The Inevitable Fate

Chapter Three: The Unwanted Guest

How about I punch you in the face? Albus wanted to reply. Was this really the time? He didn't care about facing his Boggart. All he cared about was Scorpius—who was paralyzed in terror, sobbing all alone in the dangerous halls of Hogwarts.

Albus turned his head to the Boggart, which hummed into a singsong voice, a chilling tune that was hauntingly familiar.

The gaunt witch standing before him had deathly spectral skin and attractively flowing silver hair spotted with blue tips at the very ends. Her long, silky hair poured over her chest, her smile as terrifying as her eagle shaped eyes and electric blue pupils. She was dressed in a pink blouse with grey lace at the front, illuminating just a hint of her bony collar. Her nails were painted a corcuscating lavender colour, matching quite well with her black dress pants.

"Albus Severus," Delphi breathed. "You don't really fear me, do you?"

Albus raised his wand at her, detecting no horror at all, for all he felt was rage. Rage at what had happened to Scorpius and his Mum, indignation that his Boggart turned into Voldemort's doleful daughter who killed without mercy, wrath that, after a year of not thinking about her, she suddenly showed up in the shape of a Boggart.

"You're not real." Albus remembered. His teeth were clenched as badly as his fists. "Are you?"

"I'm real to you." Delphi's red lips pursed into a smile as she drummed her long fingers by her abdomen, humming quietly. "And you know it."

"I'm not scared of you, Delphi," Albus said, shaking his head. "Think this Boggart is confused about me nearly just as much as I am. It just proves that some people just aren't afraid." He shrugged, raising his wand. "Riddi—"

"Scorpius!" Delphi suddenly interrupted as she rolled her head up and down, cracking a few bones as she did such an obscure pattern, "That's what your fear is. When you see me, all you can see, all you can picture, is me torturing him. That is your greatest fear...that I will torture him again. Your fear is that memory of me hurting him...that while I used Crucio on him—oh what fun was that you just stood there and watched...just as powerless and pathetic as your Father."

"At least I have a Father!" Albus shot back.

"I do, too."

"But mine wants me." Albus' mouth twitched into a manipulative smirk. "Yours...yours wants nothing to do with you. He left you in that orphanage to die—your Mum, too." He elevated his wand again, his eyebrows travelling further and further up his crinkled forehead as he watched Delphi's exasperated expression. He sneered at her triumphantly, knowing that he got to her. She looked like she was thinking of words to say, words that would somehow shatter him, but was rendered speechless. "Stay away from Scorpius," Albus warned, glaring at her with purest hatred. He was fuming, singed with so much unhappiness and resentment that he would have no problem, at this very moment, committing murder. "Riddikulus!"

Delphi melted onto the floor, changing into a wind-up toy monkey, slamming its golden cymbals together with a crashing sound. The class roared with laughter, pointing at the toy. Albus didn't. He couldn't. He couldn't laugh, for all he could think about was Delphi torturing Scorpius.

Albus gathered his belongings and stuffed Scorpius' intimidating pile of textbooks carelessly in his bag, slinging his heavy backpack on his broad shoulders, determined to find his friend after such a disastrous event.

Albus bolted out the door and made his way through the echoing hallways and hallow corridors. Then, he heard an agonizing choking sob. It was unmistakably Scorpius. Without hesitation, he stalked over to him, ready to hug him with opened arms when he heard another voice—a girl's voice.