"Uh you mind if we sit?" Albus asked. Albus flipping Potter talked to him, he thought. Scorpius Malfoy has been in love with Albus since the first moment he'd laid eyes on him all the way back in first year. And even though the only other time they'd spoken was when albus asked to borrow his quill back in second year, scorpius couldn't get over his feelings for the potter boy. Suddenly he became very aware that the train compartment was very very silent.
"I um well I hm I uh-" he kept trying to say words but all that came out was gibberish. He mentally slapped himself.
" we can find somewhere else to sit if you want,'' Albus trailed off. If he didn't get himself together Albus wasn't going to sit here, and he wouldn't have an excuse to talk to him.
"No I'm it fine you-you can sit here," he said nervously, faking a smile. Scorpius awkwardly moved his trunk off of the seat across from him and onto the floor against the window, Theseus's cage on top. Albus came in followed by four others and out of all the seats he chose to sit directly next to scorpius causing him to sweat profusely.
"Well hi, I'm Albus Potter,"  he began.
"Yah I know," scorpius said hopefully soft enough that albus didn't hear.
"And these are my friends, Frank and Juliet Longbottom and Alexandra Young. Oh yah and my cousin Rose," he said pointing to each of them. Frank was about 6 foot and had light brown hair which couldn't quite stay down, much like albus's messy main of hair. Alexandra was a girl who was about my height, not super tall at about 5'6, with dark brown curls and deep chocolate brown eyes. Juliet had straight dirty blonde hair and stood about 5'3, the shortest of the students in the train compartment. And lastly there was the fiery Rose, her hair was so red it could've blended in with the sides of the train they all sat in and stood tall at about 5'9, her long fingers were intertwined with Frank's.
"Uh hi I'm-" he began.
"You're Scorpius Malfoy right? Son of the death eater? But aren't you a Ravenclaw? Shouldn't you be a slythern?" Alex asked questions faster than I could come up with answers. Most of the questions made me uncomfortable so I just said;
"Yes I am Scorpius," very softly. Out of the corner of his eye Scorpius thought he saw Albus give Alex a dirty look briefly, but he might've imagined it.
After several hours of awkward conversation, with very minimal input from Juliet or her brother, and occasional silence the Hogwarts Express finally arrived at its destination. The students began filing out of the scarlet steam engine and into the carriages, expect the first years who got into the boats. Scorpius made eye contact one of the dragon-like birds that pulled the carriages but quietly looked away, he knew why he could see the beasts and he didn't want to think about that. He made his way into a carriage and, to his surprise, was followed by Rose, Albus and Alex. Scorpius smiled to himself.
The carriages began to move towards Hogwarts castle, the thestrals flapping their huge leathery bat wings as they flew through the empty night sky carrying the carriages full of students behind them.
"Uh Scorpius," Alex said getting his attention "um well would you like to join me at the Ravenclaw table?" Scorpius stayed silent for a moment.
"You don't have to it's just," she paused "I usually sit alone since Rose and Albus are both Gryffindor." Her face turned bright scarlet with embarrassment.
"Oh no I'd love to, I usually don't sit with anyone," saying the last part mostly to himself.
"Great, oh looks like we're here," Alex said as the thestrals landed and the carriages promptly stopped. The students entered the huge castle doors and made their way into the great hall, each sitting at their own house table. The great hall was a huge room with four long tables and thousands of candles which floated in mid air and lit the great hall at night. Alex joined Scorpius where he usually sat at the end of the table nearest to the staff table. After several moments of conversation between friends and family and about everyone else in the hall, the headmistress spoke;
"Good evening students new and old, welcome to Hogwarts," she said "as all of you know this is a school for magical children, like all of you. Now now no need for further introductions lets get to the sorting." After she finished speaking she picked up an old dusty hat, with a large mouth like slit across the bottom, from next to the staff table and placed it on a stool she had set beside her. She began to call names one by one. I didn't hear most of them, for I wasn't paying much attention.
"Scamander, Lorcan," she said, calling one of the first years to come up to the stool. A young boy with curlydark brown hair and light green eyes stood up and walked to the sorting hat. The corridor was silent for a few seconds before the hat's "mouth" spoke:
"RAVENCLAW!" It bellowed in it's low, and slightly raspy, voice. The boy made his way quickly to the table where the whole of Ravenclaw sat, really guy across from Alex and Scorpius were sat. He smiled shyly, but lowered his head quickly.
"Scamander, Lysander," another boy stood and walked to the stool. His hair was quite a lot lighter and his eyes a bit darker but apart from that they looked very very similar. He sat on the stool and waited for the ancient hat to be placed on his hat. Professor placed the hat and after several long minutes it finally called out the boy's house:
"RAVENCLAW!" Lorcan let out a loud sigh of relief and a rather large grin found its way onto his face. His brother half ran to the table and took a seat next to Lorcan.
"Hi, I'm Lysander,'' Lysander spoke, holding his hand out for scorpius to shake. Scorpius almost didn't know what to do, no one at Hogwarts had ever shown him such kindness as to introduce themselves to him before today. Before he could shake the strangers hand a voice from his left spoke:
"Oh I wouldn't do that if I were you" the unfamiliar person said to Lysander "that's Scorpius Malfoy, his dad is a death eater. He's probably just as evil as his father." For a brief second anger filled him, he didn't even know this person and they were saying such hateful things about him like he wasn't even there. The anger quickly faded and was replaced by sadness, this person knew that his father was a death eater and hated him so much for his father's actions that he wouldn't even give him a chance just like everyone else.
It took Scorpius a few seconds to realize that Lysander's small hand was still outstretched towards him.
"Didn't you hear him my fa-" Scorpius began but was interrupted.
"My mother taught me that you can't judge people by where they come from but how they act. Even if your father was a death eater I'm still going to give you as much chance as I would give anyone else," Lysander said, and with that Scorpius shook his hand. For the first time at Hogwarts someone had not hated or judged him because of who his father was. For the first time someone had given him a blind chance. And for the first time Scorpius felt like he was just like everyone else.