"Farewell, my kind friends. I have climbed this hill and I shall now die upon it."
Scorpius sighed as he tried to heave a spread eagled Albus to his feet.
Key word being tried.
Al remained glued to the floor with the stubbornness of a barnacle.
Rose clicked her tongue.
"Don't be ridiculous, Al, we've only been climbing for twenty minutes."
"And I am utterly exhausted! Do you have any idea how many flights of stairs we've climbed? Because I don't! And I'm not sure I want to know. My feet feel like they're going to fall off any second now."
"Okay Al, let's all go be drama queens in an empty classroom. We're holding up the traffic." Scorpius advised, offering him a hand.
Al huffed, hauled himself to his feet and straightened his tie.
"I take back the 'kind' in my previous statement. You're a slave driver, Malfoy."
"Love you too, bestie," Scorpius swept past him with a wink and skipped up the spiral staircase with a nimbleness the other two sorely lacked.
Rose clapped her cousin on the shoulder before taking off behind Scorp.
Their heavy bags stuffed with borrowed books didn't slow them down in the slightest. Bloody Quidditch players.
Albus adjusted the strap of his satchel (satchel-not even a bag what was this the 90's?oh wait-) and craned his neck at the many flights of stairs he had to brave in order to get to Divination.
Rose and Scorpius would have died rather than being caught taking Divination. They were on their way to Arithmancy and were already engrossed in a conversation about theorems and angles and whatnot.
Al missed his best friends but didn't regret taking Divination one bit. He didn't understand Aunt Hermione's problem with it; all you had to do was invent a couple of self directed death threats while staring lovingly at a glass sphere and bam! you had an O in the bag.
Scorp clambered up the ladder that lead to the Arithmancy classroom, poked his head through the trap door and blinked in confusion.
"This isn't the Arithmancy classroom."
"Nope, its the Divination classroom."
Scorpius and Rose ascended the ladder fully and stared around the stuffy, jewel like room with equal amounts of fascination and revulsion.
Albus, cheerfully bounded up the ladder and ran smack into Rose. "Ow-Rose- you're stepping on my - could you move a bit, please? Also, it was really nice of you to walk me to my class, but both of you need to go to Arithmancy now before someone decides you've been skiving."
"This is the Arithmency classroom!" Scorp insisted as Rose nodded her agreement.
"Not in this timeline, it isn't. Your class is on the second floor with Professor Vector. Opposite the painting with the three pepper shakers, remember? Professor McGonagall told us about it at breakfast- and neither of you are listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"
Rose simply raised an eyebrow, as if to say "you think ?" while Scorp wandered over to peer at the delicate tea cups on a shelf.
Albus rescued a patterned blue and yellow teacup from Scorpius' fumbling hands and set it down gently on the shelf.
"Figures. Anyways, if the pair of you could hustle it down to the second floor for Arithmency, you know, the class you are now ten minutes late for, I'd be ever so obliged- will you stop that?"
"Nope," said Rose, performing a series of extremely complicated looking wand movements at a floor length mirror while Scorp poked through a musty bookshelf stuffed with more snow globes than books.
Al gave them up as a lost cause.
"Scorp, c'mere and take a look at this," Rose ordered, still staring at the mirror.
Scorp wandered over, scrunched his nose at his reflection, then scrunched his nose at Rose.
"What?" he asked, clearly confused.
Rose pointed at the engraving on the mirror, carved painstakingly into the ancient wood in a spidery hand no one could read.
"So that's where this ended up," murmured Albus as he joined them.
"What ended up where?" Asked Scorpius absently, now examining the carvings while Rose raised an eyebrow at her reflection.
"The mirror of erised," elaborated Albus. "Or rather, Trelawney's knockoff version of the mirror of erised. She told us about it back in fourth year. Apparently some ancestor of her's created it and it works like a charm. All the properties of the original, without the addictive side effects."
"I wouldn't say 'it works like a charm'," Rose said disdainfully.
"It's nothing like what Dad told us it would be. All I see is our reflection."
"Yes," Scorpius chimed in. "Its just us. Isn't it supposed to show, like, who we want to be and all?"
"It's supposed to show you what you most desire," corrected Albus, stepping in front of the mirror.
He stared at it and then frowned.
It showed him several years older, with laugh lines prominent around his green eyes, surrounded by his family and friends looking at him proudly.
He was laughing as Scorp patted him on the back and his father gave him a beaming smile. He was known for something other than the Potter name. He was out of his parent's shadow and had made a name for himself.
He looked strong, calm and happier than he had ever looked before.
He was home.
Albus smiled at his reflection, and it wasn't a longing smile. It was a determined one. He knew he would make that future come true.
He shook his head a little to clear his thoughts and turned to glare at Scorpius and Rose.
"It works perfectly well!" He cried indignantly.
Rose and Scorp still looked doubtful but shoved their way in front of him to stand shoulder to shoulder as they squinted suspiciously at the mirror.
"Nah," Scorpius shook his head. "I still see only our reflection."
Rose tilted her head a little." Maybe a little bit older, but..."
She was cut off by Albus who let out a bark of laughter.
"Oh, my beautiful idiots," Al declared "this is the mirror of desire. It literally shows you what you want the most in your life."
He leaned back on his hands with a grin and waited for them to get it.
He could practically see the wheels in their heads turning.
Rose was the first to understand, as he expected, and turned a beautiful, deep shade of red. Her ears were practically flaming.
Scorpius, despite the scarily sharp intelligence he had been born with, still remained peacefully oblivious. Bless.
"What?"
Rose managed to get her face under control in time to share a despairing look with Albus.
Sometimes Al really wondered who the Potter was among them. Scorp seemed to take after Harry like a duck took to water, despite them not sharing a single drop of blood.
Al looked pointedly at Rose, the mirror and back at Scorp.
"Oh. Oh! Ohh. Umm." Said Scorpius, catching on at last.
"Yes," agreed Rose faintly.
"Yes!" proclaimed Albus gleefully.
Rose and Scorpius did a horrible job of avoiding each other's eyes and then proceeded to flush pink when their gazes inevitably collided.
Albus cleared his throat as he waited for them to finish their stare-off.
Then he waited some more.
They payed him no heed and continued to remain lost in each other's eyes.
Merlin, this was getting intense.
He coughed pointedly and wedged his body between the two.
"Don't you two have somewhere to be?"
He flicked his gaze at the trap door and then back at his best friends, who were hastily creating space between themselves.
"Breakfast is almost over. Trelawney and the others will be here soon."
"Ah, yes, of course," muttered Rose, tucking her hair behind her ears.
"Righto, we should get to that immediately, lets go then, no time to lose, chop chop. Ancient Runes, here we come!" blabbered Scorp at top speed.
Albus hadn't seen him this flustered since Gemma Zabini, seventh year prefect, had asked him out in their fourth year.
He hid his amused smile and smoothened his tie while dryly pointing out that they had Arithmancy at the moment, not Ancient Runes.
Scorpius grew even more agitated and Albus decided to put him out of his misery, if only out of pity.
Rose spared him that ordeal, and having managed to gain some semblance of control over her face, nodded decisively and frog-marched Scorpius towards the trapdoor.
This did absolutely no favours for Scorpius' current state of mind, but at least he didn't trip over his robes and make a complete fool of himself as Al would have done in his place.
If there was one thing his best friend possessed in multitudes, it was grace.
Scorp and Rose disappeared down the trap door, each turning to give him a half sheepish, half panicked smile when they thought the other wasn't looking.
Al waved lazily back and made himself comfortable on a chintz armchair near the window.
Trelawney appeared out of nowhere, as was her habit, and looked thoughtfully in the direction of the trapdoor.
For once there was no vacant, beatific expression on her face. Her eyes were sharp and knowing - and alight with no small amount of mischief.
"I do believe," she hummed "that those young people are in love."
Albus smiled fondly at her.
"So they are, professor. So they are."
********
Lily strode down the grassy hill towards the Forbidden Forest with her three closest friends and partners in crime - and Hagrid.
Hugo and Hagrid were getting on like a house on fire, both doing their best to chatter the other's ear off.
Her cousin was practically jogging at Hagrid's side to keep pace with his long legged stride and he waved his hands excitedly to illustrate a point he was making while Hagrid beamed down at him.
Frank and Louis looked like a pair of proud parents as they watched the fourth member of their little group quite visibly come to life as he talked all things Magical Creatures with his favourite person in the world - even if Hagrid didn't know that yet.
Frank caught Lily's eye and they swapped amused smiles, and if Lily's smile was a touch fonder than usual, Frank certainly wouldn't be the one to tell.
They were almost at the edge of the Black Lake when Lily happened to glance back up at the school - and saw Rose and Scorpius absolutely tear down the third floor corridor as if the forces of hell itself - or a very irate Molly Weasley - were after them.
This in itself was not an unusual sight; Lily was more than used to seeing them loose track of time in the library or the great hall and then race through the school to get to their next classes on time.
What was unusual, was the stilted awkwardness between them as they slowed to a walk and carried on at a more sedate pace, faintly visible even from outside the school walls.
And when your eyesight was as good as Lily's was- well.
She kept her eyes trained on them even as they caught up to the fifth year Care of Magical Creatures Class, and Hagrid bustled forward to bring about order, Hugo now jabbering at top speed in Mermish.
She watched as they bumped into the miniature versions of Hermione and Draco, who added more awkwardness to the situation by each resolutely ignoring the other as they handed their kids a stack of textbooks and motioned at a door down the hallway.
Rose and Scorp adapted to their escorts with ease but didn't take so much as a step towards the other, and matched their footsteps as they marched down the corridor like professional aurors on the warpath.
Hermione and Draco trailed behind them like unwilling bodyguards and held the door open for Rose and Scorp as they swept into Arithmancy.
Even from her spot beside the black lake, Lily could make out Professor Vector's overly enthusiastic greeting and Scorpius and Rose's wince at the loud sound.
Heck, Lily was two floors down and a whole five minute walk away and even she could hear Professor Vector's signature "Good Morning, Arithmancers! And are we ready to learn today?"
There was still a charged air of apprehension and - something else she couldn't quite make out between Rose and Scorp, although anyone who didn't know them well wouldn't notice the difference.
Lily glanced at Hagrid and then down at her copy of 'Endangered Magical Creatures of Wizarding Europe', and then up at Frank, who was already looking at her.
Her eyes flickered in the refracted sunbeams off the glass-like surface of the Black Lake; its emerald hue glimmering with the bright gleam of barely restrained chaos.
Stay here and do a repeat of the coursework she had done over the year, or get a head start on sixth year Arithmancy - and find new blackmail material on her favourite cousin in the process; the choice was an easy one.
Frank raised an eyebrow and she gave him a sharp little grin, wordlessly conveying her request.
Her grin widened when he smirked back at her.
They simultaneously turned to Louise, who had been watching this little exchange with wide eyes and now simply looked resigned as he poked Hugo in the side to get his attention.
Lily and Frank casually backed away from the rest of the class as Hugo started yelling the recipe of Grandma Molly's steak and kidney pie in Mermish while Louise tried to convince Hagrid that Hugo lapsed into Mermish whenever he got excited because he was actually part fish.
Hagrid, bless his soul, believed him immediately and peered down at Hugo in great concern.
By the time Hagrid and the gaggle of vastly amused fifth years lead Hugo down to the lake to dunk him in the water ("So much time on land isn't good for his gills, Hagrid!"), Lily and Frank were racing down a grassy slope and towards the castle.
Lily's hair streamed behind her like a coppery curtain and she laughed in wild abandon as Frank, keeping pace beside her, gave her an easy grin and loosened his tie, tossing it carelessly to the side.
They neared the school doors and Lily closed her eyes for a minute, completely aware of her surroundings even as she reached inside herself, into the depths of her heart and soul where her magic ran free, where a distant song made her blood rush and filled her veins with something new - something different and yet oh so familiar.
She wrapped her magic around that string of wild, wild laughter and she pulled, letting the change envelope her.
One glance to her right and she saw Frank doing the same, his warm brown eyes now glittering with a sharp, dangerous light.
They ran towards an unseen part of the castle walls, hidden behind foliage, so innocuous that you would've missed it if you didn't know it was there, their blood thrumming in their veins with the anticipation only a good espionage mission (or the skiving of classes) brings, and as one, shifted.
A/N
I'm allliiiiivvve!
and I have Absolutely No Regrets for that cliffhanger. *cue evil laughter*
Yes, Lily and Frank are Animagi, and I'll leave ya'll to guess their forms in the comments below.
I've been dying to get to that Scorose scene, it was the first scene I ever drafted out for this fic and here we are at last!
I find it hilarious that Scorp needs nothing short of a slap in the face (or, as the case may be, a magical mirror that ships scorose as much as I do) to realise that he is BLOODY IN LOVE YOU OBLIVIOUS GIT.
ahem.
Anyways. Do leave some comments, they literally give me life, and have a great day! <3