The Window

"Hey Malfoy, how do you keep your hair so shiny? Bet you dunk it in a fat pot of grease every morning, don't you?"

James Potter smirked and sat back as he listened to his friends, a group of four other Gryffindor boys, guffaw and add to the insult he barked across the lawn. There, under a large tree sat a pale, boy with hair the color of corn silk. His black and green robes covered his scrawny body despite the heat of the afternoon and a thick book lay open in his lap. He glared up at James through his hair, which brushed just above his pale lips when he moved his head to look.

"Shove off, Potter. Don't you have better things to do?" Scorpius Malfoy snarled back aggressively, but made no attempt to confront the older boy. "Think you'd learn after failing Potions so many times that there are more important things than your enormous, ugly head."

"Oh, I suppose you think Potions is the most important thing in the world then?" The boy standing at James' right, Bruno, was the one who spoke now, eager to come to his friend's defense. Bruno Lynch practically worshiped the ground James walked on, and had since they were first years. James didn't mind the adoration too much, but the mindless following Bruno had a tendency to do... well, that was an entirely different story.

As James and Bruno moved towards Scorpius, the other boys quickly followed. They made a semicircle around him, ready to harass him to his wit's end.

Scorpius slammed his book shut and stood up. "Yeah, in fact, I do. It's more important than flying around on broomsticks throwing balls at one another all day, leastways." Several fists clenched at his words. Scorpius made no secret of his distaste for Quidditch, but normally he would have been wiser than to insult the sport in front of half of Gryffindor's Quidditch team. Today, he was feeling a bit reckless.

James, along with his cousin Fred Weasley, was a Chaser. Bruno Lynch and Levi Summerby, easily the largest of the group were the Beaters for the team, and Edward Coote was their prized Seeker. It was the first year in quite some time that Gryffindor had an all-boys Quidditch team. All of them were fairly rough-and-tumble, fiercely competitive, and definitely not above cheating in any sense of the word. Uncharacteristic of Gryffindor's spirit, this year's Quidditch team didn't mind playing dirty and breaking rules if it meant they would win. Scorpius didn't really like Quidditch, but he especially didn't like the ruthless Gryffindor Quidditch players, who had harassed him on more than one occasion.

"Oh yes, your little chemistry set is so much better than Quidditch." The snide remark came from Edward this time. He was the smallest of the group but still by no means small, especially for a Seeker. Normally Seekers were light and compact, but Edward was sturdily built. Evidence of his rough playing tactics took the form of scars along his arms and jaw.

"That's right. It is." Scorpius stepped right up to James and looked him square in the eye, glaring venomously. In spite of his bravado, Scorpius knew he was no match for James. The eldest Potter was a bit taller than he, shoulders easily broader, and he was noticeably more muscular.

"If I didn't know better," James drawled, "I'd say you're jealous, ickle Scorpy. Jealous that you can't play Quidditch." He shoved Scorpius hard. "Is it because you have absolutely no talent, or is it because your coward daddy won't let you?"

"Don't you dare talk about my father--" Scorpius lunged at James, but before he could throw a punch, James caught him in a headlock. As he struggled, the other boys grabbed his thin arms, preparing to throw him into the nearby black lake.

James turned his back toward the castle and almost loosened his grip on the smaller boy to let him plunge face first into the water when -

"James, there you are." Out of the corner of his eye, James saw that a girl with dark red hair had come to the tree, reaching to touch his arm. "I can't help you with Arithmancy if you don't try to help yourself, you know."

"Kate." James inhaled sharply and looked over his shoulder at the petite girl as the rest of the boys moved to block Scorpius from view. "You know, I forgot all about tutoring today... I'm really sorry."

"It's alright, I guess. Your loss," said the girl called Kate. She looked suspiciously at the group of boys. "What are you lot doing out here by the lake anyway?"

"Oh, nothing... nothing at all. Just, uh, devising a practice plan for Quidditch," James lied.

"Right." Kate raised a brow and folded her arms over her chest. It was more or less common fact that the Gryffindor Quidditch team never had a plan for practice. Everyone knew that every time the team convened on the pitch, they all sat on their brooms and mucked around for a good hour before one of them got hungry and called it quits. It had been that way since James had become captain in his fifth year.

"Well, in any case, I'll be helping Professor Babbling with the book inventory when you decide a tutoring appointment is worthy of y--" She paused midsentence when she caught sight of the glimmer of blonde hair from beneath James's arm. She pulled his arm roughly, causing him to let go of Scorpius, who fell to the ground in a heap. "James! Haven't I asked you to leave him alone?"

Any other person would have looked away guiltily, but not James Sirius Potter. "Kate, he started it."

"I have a really hard time believing that," Kate growled and shoved James aside with her shoulder. She picked up Scorpius's book and handed it to him once he stood and brushed himself off. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, wee little Malfoy needs a girl to protect him!" Bruno shoved Scorpius when he moved to leave. James and the rest howled with laughter as Scorpius tripped and almost fell to the ground.

Kate elbowed James hard in the ribs, but he continued to laugh his loud, barking laugh. "Scorpius, wait." She began to follow the Slytherin, but he turned on his heels to face them, halting her in her tracks.

"Piss off!" He glared down at Kate as he spoke. "Both of you." He stormed into the castle without looking behind him again, leaving the Gryffindors wailing with laughter and Kate looking rather torn.

Compromising, she turned to James and spat, "You're really something, James Potter." With that, she followed quickly after Scorpius and disappeared into the castle.

After a moment, Levi spoke. "Reckon she won't be talking to you for awhile."

James gave a noncommittal shrug and replied, "Eh, she'll come around. She always does." At that, he grinned cheekily. The boys burst into laughter again as Levi clapped him on the back.

Inside the castle, Scorpius trudged his way toward the dungeons, having lost most of his momentum upon reaching the castle. There wasn't a day that went by where James and his goons left Scorpius well enough alone, despite Kate's best efforts to stop them. He would be surprised if they even listened to her at all; she was a Slytherin, after all. That lot really wasn't the type to warm up to Slytherins, no matter how well they had redefined the meaning of the word. Regardless of the recent cleansing of Slytherin's bad reputation, some people still held credence in the stigma associated with the house of cunning. However, he supposed James's only reason for listening to Kate was "she's a Slytherin, but a bloody hot one at that," as he'd overheard the Gryffindor say to his mates one day.

Scorpius stopped once he reached the bottom of the main staircase that led to the dungeons. He didn't want to face the common room just yet. Even within his house, he didn't have a very good reputation. His father was the disgrace of pureblood society. Anyone who wasn't a child of a rich pureblood family that hated his family's slowly degenerating legacy was a snotty neo-elitist who shunned radical opinions of either side of the argument. Neutrality was their motto, and Scorpius's family history was instilled in anything but. Still, the Slytherins tended to leave him alone as long as he remained inconspicuous, which was better than being thrown into a lake or turned into a ferret.

He leaned against the stone wall and sighed softly, feeling its coolness against his skin beginning to calm him. No matter what anyone else said about the dungeons being dark, dank and dreary, Scorpius always felt a sort of tranquility when he was protected by them. He closed his eyes and stood there for a few moments. Only when he felt a warm hand on his arm did he open his eyes and look down to see a pair of bright green eyes staring up at him. "Kate."

"Look, I didn't mean to upset you, I just didn't want to see you hurt," Kate told him as he brushed off her arm and began to walk toward the Slytherin common room. She followed after him. "And I really have been telling him to leave you alone, but when he's around his friends, he just doesn't care."

Scorpius stopped abruptly and turned to look at her. "Imagine that, James Potter not caring. Why are you even with him? You know he doesn't care about you, Kate. He just likes you because of your tits."

"Scorpius!" Self-consciously, Kate folded her arms over her chest--average size for her age, but apparently enough to make James like her--and kicked him in the shin. "That's not true."

"It is and you know it. Maybe because he thinks you're a challenge..." Scorpius began to think aloud. "But I guess not because he's obviously walking all over you already."

"What is your problem?" Kate grabbed Scorpius as roughly by the shoulder as her diminutive stature allowed her and spun him around. "I know you don't like him, but I didn't think you'd be this petty about it."

"Petty? Kate, he almost threw me in the lake! I understand that he's your boyfriend now and he's important to you and all that," Scorpius told her emphatically, "but he's a complete prick. You said it yourself, he doesn't care when he's around his friends. Maybe that means one day he'll throw you in the lake, or worse."

"I don't know what kind of person you really think he is, but James would never hurt me. He might be a prig, but he's not a horrible person," Kate insisted. They had reached the common room and the portrait that guarded the entrance was becoming impatient with them as they continued to argue.

"Well, are ye comin' in or not?" the portrait's subject, a bony old man in a cloak, sniveled, "Get gabbin' or get goin'."

Kate and Scorpius both turned to him and yelled, "Shut up!" before going at each other again as the old man slunk away, muttering darkly.

"Look, Kate, I'm not worried about me. I'm worried about you." Scorpius finally sighed and raised his hands in defeat. "We've been friends for as long as either of us remembers and it's stupid that we're letting him come between us like this. I just don't want to see you hurt. It would kill me if he did something to you and I wasn't there to stop it."

It was true: Katharina Nott had been Scorpius's best--really, only--friend for as long as he could remember. Her father, Theodore, had been one of few still on good terms with the Malfoy family despite its involvement in the war. Theodore was one of the first to welcome them back to polite society, and while the Malfoys were still walking on eggshells around everyone else, they could breathe a sigh of relief around the Notts, who opened their home to the family whenever they needed it.

Kate pursed her lips and folded her arms over her chest. "You're my best friend, Scor. I understand the concern, and I appreciate it, but not if it's going to make you hostile like this. Just try to ignore him, okay?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes and moved in front of the portrait to go into the common room. "Yeah, whatever Kate."

The old man reappeared in the portrait and glared beadily at the pair. "Get gabbin' or get goin'."

"Wolfsbane. Now shut up and let us in."