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Alleyway Altercations	By : WillGirl Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Albus Severus/Scorpius Views: 2262 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter novels (or movies), nor the characters contained therin. All rights remain with JKR. No monetary reconpense is gained from the writing of this story, which is purely for entertainment purposes.

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Scorpius waited nervously in the alley behind Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes. He held a bloody handkerchief lightly against his face, trying not to wince from the pain of his broken bones, knowing that would only make it hurt more. He shifted from foot to foot and tried to breathe through his mouth without aggravating his split lip. What was taking Albus so long?

Just when Scorpius was so overcome with nerves and impatience that he was ready to do the unthinkable and brave entering the joke shop himself, the back door opened. Albus came out, followed by a tall woman with short blonde hair. Verity looked from Scorpius to Albus and back again. “Well,” she said at last, “now I see why you wanted my help, and not your uncle’s.”

“Er, yeah,” said Albus, ducking his head uncomfortably. He didn’t like acknowledging the fact of his Uncle George’s animosity towards Albus’s best friend (and now boyfriend), but Scorpius knew better than to ever set foot inside Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes. It wasn’t a safe place at the best of times, given the proprietor’s love of pranks, but the joke shop was an especial sort of dangerous to a Malfoy. Even with Albus and Rose for bodyguards, Scorpius had never dared go inside. He wasn’t entirely certain that he would come out again at all, but he knew for certain that it wouldn’t be in the form in which he had entered.

Albus knew his family would do almost anything for one another—and for him—but he wasn’t sure if Uncle George would be willing to help out if Scorpius was involved. He had never asked, afraid that the answer would be “no,” and knowing that it would hurt if it was. So, playing it better safe than sorry, when he needed to find someone he could trust to hand out healing charms and bruise balm, he had turned to his uncle’s manager instead.

Verity inspected the bleeding boys with a cool and unhurried eye. Having spent the last two-and-a-half-decades working at Wealeys’ Wizarding Wheezes, she was quite accustomed to both magical misfortunes as well as more common forms of injury. “Well,” she said briskly, “let’s get you cleaned up, then.”

She turned to Albus and tilted his chin up so that she could inspect his scratches and bruises. “But Scorpius—” he protested, trying to pull away from her fingers.

“—looks to have gotten the worst of it,” Verity retorted sharply, “so he’ll take longer to fix. I’ll start with you, then you’ll be done and I can get to work on him without being distracted. Now shush,” she said firmly. Albus shushed, but his green eyes pulled sideways to stare longingly at his still-bleeding boyfriend.

Scorpius forced a smile despite the pain the gesture caused him. “I’m fine, Al,” he said soothingly. “Don’t fuss, just let her work.”

Verity alternated healing charms with cleaning ones, until Albus’s face looked almost normal again—just more mottled in color than usual. She turned the same attention to his scraped knuckles and ravaged palms, then pulled a small jar from the pockets of her robes. “There,” she said, “dab that on the bruises, they’ll clear up in a few hours.” Verity’s smile turned crooked. “Working for your uncle, one gets pretty attached to a good bruise balm, and this is his personal blend—better than anything on the open market.”

Albus nodded and unscrewed the lid, wincing only a little as the new skin on his knuckles pulled and stretched. The lid of the jar had a small mirror set into it, so Albus could see to smear the sharp, minty-smelling goo on his face. He glanced over and watched anxiously as Verity knelt down next to Scorpius and started prodding his tender, blood-coated face.

“Should I even ask what happened,” Verity said drily, “or will you only lie badly?”

“We got in a fight,” Albus mumbled.

“With each other?”

“No!” Albus almost dropped the bruise balm. “No, of course not,” he snapped, “it was Jam—” He clamped his mouth shut hard enough to jar the tender spots, and quickly looked away again.

There was a slight, wry smirk on Verity’s sharp face. “I see,” she murmured. Verity flicked her wand, and Scorpius’s broken nose snapped back into place. He gave a shocked little cry of pain and blinked furiously to dry his eyes. Verity pretended not to notice. “Well,” she said calmly, “if this ‘Jaym’ needs any help with his face...”

“Then he can just sod off,” Albus snapped. He had gone very pale at Scorpius’s cry, and now stood belligerently with his hands on his hips, the bruise balm clenched in one tight fist.

Verity did not quite roll her eyes. She had had a lot of practice at not doing that, working for George Weasley and his late brother. She had had even more practice actually doing that, as George did not object to snarky employees who answered him back smartly, so long as they got their work done too, and Verity was very good at multitasking. Indignant adolescents were something else entirely though, something far more prickly and persnickety than George Weasley even at his most irritated, so Verity said nothing; just reached back calmly for the bruise balm.

Albus handed the jar over and Verity efficiently started smearing the pale green paste over the paler face of the wincing boy in front of her. Scorpius hissed and flinched, and blinked a lot, but managed to keep his eyes from doing more than misting. Verity very gently ruffled the boy’s strangely-silky hair and rocked back to her feet. “There you go,” she said, “good as new, or you soon will be.” She frowned slightly. “Although those bruises under your eyes may take a while to go away—they were pretty dark. You’ve got some fragile cheekbones, don’t you youngster?”

Scorpius flushed. “I am perfectly fine, thank you.” A muscle in his cheek twitched, giving the lie to his bold words—Verity knew he had to be in pain, and would be for quite a while, even with George Weasley’s extra-special-strength balm to dull the ache—but Verity pretended not to see. No one had pride like a sixteen-year-old boy, especially one who had clearly just gotten beaten up by his best friend’s older brother.

“Well, good to know,” Verity said calmly. She slipped the bruise balm back into the pocket of her robes, nodded to both boys, and walked back to the side door of the shop, where she paused briefly. “Anything else I can do either of you for?” she asked.

She was answered with two mutely shaken heads, and a polite but subdued, “thank you,” from the green-eyed boy. Verity smiled, winked at Albus, and ducked back inside. “Cleaning up after you, as usual,” she yelled back in response to George’s shouted demand to know where she had been when the rush hit the cash register.

Verity plunged into the chaos of Weasley’ Wizarding Wheezes, expertly navigating her way around the group of second years poking the puffler tank (bad idea), and the crowd of teenage girls that always clustered at the love potions. “Back to work,” she muttered to herself, and made it to the check-out line just in time to save George from an irate mother who wanted to know why her son had turned purple when the label clearly stated that he would do just that, if he used his new scarf improperly. Verity briskly recited Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes legal policy while she steered the woman towards the shelves that held beauty products. George gave her a grateful wink and a pat on the bum. Verity stuck her tongue out at her boss, rolled her eyes, and got on with her day.

Outside, Albus and Scorpius were carefully checking one another to make certain that no injuries had been overlooked. If they did most of their checking pressed close together with their eyes closed, that did not in any way lessen the intensity or accuracy of their examination.

Finally satisfied that all wounds had been appropriately tended, the boys settled into a loose-armed hug and leaned back against the wall. “How are you?” Albus asked.

“Better,” Scorpius murmured. “You?”

Albus nodded. “Sorry about him,” he said. “Again.”

“Don’t,” Scorpius said, “really. I don’t blame you. Honest.” He gently kissed the new, pink skin on Albus’s palms that replaced what had been scoured off against the harsh brick of the wall.

“Thanks,” Albus said. He sighed. “Sometimes I really, really hate having a brother...actually, I think I hate it all the time.”

Scorpius laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said, and kissed the fading bruise on the edge of Albus’s jaw. “If it helps, I think he hates me more.”

“You know,” Albus said, an involuntary snort making both boys grin, “I think it kind of does. Thanks.”
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Alleyway Altercations