Soldiers and Serpents //Scorbus

59 Distraction

"Anyone fancy a butterbeer?" Raven asks as Orion and Scorpius walk up. They were standing outside the pub.

"How about a real beer?" Orion wonders, only party joking.

"Beer is disgusting." Michael Greengrass tells him.

"Yeah well, so are you." Orion shot back at him lamely. Michael rolled his eyes, and lead the way inside. Scorpius's heart dropped, his eyes scanning the room. There were very few guests. A waiter wiped tables and walked towards them as they entered. Albus, James, and Lily all sat at one of the tables. They hadn't seen them yet- but Scorpius wasn't going to wait around.

"We aren't staying." He tells them, softly grabbing Raven's arm. Raven follows his gaze to the Potter's.

"Four?" The waiter asks.

"Actually we're not staying." Raven tells him, and Michael scowls.

"Why? We just got here-" Michael begins.

"Orion!" James's voice announced that they had noticed their entrance. Scorpius groans. Here we go. The Quidditch team back together again. He couldn't hide his annoyance on his face. Orion turns to James, and his face lights up at seeing his teammate.

"James!" Orion greets, and James walks over to the group, doing some sort of handshake with Orion that Scorpius rolled his eyes at. Dorks.

"You're right. We should leave." Michael grimaced at James. James sent the older boy a slightly disgruntled look. Which made sense considering no one really talked or liked Michael when he was at Hogwarts- which was only last year. Everyone knew he was a creep, and was cousins with the Malfoys. Beyond that, no one paid him attention other than the occasional grimace that the boy usually enticed.

Michael wasn't exactly pleasing to look at. His dull hair that looked rather thin and lifeless. His tall gangly ness. Pale skin like paper. A crooked nose. Eyes that seemed to be a pit of emptiness. You get the idea.

He didn't like Quidditch players. He tolerated Scorpius and since their bond thing, they've gotten closer. But more because of forced loyalty. Not because their personalities clicked. In fact, Scorpius couldn't imagine someone who would click with Michael.

"No. Join us." James offers, even though he really was only inviting Orion. He looked at the Malfoy's. "I didn't know you guys all hung out now." James looked between Orion and the platinum haired twins.

"We live together now." Orion deadpans. Scorpius fought the urge to hit him. Perhaps a muting charm would work better. James's eyebrows shot up. "It's a long story." Orion laughs it off. Mother died. Draco died. Dark wizards attacked the manor. It wasn't that long of a story. But this was Orion shrugging off the details. Like he hadn't told anyone for five years who his mother was. And now none of them would know she was dead. Orion turns and looks at Raven and Scorpius, reading their expressions. "We probably shouldn't-"

"Merlin's tits. Raven Malfoy." Lily Potter came up, holding out her hand towards Raven. Raven looked at the younger girl, putting on a soft smile, and taking her hand. "I'm Lily." She introduces herself, flicking her long auburn hair behind her shoulder. Lily turns to Scorpius with a smile in greeting.

"It's nice to meet you. I follow you on Twitter but we haven't really talked in person." Raven slipped into her preppy girl mannerisms.

"You guys will sit with us, right?" Lily turned to Scorpius now. "Please?" He wondered how he could tell her no. "Come on, Scorpius!" She clearly knew that Albus and him weren't together anymore, but that didn't seem to stop her from wanting them to all sit together. Scorpius couldn't help but look back over to where Albus sat at the table alone, and he met gazes with the boy. Put on your face. So he slipped into a fake cool smile.