eyes and studied Scorpius with apparent curiosity. It gave him the odd feeling of being a tiny creature under one of Mum's micro-ocular devices.

"Well..." The voice of the unseen boy wavered.

Still another male voice, this one younger and if possible, even more disgruntled than the one that presumably belonged to James, issued from the compartment. "We aren't babies that need a minder. Take him with you, Louis...and keep him."

"He's got to leave the compartment first. NOW would be a great time." The redhead, possibly named Louis (and possibly one of the Weasleys about whom Scorpius had been vaguely warned) crossed his arms and tapped his wand against his shoulder. A couple of sparks hissed from the end.

"Sorry, but m-may...may I j-just get through? The other c-carriage is full," Scorpius asked. Oh, God. I thought I wasn't going to stutter any more. Can I go home? There's no shame in being a Squib...right?

Another head of red hair belonging to a boy who was shorter and somehow more rambunctious-looking than the first, popped out of the compartment. He fixated on Scorpius. "Hey, I think it's that Malfoy kid." The boy grinned in a way that wasn't exactly mean, but which Scorpius nonetheless disliked. "Why don't you get in our compartment and give my runty brother Slytherin lessons?"

An angry female voice shouted, "JAMES! Uncle Harry SAID..." at the same time as the young male voice shouted, "SOD OFF you vast git!'

Before Scorpius could properly assimilate this, he was shoved unceremoniously into the compartment by the aforementioned James, who instantly took off with Louis and a protesting owl flapping about in its bouncing cage.

"I say..." Scorpius began, but by the time he turned there was no one to address save his trunk, which the twins pushed in behind him (slightly more gently than James had treated his person) before likewise escaping. With considerable trepidation, Scorpius turned to discover the other occupants of the compartment.

The first thing that Scorpius noticed, to his mixed consternation and relief, was that there was only one redhead. Her hair wasn't even that red compared to Louis and James. He recalled Grandmother and Aunt Andromeda going on once about a shade called auburn being popular and decided this must be it. However, she looked quite agitated, which he was beginning to think was the default emotional state for people of that hair color range. He supposed she was of about his own age; he didn't have much contact with witches younger than Mum to compare.

The compartment's other occupant was a boy of Scorpius' own size and build...remarkably so...with (mercifully) black hair that rather resembled the aftermath of a whirlwind. His eyes were a startling shade of green, and there was something familiar about him. Neither of them acknowledged Scorpius' presence.

"I ought to go after James and give him a piece of my mind," the girl said. Her arms were crossed and her tone of voice matched.

"Give over, Rosie," the boy said. He seemed to have used up his ire on the boy named James. He rubbed his hair, exacerbating the chaos. "Did you really want James stinking up our compartment all the way to school?"

"Well, no," she admitted reluctantly, "but he was given a responsibility. It's the principle of the thing."

Scorpius thought that he should say something. He simply couldn't figure out whether to attempt to introduce himself or to excuse himself, or whether it would be rude to interrupt them to do either.

The black-haired boy seemed to notice Scorpius for the first time. "Oh. Hello," he said. He tilted his head to one side as if trying to see Scorpius better. "Sorry, but... you seem familiar. Have I met you?"

That so closely echoed Scorpius' thought upon seeing the other boy that he was surprised out of his attempt to speak.

"Where are your manners, Al?" Rosie scolded. "You're supposed to introduce yourself."

Al rolled his eyes at her. "Yes, Mum," he said. She narrowed sapphire-colored eyes at him and he sighed. "Best get this over with." The boy stood and offered his hand. "Albus Severus Potter... and no, I don't know what I did to get stuck with two bloody old-fashioned names, and could you please just call me Al?" he finished sheepishly.

Potter. No mystery why he seemed familiar, then. Scorpius' mind flashed tea at Aunt Andromeda's house and images in the newspaper of a man who definitely bore more than a passing resemblance to the boy standing before him. Mr. Potter was terribly important by Grandmother's reckoning. Father and Mum never really spoke of him except to echo Grandmother's opinion that he was quite well-placed and consequently powerful, and Great-Aunt Andromeda's assertion that he was a fine godfather to Teddy.

Scorpius couldn't help but think that it boded well that the first person he properly met was a Potter. Of all Aunt Andromeda's friends, Mr. Potter was both the youngest and the nicest. Just like Mum and Father, he was quite happy to play Gobstones with Scorpius and listen to whatever he had to say.

Scorpius took the offered hand and was pleasantly surprised at its firm warmth. He belatedly hoped that his own hand was thoroughly dry. "Pleased to m-meet you, Al," Damn it, stop stuttering! After all Mum and Dad went through to cure you of it... "I'm Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy... and I feel your pain, and a bit more, since no one's figured out how to shorten it," he dared to joke. For the first time that day he felt a real smile cautiously quirk his lips.

Albus Severus actually laughed, a surprised little hiccup of a sound. Maybe the other boy was nervous, too. Scorpius relaxed a fraction more. "I was afraid Lysander and Lorcan were the only other two who had the old sort of name, and they don't care." He pumped Scorpius' hand once for good measure before letting go. "Though come to that, your name sounds familiar, too."

"Hm-HRMM," Scorpius turned to find Rosie frowning at them...though perhaps a little more at Albus. She'd even re-folded her arms for maximum cranky effect.

"Oh, sorry. Um, Scorpius, this is my cousin, Rose," Albus said, pointing a thumb in the girl's direction.

"You're hopeless," Rose shook her head. "Rose Weasley," she said primly, standing and offering her own hand.

Oh, dear. The first person I meet and actually might like, and they've a Weasley cousin. What to do...

Right.

"Pleased to meet you, Rose," he said, and hoping that 'laying it on thick,' as Mum liked to call it would suffice to stave off impending doom, he quickly lifted her hand and dusted a kiss across the back of it. He dropped it just as quickly and stepped back towards the door...just in case. He looked up to find her face pinking, which actually did make her look a bit like a rose...one with blue dew-drop eyes.

It wasn't until Rose said, "Thank you," in a curiously small voice that Scorpius realized that he'd actually made that observation out loud. He felt heat rise in his own cheeks at having inadvertently complimented a girl. Fortunately, Great-Aunt Andromeda had quite firmly impressed upon him the idea that being silent rarely drew hexes, so he had better sense than to let on that it was an accident.

"I didn't know anyone did that hand-kissing thing anymore," Al remarked. He used the same bemused tone that Mr. Finch-Fletchly did when discovering some antique heretofore unknown, by which Scorpius understood that he'd probably caused some embarrassment with his old-fashioned manners.

In the few awkward moments of silence, Rose recovered well enough to commence correcting her cousin again. Scorpius guessed it was a bit of a hobby with her, rather like Grandmother reading the paper aloud and offering elaborately insulting commentary on either the subjects or the writers of the articles (or both). "Al, you know very well that Daddy mentioned him on the platform."

Al stilled at this, and exchanged glances with Rose that Scorpius couldn't interpret. His heart twinged enviously under his hand-me-down Muggle robe. They had the sort of bond that shut him out, even though he was ostensibly in the conversation. Al bounced back onto the bench seat and hesitated, as if considering something. He gave Scorpius a searching look that hinted at all sorts of thoughts running through his busy-looking head. All he said out loud, however, was, "You can sit down...if you want to, anyway. You coming in here is probably the best idea my brother will have all term." He shot an almost challenging look in Rose's direction as he indicated the space beside him.

"Thank you, I'd like that," Scorpius said, terribly relieved. He began to think that he might survive the trip to school after all.

"Let's get your trunk out of the way, then" Rose said with a hint of resignation. She drew her wand. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The trunk bobbled, bounced up, and ricocheted off the ceiling into the luggage rack.

"Oops," Rose said, turning quite red.

"Well... it didn't leave too much of a dent in the ceiling," Scorpius said diplomatically. He, Al, and Rose studied the damage to the molded tin with varying degrees of consternation.

"Supposedly Uncle George and Uncle Fred once set a compartment on fire on the way to school." Al made his own attempt at consolation. "Does anyone know for certain how to cast 'Reparo?'" Scorpius shook his head. Rose re-crossed her arms and looked at the floor with a decidedly sulky expression.

"I don't know why they don't let us practice at home," Rose said. "It isn't as if we'd have to worry about Aurors poking into our home magic use." The speed with which her mood shifted rivaled Grandfather during molting time, and that was really saying something.

"Yeah we do--difference is we call 'em Dad," Al said, as dry as dry could be.

Scorpius had meant to ask about their wands and what spells they already knew but judged this was not an opportune moment. He felt he ought to say something to keep them from brooding guiltily over the ceiling, though.

Hm. Grownups often talk about mutual acquaintances...

"I met your father at Great-Aunt Andromeda's house. His eyes were just like yours, except for the glasses," he said to Al. As was his hair, Scorpius thought, but he knew grown-ups could be sensitive about hair and decided it would be wiser not to mention it. He wondered why Mr. Potter wore glasses. Thanks to the continuing cleverness of Mum's friend Gus, Scorpius and most other wizards with vision problems had their eyes fixed easily with a combination of spells and Muggle machines.

"Andromeda?" The exclamation came from Al and Rose simultaneously. They both hastened to speak over each other in excitement.

"Wait... then you must be..." Al started.

"...Our Teddy's cousin!" Rose interrupted. She studied Scorpius again, this time with a little less aloofness. Curiosity sparkled in her eyes.

Scorpius stole another glance at Al to find the other boy fairly bouncing in his seat, looking terribly pleased. He evidently didn't mind that Rose had interrupted him. "Dad visits Aunt Andie and Our Teddy often. We used to come along...James and our sister Lily and me, I mean...but not so much since Our Teddy decided he was too old to have fun," Al said the last with a frown. He kicked his heels against the seat.

Rose made a sort of 'Hah!' sound and said, low, "He finds Victoire fun enough." Al wrinkled his nose at this, and Scorpius was once again left in the dark. He rather wished that he had someone...a cousin, a sibling, a best friend...with whom to share inside jokes.

"If only he wasn't so much older," Scorpius said with a sigh. He twiddled the cuff of his short Muggle robe, wondering how old Teddy had been when he had worn it. The sleeves fit Scorpius tolerably well in length, but it was a little wide. And trousers! Well, they were just a trial of modern times according to Father, and must be borne with the best grace one could manage. "I did wish for some family on the train. He's my only cousin who wasn't shipped off to Beauxbatons."

"That's the opposite of me...I kind of wish I wasn't related to everyone at Hogwarts who has red hair," Al said. "No offense, Rosie," he added hastily.

Rose closed her eyes and shook her head at him. At least the crossed arms didn't make another appearance.

Scorpius cast about for a change of subject. A soft rustling from the other side of the seat caught his attention. "Oh! Is that your owl?" he asked Al. He couldn't quite keep the envy from his voice. Father had said he might have an owl for Christmas if Mr. Finch-Fletchly sold more of Father's work and the manor didn't need too many repairs. Even without the 'ifs,' Christmas seemed a long way off.

Al positively beamed. "Yeah, she's mine." He picked up the cage and set it on the seat between them so that Scorpius could see the smallish, speckled-gray owl inside. "She's a screech owl." Scorpius refrained from mentioning that he knew nearly everything there was to know about owls and simply nodded, admiring the ear-tufts that quirked towards him curiously. Screech owls were one of his second choices of owl, after the beautifully mottled Barred Owl with its gentle brown eyes and about equal to the stout, talkative, little Tawny Owl. "I call her Agate 'coz she looks kind of like one."

"She's beautiful," Scorpius said. The owl blinked sleepily at him and made a pleased sound.

"I would have named her Kitty. She has whiskers like a cat," Rose pointed out the feature in question. Scorpius almost laughed at the bird's offended expression.

"Told you she doesn't like that name," Al said. "When you have your own owl, you get to name it."

"Not bloody likely," Rose said, back to sulking. "Mum and Dad say we have to earn a pet. We mustn't become spoiled rotten little Ma... um...mad things... like Cousin Freddy and Cousin Roxy who get whatever they ask for and treat it like rubbish." Rose stumbled over the last bit, looking awkward. Al looked out the window and twiddled his thumbs. He seemed almost as if he was embarrassed about something.

"Father said I might have an owl for Christmas if he makes enough sales and I get good marks," Scorpius said. He wasn't certain that he was holding up his end of the conversation. It all still felt a bit awkward and he hoped that he wasn't to blame.

Rose looked a bit squirmy again, but all she said was, "I think they expect me to get good marks anyway. I've no idea how I'm supposed to earn an owl."

"What sort of things does your dad sell?" Al asked Scorpius. He clearly wanted to change the subject. Scorpius was happy to oblige, though he found it odd to hear Father referred to as 'dad.'

"Oh, he doesn't do the selling...he makes things. Furniture, anything from wood, really. And toys." Scorpius smiled proudly as he pulled the tiny Tawny Owl model from his pocket. At a touch to the activation point, the wooden bird gave a little 'ke-wick' cry and flapped its wings, rising a few inches above Scorpius' palm before landing again.

"I love those! Been collecting them for absolute ages...I brought my favorite...hang on..." Al rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a little wooden Barred Owl that turned its head all the way around and blinked its dark, painted eyes. "Your dad makes these?" Scorpius nodded. "That's wicked cool." Scorpius took this to mean 'very, very good' and tucked the colorful phrase away to use at the first opportunity.

"Hugo and I have the whole set between us," Rose boasted. "But I left them all with Hugo because he was unhappy about being youngest and not going to school yet." She suddenly scowled. "Now I don't even have a toy owl."

"At least you have new clothes and school robes," Al pointed out. "I'm stuck with James' manky old things. It sucks to be the little brother. Lily always gets all new things just 'coz she's the only girl."

"Language, Al! First off, none of the clothes in your trunk are 'manky;' they're clean and tidied up as good as new. Second, I know for a fact that some of your robes are new, since your Dad has a funny thing about hand-me-downs even though Grandmum thinks it's wasteful to buy robes that you'll just outgrow in a year. Third, Lily will probably get my school robes when I'm done with them if Grandmum has anything at all to say about it. And finally, at least you have a bloody owl."

Al rolled his eyes. "NOW whose language needs minding?"

Rose ignored this. "Have you any brothers or sisters, Scorpius?" she asked politely.

Ah, this was the sort of thing Scorpius knew how to deal with: the standard Polite Questions. The sparring between cousins made him uncomfortable. No one argued at home...at least, not where they thought that Scorpius could overhear. "No, I am quite alone here and at home. I've two cousins on my mother's side of the family, but they attend Beauxbatons. You know about my father's cousin Teddy." He thought of the Muggle clothes and the school robes in his trunk, all Teddy's hand-me-downs, fragrant with the unfamiliar scent of Muggle cleaning potions. He had a few new things of his own; grownups considered clothing an eminently suitable gift for a small boy, much to Scorpius' disappointment. Though for all of Aunt Daphne's faults, at least she had the sense to marry the Montrose Magpies' Assistant Manager. This always yielded some interesting Quidditch-related gifts, the most recent being a quite handsome Magpies cloak for Scorpius' last birthday.

Come to think of it, Grandmother hadn't seemed happy about Teddy's clothes. It didn't seem to matter that they had all been made nice as new under Great Aunt Andromeda's spells and needle, or that Auntie had spoken cheerily all the time she was fitting Scorpius about how even the Royal Family re-used clothes. Is there something wrong with old clothes?

He shook off his uneasy thoughts to finish with the correct reply. "And yourself?"

"I've one younger brother, Hugo." She bit her lip. "Daddy will go spare once we're both away at school."

This was the sort of thing that worried Scorpius, too...among others. "I hope my parents are all right. It's only the two of them and Grandmother at home now." He wasn't sure how, or if, to broach the subject of Grandfather. Grandmother made it clear that, while not quite in the same category of baseness as bodily functions, discussing the involuntary species changes of family members was generally not done. Even Mum practicing to be an Animagus wasn't to be discussed. Scorpius thought it rather a shame since Mum made such a beautiful wolf when she did manage to change. Having a grandfather who was a peacock and a mum practicing to be a wolf might even rate as 'wicked cool,' though Scorpius didn't quite dare take the chance to discover if it was the opposite.

"Well, when we get to school, you can write them straight away," Al put a comforting hand on Scorpius' arm. "There's an owlery, and..." He stopped. "You know, maybe your Dad'll sell loads of toys, and you can have an owl sooner! Maybe for your birthday?"

Scorpius appreciated Al's attempt to cheer him. "My birthday isn't until April."

Al grinned. "So is mine! What day is yours?"

"Mine is, too," Rose began to say, but Scorpius focused on answering Al's question.

"Twenty-fifth April," Scorpius said.

"But that's my birthday!" Al positively beamed now, all hesitancy gone from his manner. Scorpius was surprised at how strongly he felt it...as if everything was suddenly warmer and brighter, as if he had somehow been 'let in' where before he could only look in from outside. "I'll tell you what: when you want to write, if the school owls are busy, you can borrow Agate. After all... you're family!" Al said this last with the air of someone who has made a discovery of great import.

"Albus Severus Potter, have you gone completely mental?" Rose stared at her cousin with both hands on her hips and nicely echoed Scorpius' level of incredulity.

"No, listen...since we're birthday twins..."

"There's no such thing," Rose interrupted, but Al plowed on, ignoring her.

"...and since James and me..."

"'James and I,'" Rose corrected.

"...are Our Teddy's God-brothers and you're Our Teddy's God-cousin," he jerked his thumb in Rose's direction again, compounding her exasperation, "then Scorpius is our cousin, too. At the very least!" Albus Severus explained.

Scorpius' head was spinning slightly from the possible abuse of possessive pronouns, but he thought he perhaps got the gist of it.

"You're not even making sense," Rose argued. "There's no such thing as a God-brother or God-cousin, in the first place."

"Why shouldn't there be? There are step-children to go with step-fathers and step-mothers. Besides, Agate likes him better than she likes James. That should count for something," Al rebutted. Agate whistled softly in apparent agreement.

"'Step-' is a legal term. 'Godfather' is an honorific. It doesn't carry..." Rose tried to explain, but Al was already tuning her out.

"I'll put it to Scorpius: Would you like to be a cousin?" He turned his excited green eyes on Scorpius.

It was very hard to resist the enthusiasm of that face. It was even harder to resist the idea of having family, of any sort, around. It had been quite firmly put into Scorpius' head that only family could truly be trusted.

I wouldn't be alone.

Scorpius felt a little tear-lump rise in his throat and blinked quickly to fight it off. "I...yeah." Acorpius cleared his throat. A certain amount of formal language seemed called for here. "Yes, I would like that very much."

"See? Cousins!" Al said triumphantly. Much to Scorpius' surprise (and Agate's dismay, given that her cage was stuck between them), Al hugged him. After a second's hesitation, Scorpius hugged back. It was a curious thing...to be hugged suddenly...and by someone one's own size, no less. Yet it was also someone who shared the same faint scent of Muggle cleaning potions, like the scent on Teddy's clothes. The smell no longer seemed quite so foreign.

Rose' voice cut through the fuzzy warmth of the moment. "We're not cousins, and no amount of pretending will make us so," she said. Al broke away, his mouth open and his face clearly poised to make some sort of rebuttal. Rose hastened to cut him off. "However, I don't see any reason why we can't be friends," she said and extended a hand toward Scorpius with a prim sort of politeness.

"Except that you're being a vast git about it," Al pointed out. Scorpius was beginning to quite like that expression, too, and resolved to use it at the first opportunity. He's very quotable, he thought fondly, already imagining how he would describe Al to Mum and Father.

"No, b-being friends is good, too," Scorpius said, hoping to head off an argument. He hesitated a moment. Perhaps the modern thing was to shake hands? It seemed a very foreign thing to do when the one offering was a girl, but he managed to refrain from kissing Rose's hand and tried to remember to keep his grip firm without squeezing. He mustn't call any negative attention to himself, even for so small a thing as failing to keep up with current manners.

"Well, there. It's settled." Rose looked pleased with herself, but Scorpius hardly noticed. He was practically giddy with excitement. If he had an owl of his own, he didn't think he could have resisted starting a letter right then and there.

Dear Mum, Father, and Grandmother,

Please don't worry about me. I'm not yet to school and I've already made two friends...

Note: By all means, feel free to imagine Miss Piggy clearing her throat when Rose does so in the story. I certainly did.