Chapter 43 / To Catch a Snitch

                                    

                                          
It's poetic justice, Albus mused as he circled the Pitch with his eyes peeled for the tiny golden Snitch. It had to be. He was opposing Eamon; they were both Seekers, and therefore both after the same thing. Albus grinned. It didn't take a wild stretch of the imagination to see the bigger picture here—and he was absolutely determined to catch the Snitch first.
It was his. There was no way he'd let Eamon take it.
Frequently, he would glance over to the stands and see Scorpius sitting with his two friends and Lily, watching the game amidst their conversation that was, no doubt, some form of gossip or another. His heart warmed at the picture. He loved that Scorpius and Lily were friends. He made a mental note to give his sister extra Chocolate Frogs this Christmas.
At that moment, Scorpius turned away from the chattering his girl friends were doing and made eye contact with him. Even from the distance, Albus saw Scorpius' eyes warm as a somewhat shy yet affectionate smile grew on his face. If that wasn't enough to send Albus' heart racing madly, the small wave of his gloved hand was. He was about to wave back when a Bludger flew straight past his head, missing him by inches.
Focus on the game, Albus. He shook his head and looked around the pitch instead.
Beneath him, James and the other two Chasers whose names he didn't know—Albus hadn't been paying attention to the introductions earlier—were weaving in and out of the enemy's players, passing the Quaffle between them and advancing towards the goal posts. Seconds later, the red ball was flung through the right hoop faultlessly. Cheers from the scattered crowd drew his attention back to Scorpius, who was, almost unbelievably, smiling and clapping loudly at the goal.
Albus' heart was in his mouth as he watched. Scorp didn't even like Quidditch. It meant the world to Albus that he was not only enjoying it, but also supporting his team.
"Oi, Seeker! Seen it yet?" James called to him, shaking him out of his reverie.
"If I had, it'd be in my hand!" he replied with a smile.
James laughed and swerved his broom around to rejoin in another Quaffle chase. Albus also swivelled his broom around to face away from Scorpius, lest he be tempted to stare at him again. He had a game to play.
More importantly, he had a Snitch to catch.
He saw Eamon hovering near a yellow and black decorated tower, giving Albus an ill-concealed look of contempt. Albus identified it as jealousy. He would know—he had experienced it often enough in the past month. The fact that Eamon was now envious of him was—Albus had to admit—a bloody wonderful feeling. It meant Eamon knew that Scorpius' allegiances were wavering. Albus fought hard to keep the smile off his face.
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"So, Albus or Eamon?"
"Huh?" Scorpius snapped out of his daydream—one that had been heavily Albus-centric—and turned to Lily.
She chuckled. "One of them has to win. Which do you want to catch the Snitch first?"
His answer was obvious to all four of them, but he decided to have a little dignity and adopt a far more casual attitude than he possessed. He shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't mind."
"Nonsense," Lily admonished playfully. "You want Albus to win, but you don't want to say it because you feel as if you need to stick up for your boyfriend."
A pang of ache struck Scorpius' core as he kept his eyes stuck on Albus' circulating figure. Lily was right, as usual, but the latter part of her explanation was like a slap in his face. \"Please don't call him that," he entreated in a faint voice. It didn't feel right to refer to Eamon as his boyfriend. It was a label Scorpius had never agreed to, and now, more than ever, it felt horribly overshot. "After our fight yesterday, it just doesn't seem fair," he explained to the girls' questioning faces. He smiled thinly. "And you're right; I want Albus to win." He added, "Something about him has changed. I feel like he's confident, and surer of himself. Like he suddenly knows in which direction he should go and he's doing it, without second thoughts and without hesitating." He allowed his smirk to grow as he remembered their fight in the snow at Hogsmeade. "I like it," he said honestly. He loved it, in fact. A confident Albus was all Scorpius needed to feel all 'hot and bothered', as Andrea had put it earlier.
He received three warm smiles in return. Lily's, though, was tinged with something else; almost as if she already knew everything Scorpius had just said. Knowing her, she probably did.
"What are you going to do about Eamon?" Andrea asked. It was a question that desperately required an answer. "You obviously feel more for Albus than you do him." Scorpius kept his eyes forward, toward the game in the front of them. "I don't know. I just know that the more time I spend with Eamon, the more I start to dislike him, and the harder it gets."