After talking with Ari (who always knew exactly what to say), Owen decided to give it a day or too before talking to Scorpius. Owen had already probably messed up his life enough by approaching him before, so he didn’t want to rush straight into it. He also wanted to wait for a more appropriate time - first thing in the morning when Owen’d had about 3 hours of sleep probably wasn’t it. Owen had spent hours pondering exactly how to apologise to Scorpius, mulling it over before falling asleep, and ignoring his professors… The opportunity came when Owen wasn’t prepared at all. He was just heading to the Owlery one evening to send a message to his parents when he came across Scorpius attaching a letter to an owl (presumabling to his own parents). Owen froze like a rabbit in headlights in the doorway, before slowly approaching Scorpius. Thankfully, no-one else was in there to witness their interaction, which would be ideal.
“I’m an idiot.” He announced - which was not how he’d been planning to start his apology. “I’ve been a complete moron; I abandoned you and then expected you to just still be my friend, and I’ve been selfish and treated you horribly and I don’t expect you to forgive me but I’m really sorry.” He realised he should probably stop word-vomitting so he shut his mouth and stared awkwardly at Scorpius, running a hand through his hair.
Scorpius had, unfortunately, been able to think of little else but Owen for the past few days. He’d run through all their interactions from first year in his head, trying to see them through Owen’s eyes, to see if there was any validity in what Owen had said. He’d come to the conclusion that Owen was an idiot, or a liar, or possibly both. It was distracting him from his studying and making him irritable. Except he didn’t speak to anyone enough to take out his irritation, so it was just building up inside him. Yesterday he’d glared at Jared, who’d looked so startled it’d almost made him laugh.
He wrote his parents his usual fortnightly letter, telling them he was well, he hoped they were well, studying was going well, and Kaelyn seemed well. Okay, he changed the wording up, but the contents didn’t usually change much. He did consider telling them that Kaelyn had a girlfriend, but that would just lead to Kaelyn trying to kill him, and the hassle didn’t seem worth the entertainment. He trudged up to the Owlery and was just attaching it to Hooty when Owen walked in. Great. He watched Hooty fly off, suddenly very jealous. Owls didn’t have to deal with friendship drama. “I agree,” he said, still watching Hooty soaring away. “You are an idiot.”
Owen winced at Scorpius’ harsh tone and refusal to even look at him. “Hey, there’s something we agree on, then,” he said, attempting a mildly jokey tone, which he then regretted. “Sorry,” he mumbled, shaking his head at himself. Joking was obviously not the way to get Scorpius to forgive him. Merlin, he was going to keep apologising to Scorpius for the rest of their lives, wouldn’t he? Or, at least, the rest of their time at Hogwarts - Owen wasn’t exactly going to stalk Scorpius until he was forgiven. Although… No, that was stupid. “I was really dumb at 11, and I’m not much smarter now but I like to think I’ve grown up a bit, so I really am sorry. I think I thought I wasn’t treating you that badly but… I was. And I miss you, so the other day I just sort of hoped we would still be friends. Which was dumb and optimistic. And I know that we probably can’t be friends again, although I’d love that, but I just need you to know that I really am sorry. And I know how stupid I am.” He attempted a smile. Merlin, this was a painfully bad apology.
Scorpius turned and levelled Owen with an incredulous look. It was funny to think that this was all he’d dreamt of in second year. Well, maybe not so much funny, more depressing. It wasn’t quite turning out like he’d hoped. In his daydreams, Owen had realised his mistakes without being told, and it hadn’t taken him quite this long. He wanted to point out that Owen clearly hadn’t grown up if he hadn’t even realised what was going on, but he wasn’t sure he could be bothered. Everything just seemed like too much effort, that was the problem. “Okay,” he settled for saying. “Thank you for informing me.” He wasn’t going to slip up and get emotional. And he definitely didn’t want to end up in an argument and end up crying again.
‘Thank you for informing me’? Owen didn’t know how to respond to that or what to do now. Saying ‘you’re welcome’ definitely wasn’t the move. He floundered for a moment, staring around the room at the owls who were definitely judging him right now. “I, uh, support you if you want to punch me or something. Although you’re too good a person to do something like that. Not that it would make you a bad person if you did, because I deserve it. Oh Merlin,” he muttered, realising he really needed to shut up. Despite not knowing what to say, he felt like he needed to fill the silence as Scorpius clearly wasn’t going to.
As awkward as his conversation with Kaelyn had been, this was worse, it was vastly preferable to this. “Punch you?” he asked, incredulous. They were wizards, for Merlin’s sake: if anything, he would curse him, but he wouldn’t do that either. He was perfectly aware that his family was still under scrutiny and cursing someone would cause utter chaos. And even after all this time and hurt, he still couldn’t do anything to harm Owen. “Do you think that would make us ‘even’?”
Owen was getting more flustered by the second, trying to remind himself that he deserved to feel this bad; he’d been a terrible friend. “I mean, I don’t know, if you want,” he said, before scoffing at the idea that it would make them even. “Of course it wouldn’t make us ‘even’, I hurt you much worse than anything could physically hurt me. I just meant, like, if it would make you feel better? Even slightly? I just feel like I deserve some sort of punishment.” He shrugged uncomfortably, running his fingers through his hair.
“I don’t want to punch you,” he said, but he didn’t quite want to admit that he couldn’t bear to hurt Owen. “I don’t think I’d be very good at it; I’d probably end up hurting myself more than you. It’s a very Muggle way of dealing with things, anyway.” He realised a moment too late that this probably came off as an insult to Owen’s family, but he simply meant that he wasn’t raised that way and would be far more likely to stick with wizardry. He wasn’t about to try to explain himself though. “I think it’s very unlikely it would make me feel better. It would just make you feel better.” He stared at Owen for a moment, wishing for a way out of this conversation, and found himself asking, “What do you want from me? Do you want me to hurt you so you can feel like you’ve been punished, so you can stop feeling bad, and leave me alone again?” He knew Owen had said he wanted to be friends, but that was inconceivable. If he wanted to be friends, where had he been for the last several years?
Owen was a tad offended by the implication that because his mum was a Muggle, he was more inclined to Muggle forms of violence instead of cursing, but he couldn't deny that Scorpius probably would injure himself if he hit Owen. "Then curse me," he offered instead. This was starting to sound masochistic. He didn't know how to reply to the fact that it would make Owen feel better, not Scorpius, because that was probably true. Was he still being selfish? He contemplated what he wanted, trying to think it through so he could word it right, rather than just stumbling his way through his words like usual. "I would love to be friends with you. I miss you. But I get that you probably can't bear to be friends with me again, even though I promise I'd never fuck it up that badly again (although I can't promise being perfect). So if you want me to leave you alone, I will. I just want you to be happy, Scorpius. I know it's far too little, too late, but I value your happiness more than I value mine, so even though I miss you, please just tell me to fuck off if you'd rather." He looked beseechingly at Scorpius.
