ass_tea | [LOG] Confession

Where: Slytherin Dungeons
When: (Saturday) November 27, 2021 (fifth year)

Alby shifted again on the couch, glancing over the top of his Charms book at Scorpius, who was dutifully taking notes on a piece of spare parchment as he looked over the chapter they'd reviewed today in class. Unable to pay attention to the words on the page before him, Alby sighed quietly, biting his lip. His stomach shifted, feeling fluttery and uncomfortable. They'd been studying for an hour, now - well, more like Scorp had been studying for an hour. Alby had been shifting and squirming and turning pages in his book for an hour, but he hadn't leared a single thing except there really was no way to get around what he needed to do. And every day since the "incident" with Scorp and Isabella (that Scorpius had still not mentioned, and it had been last week) only reminded him that he was a coward. Harry Potter's son was a coward, who couldn't even tell the single most important person in his school life how he felt about him, because he was afraid of what would happen. And Alby had to admit, he was getting really sick of living in fear.

Anything had to be better than this... this not knowing what would or could happen. Not knowing if he'd accidentally mess something up, say the wrong thing, glance the wrong way. Alby had never been good at concealing things, and every day he grew more afraid that he was going to slip up. If Scorpius was going to find out that his best friend was gay and, what's more, had a hopeless crush on him, Alby would much prefer it came from his own lips. Even if that was the scariest thing he could imagine right now.

Shifting again, he glanced over at his friend and decided that today was the day. Now was the moment. He'd been thinking about it all week, trying to plan out what he was going to say, and now it was late enough that Joe and Alex had given up studying and wouldn't miss them. He might not get another chance for a while, and while half of him said it could certainly wait as long as it wanted, the other half needed resolution badly enough that it spurred Alby to finally set his book down, willing himself not to blush as he coughed a bit to get Scorp's attention.

"H-hey, Scorp, I... wanted to talk to you." Except here was bad - there were still students sprinkled about the room working on various essays and reading, and even if there hadn't been, it was far too public. This was not something Alby wanted public - not yet, especially not if Scorp decided that he was the most disgusting thing on Earth and slammed the proverbial door in his face. "Can we... come on, somplace else. It won't take long." It might be over all too soon, he thought, as he stood, taking Scorp's hand and pulling, gently. There were loads of classrooms in the dungeons that weren't likely to be occupied this late at night, nor were they likely to be interrupted.