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Scorpius feels kind of guilty.

About many things, really, it's one of the numerous emotions he's kept a tight lid on over the past three years. Right now, though, what he feels guilty about is spending so much of his free time with his new boyfriends rather than killing mals. Obviously he enjoyed that time with them, but he still has to make up for it somehow. Night patrols aren't as heroic as rescuing children being actively targeted in the middle of class or while trying to get their food, but he's not doing this for the heroism; he actually genuinely wants to save as many kids from this infernal place as he can.

Sure, the one in four odds of survival inside the Scholomance, with its ton of wards and nearly airtight separation from the outside world and relatively few maleficaria (only the ones that manage to squeeze in), beat the—what, one in ten? one in twenty?—odds that they would be facing outside. To offer sanctuary and protection to all the wise-born children of the world, or something, is what the school was built for, because wise-born children get nice and plump with mana as they go through puberty while conversely being much less skilled (and therefore easier targets) than adult wizards. So of course all of the magic-eating monsters in the world will target them, and before the Scholomance existed wizards had to have a metric ton of children just to stay at replacement, and mundane-born wizards were a much larger percentage of living wizards than they are now.

Now the Scholomance exists, and the odds of survival in it from start to finish are way way better than that, but one in four is still not good enough, not in Scorpius's opinion. And every mal he kills is one fewer mal that will be around to eat some kid in the morning. Plus, as a bonus, he gets mana from killing maleficaria anyway. He's putting his finger on the scales, and as a result the cohorts of kids that have coexisted with him in the school have had some of the highest survival rates in recent history.

And the price is that sometimes he skips sleep because he's feeling guilty for not going patrolling earlier because he was spending time with his boyfriends. He wasn't lying to Edmund, he really doesn't need that much sleep, and this isn't even two nights in a row, he had a break in between.

It's fine. He's fine.

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When he gets back to his dorm, other students are beginning to stir; a few of them have even left their rooms. They assume he's one of these early risers.

Also, Edmund is standing in front of the door to his room, and as Scorpius approaches, he turns to stare at him.

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"Oh hi," he says, looking... perhaps a bit like a dog that has just been caught trying to get onto the table to get the chocolate cake there even though he maybe knows dogs shouldn't be eating chocolate cake. Maybe if he'd been less surprised, and less "just spent the night up hunting mals" sleep-deprived, he'd have managed to smooth out the guilty look on his face. As-is, though, he looks rather caught.

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"Good morning," Edmund says automatically. "How frequently exactly do you do this?"

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"...uh, normally once every week or... two."

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"Let's talk about this later," Edmund decides. "Did you want to shower, I've got the potion for it."

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"Sure! I'll get a change of clothes first and let's grab Lex too?"

He does not liiiiike thiiiiis lalalalala~

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"Yes, let's." Edmund steps out of the doorway.

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So Scorpius goes into his room grab a change of clothes and his knapsack (which he did not have with him, he only needs his hands and his trusty lightsaber for mal killing) and then after locking and refreshing the wards on his door walks five doors down to knock on Lex's door.

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Lex answers after some fairly determined pounding. "It's 6am on a Saturday," he growls. "What-"

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"Well, you see, Lake was already up," Edmund says meaningfully. "- besides, you can't afford to skip breakfast, come on."

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"The Hell do you mean he was already up? Was he, what, roving around all night killing -"

Lex sniffs the air.

"You're fucking joking."

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"I do that sometimes!" he says, a tad defensively.

....a LOT defensively.

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"We're going to shower and have breakfast and then yell at him about it," Edmund says firmly. "It'll go better if we're certain that we're not just hungry-angry."

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"...long as I get to yell at him," Lex mutters. He grabs his change of clothes and steps out into the hall.

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Scorpius considers trying to get a whole Contingent of kids to escort to the bathrooms but that'd just be delaying the inevitable.

Most juniors are going to sleep in, a bit, today; their breakfast queue won't open for a while still and they can freshen up after rather than before breakfast, what with how there's no class today. And this is truer of sophomores and freshmen, who have an even later breakfast queue (if only by fifteen minutes). Plus, most people don't actually go get cleaned that often anyway, so the bathrooms are not very full.

There are the seniors, though, who have graduation practice runs in the gym scheduled even on Saturdays and therefore need to get up early anyway, so the bathrooms are still not deserted.

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Edmund mixes up a batch of soap and distributes it between the three of them. They can shower separately on this occasion.

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Too damn right they can.

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No distracting them with sex this morning? Shame.

Scorpius is used to quick and efficient showers, himself. Being one of the only people (perhaps the only person? he hasn't checked) at school who does shower daily due to mals being afraid of him rather than vice-versa, he still doesn't have much reason to dawdle. But after he's done showering he goes to one of the mirrors and grabs his trusty blade—athame, Lex had called it, and Scorpius is growing rather fond of the description—lathers his face and head with warm water and some of that soap potion, and gets to shaving everything. He doesn't bother getting dressed for this, it'd just get his clothes wet.

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Lex exits his shower and beholds this.

"Very hygienic," he comments. "Thank God I'm blonde enough not to have to worry."

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"I'm Black, I have to worry rather a lot," Scorpius says, smiling as he goes through the practiced motions fairly quickly. "Although probably less than I actually do. I just like the way I look."

He's done in short order, but he gets his blade properly rinsed and cleaned and dried and carefully resheathed before he even pats his face dry and puts his clothes back on.

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Edmund exits the shower midway through, and once the process is complete, rubs Scorpius' head vigorously.

"Haircut tax," he says solemnly.

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Scorpius giggles and leans over to give Edmund better access.

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"Are we not being angry today? Is that postponed?"

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"We're being angry later. Opportunities to invoke the haircut tax are rare in the Scholomance. Nigel thinks it's undignified, and Peter hasn't been cutting his hair because he's had no time with graduation prep."

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"We should get going to the cafeteria, though, and you can find whatever inventive things you want to rub against me later."

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