It has been a busy couple of days, and Scorpius has been trying not to think too much about what's to come still. To help, he'd given himself a goal to focus on at the present instead.

An objective he's more than ready to scratch off his figurative list, after a night of nursing a queasy stomach and thinking only of Albus.

(He likes his boyfriend. He wants to talk to him. So he will.)

He slips into the Great Hall with the crowd, weaving his way through the more slow and sleepy of his peers with ease.

He claims the empty spot next to Albus before anyone else can.

"Hi," he says.