2024
~*-R-*~
~*-R-*~
Rose knew Scorpius, and she knew that he was in more pain that he was letting on. It was the way he moved slightly slower and more hesitantly than usual, the way his eyes would occasionally widen or close suddenly, and then return to normal so that you weren't sure if you had really seen it. She knew he didn't want anyone to worry, or ask if he was all right, or fuss over him. She thought he would dislike fuss immensely. But it was hard to watch him wheel himself awkwardly away from the makeshift table, hard to see the exhaustion in his face and do nothing. "That was great, Hannah," he said. "You have no idea how good it is to have real food again."
"I'd be careful if I were you," Lizzie warned. "She'll really fatten you up if you give her half a chance."
Hannah shot her daughter a disapproving glance as she cleared the plates. "Thank you, Elizabeth. Don't you have any homework you should be doing? That isn't Herbology?"
"Oh mum," Lizzie sighed, and Rose saw Neville hiding a grin behind his hand. "You know Herbology's the only NEWT I really care about."
"No daughter of mine is going to deliberately fail three out of four NEWTs," Hannah said firmly. "Besides, after this summer I should hope you're all going to be doing better in Defence Against the Dark Arts."
The room fell suddenly silent. Rose immediately felt so guilty that she couldn't meet anyone's eyes. She knew without looking that Albus would be feeling the same. When she glanced at him, Scorpius was staring down at his lap, his fingers moving slowly and absent-mindedly over the textured surface of the wheels on his chair.
"Mum," Lizzie breathed, shocked.
"No, she's right," Albus said flatly. "What good's learning to stun people or do a shield charm if you can't do it in a real life and death situation? They don't teach you that stuff in school."
Neville was frowning now. "Be glad you haven't had much opportunity to practice," he said. "Still, I'm inclined to agree. You never know what could happen, even these days. I'll have a word to Professor Tufty about it."
Hannah was looking about as ashamed as Rose currently felt. "I'm sorry, dear," she said to Scorpius. "I wasn't thinking."
"No." Scorpius folded his hands in his lap and looking up at her. "It's fine."
"Let's test the stairs then," Albus said, in a desperate attempt to change the subject for which Rose was grateful. He took hold of the back of Scorp's chair and pushed it gently to the foot of the staircase. Scorpius looked up at the stairs with trepidation.
"I don't think I can -" he began, but stopped in surprise as the chair shuddered of its own accord. He gripped the wheels and swallowed hard. "What was that?" he demanded.
Albus grinned. "It's like my Phoenixer before a game. It wants you to tell it what to do."
Scorpius looked unconvinced. "If I say it, how do I know it won't shoot up and hit the ceiling?" he asked doubtfully.
Rose came around to look more closely at the runes engraved in the wooden chair frame. She could see the symbol for levitation there, among others that were indeed similar to those you might find on a broomstick before the marks were polished off. "Well?" Scorpius asked her. "Is it going to kill me?"
She smiled at him. "I doubt it," she said. "Just be gentle. Think it, as well as say it. Like your guitar, if you... if you had to tell it to play quietly."
Scorpius frowned thoughtfully, as if this comparison hadn't occurred to him. Then he sighed. "All right. I trust you," he told her.
"Hey!" Albus protested.
"No offence, Al, but I've seen that mad broomstick of yours nearly throw you enough times to doubt your judgement," Scorp told him. He was gritting his teeth slightly, and Rose knew he was preparing himself to take the next big step - metaphorically, anyway.
She drew her wand. "If you fly up, I'll be right here to bring you back down," she said. There was certainly no way she was just going to let him get hurt again. "I promise."
"Gently," Al reminded him.
"I've got it, thanks," Scorp growled. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second, then, while everyone waited in silent expectation, he said - barely audibly - "up."
Nothing happened.
Albus sighed. "Not that gently," he chided. "Come on, d'you want to get up there or not?"
Scorpius gave him an incredulous look.
"Well it's not going to work if you don't want it to," Albus said flatly. "That's how magic works. Try it again."
Scorpius set his shoulders and grit his teeth. "Up," he said firmly.
Rose gripped her wand tightly as the chair rattled happily and lifted a few inches off the floor. She heard Scorpius let out a short gasp, and then his fingers slowly released from their death grip on the wheels. Under his touch, they started turning slowly, and, with a delicacy she might not have thought possible of an old piece of furniture, the chair began to float serenely up the staircase. It was a tight fit, but the thing never even touched the sides.
"Cool," Lizzie said appreciatively. They watched as the chair reached the top step, and heard Scorpius say "stop! Down Down!." The three of them hurried up the stairs after him in single file as the chair sank reluctantly back down to the floor.
"That was great," Albus said, grinning as he helped Scorp push the chair into the living room.
Rose didn't say anything. Scorp had gone even paler than before, and she could see even the short trip up the stairs had tired him out. "Where's Alice?" he asked, in an offhanded way that Rose knew meant he had probably been busting to ask since his arrival.
"At Grandad's," Lizzie replied. "Just for a few days while you get settled in. Mum thought a hyperactive five year old might not be the best thing when you're trying to rest."
Scorpius looked disappointed. Rose didn't blame him; she knew that he loved Alice as if she was his own little sister.
"Come on then," said Albus. "Let's get you settled in."
They went together into Tony's bedroom, where Scorpius' things had been either put away in the wardrobe, or gently piled into his school trunk at the foot of the bed. His guitar had been taken out of its case for the first time in months, and leant strategically in a corner. As they came in, Rose saw Scorp's eyes widen and linger on it for a moment. "Do you want to play?" she asked. It might help relax him a little, she thought, or at least distract him for a while. "You'll probably have to tune it -" she reached for it, meaning to pass it to him, but before she could even touch it, he interrupted her.
"No," he said, almost harshly. She turned to stare at him and he shifted uncomfortably. "Not right now," he added, not quite meeting her eyes. "Maybe later."
She nodded, though his reaction still worried her a little.
"Time for your potion anyway," Albus said, checking his watch.
Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Trust you to remember all Knox's instructions. This St Mungo's thing should work out just perfectly for you."
"What's this?" Lizzie asked, frowning.
"Yeah, what St Mungo's thing?" Rose asked, and Albus, with a long-suffering look, explained his punishment.
"It's not too bad, I guess," he sighed. "Especially since Dad said the two of us could have been charged with interference in a major Ministry investigation." It wasn't the first time Rose had heard this - her mother had been extremely clear on the subject, in fact - but it still gave her a sick, twisting feeling in her belly.
"Rot," Lizzie scoffed. "The Wizengamot wouldn't dare bring you up on charges. The papers would have a field day if they arrested Harry Potter's son. Do you have to volunteer as well?" she asked Rose.
Rose shook her head . "This is the first I've heard of it."
Albus made a face. "Dad said you'd probably 'been through enough'," he quoted. "Isn't that nice. Anyway, I was the one who was cursed."
Lizzie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, really scary curse. It wasn't hurting you, was it?"
Al glared at her. "I'll get the potion," he muttered, and stalked out of the room.
"You two are on excellent terms again, I see," Scorpius said, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Oh, well," Lizzie sighed, sitting down on the bed with a whumph noise. "He's infuriating. And he waves that Cleo girl around in my face every chance he gets."
Rose blinked, surprised. She hadn't been paying much attention to anyone's personal relationships lately, but she thought she might have realised if Al was being particularly ego-driven. If anything, she thought he'd been quite withdrawn all summer, even before their ill-advised trip to Paris.
"Didn't you break up with him?" Scorpius pointed out to Lizzie, in defence of his friend. "You can't really blame him for going out with someone else, can you?"
"I was not," Lizzie protested. "Blaming him, that is, and yes I did break up with him, it's just that I wish they weren't so... so..."
"Obvious?" Rose suggested. There were times when she had felt more or less the same, to be honest, but if Al was happy, she had no right to protest. Particularly in view of the fact she was dating his best friend.
"Showy," Lizzie muttered.
"Cleo's just outgoing," Scorpius explained, in a way that reminded Rose how utterly clueless he could be sometimes. "She's nice really, once you get to know her."
Lizzie merely shook her head, her newly-cropped hair bouncing enthusiastically around her ears. "Well," she said, getting up off the bed. "Dad's put me in charge of the school greenhouses while you're here, Scorp, so I better go check that nothing's burst through the roof since yesterday. Tell Mum I'll be back before dinner?" she added to Rose.
"No problem." Rose watched her go for a second, then turned back to Scorpius. He looked back at her. "So."
"So," he said, with a tired sort of smile. "How'd your parents take you leaving, in the end?"
She shrugged. "Not too bad," she said, more or less truthfully. "Dad's not happy about it, but Mum kept reminding him that I'm of age, and he can't stop me."
Scorpius grimaced. "I bet that really improved matters."
"Not really," Rose agreed. "But I couldn't stay there another minute, honestly I couldn't. Mum and Dad had a huge row last night." She was surprised how easily the words came. She hadn't planned on talking about it at all.
"About me?" Scorpius asked. "Or you?"
"No, about Dad," Rose said. "Mum's hardly been speaking to him since we found out. She thinks he should do something to make sure he gets his job back. Dad just wants to wait it out, I think. He said he apologised to you. Did he?"
Scorpius nodded slowly. "Unless it was a hallucination," he joked lamely.
"Good. What did you say?"
"Me? Not much. It was all I could to understand what he was saying."
Rose glowered, feeling yet another stab of anger. "Trust him to try and apologise when you were only half conscious," she muttered. "He really ought to come here and say it again, properly."
Scorpius looked pained. "Once was enough, Rosie, really. As long as I don't get kidnapped again... I'll get over it." There was a slight bitterness in his tone that gave the lie to the words, however.
"You're a better person than I am, then." Rose shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair, making bits of it frizz up with static. She took a step closer and peered down at the chair again. "Is this thing even comfortable?"
"Surprisingly yes. I think it must have all sort of charms on it."
"The runes are pretty strong magic," she said thoughtfully. "I wonder how old it is?"
"You can do all the research you want when we get back to school," Scorpius sighed. "Make it a special NEWT project."
Rose looked up in surprise at the sudden bite in his tone. "Are you okay?"
He frowned for a moment, then his shoulders relaxed slightly and he looked away. "Sorry," he muttered.
She knelt down beside the chair and covered his hand with hers. "Look at me," she said, and he did, albeit somewhat reluctantly. "You're going to get better," she told him firmly.
"We don't know that for sure," he murmured.
"Well I do," she said. "I know."
"Are you a medi-witch now?" he asked, and it might have been her imagination, but she thought she felt his hand tremble a little.
"Knox can say whatever he wants," she said, not taking her eyes away from his. "I know you're going to walk again because you're brave, and kind, and special, and you saved my life, so I owe you a life debt and if its the last thing I do, I'm going to make sure that you get out of that chair. Okay?"
"But what if I don't?" he asked. There was a fearful yet resigned tone to his voice that she didn't like at all. "What if I'm stuck like this forever? We know its possible -"
"Then I'll still be here," Rose promised. It was all she could do, all she had to offer. "And Al will be here, and Neville and the others. And we will keep helping you until you're well again."
"But what if -"
"Stop," she told him, in the firmest voice she had ever heard her mother use. "You have to stop thinking like that. You have to believe that things will change or it won't ever happen. You're not going to get better until you really, truly believe you will."
Scorpius sighed. "You make it sound so easy, like it's some sort of... story. But it's real life - my real life - I can't help - "
At this point, partly to shut him up and partly because she thought he might really, really need it right now, she lifted herself onto one knee, leaned over and kissed him. He made a soft, surprised noise, but he didn't protest or push her away. As he relaxed and she felt the cool, gentle touch of his fingertips on her cheek, she realised that she might have needed this a little, as well.
"Merlin's saggy left - I can't leave the two of you alone for five minutes?"
Rose turned and glared at her cousin, who had appeared in the doorway with a small vial of bright green potion in one hand. "You can talk," she snapped. "Like I haven't walked in on you and Cleo a dozen times this summer."
"Maybe you should have knocked." Albus shrugged.
"I would if you ever remembered to shut the door," Rose muttered.
Scorpius was looking with trepidation at the potion. "Is that it?"
"This is it." Albus tossed the vial into the air and caught it again, making Rose's heart jump.
"Don't!" she cried.
He gave her a puzzled look. "What? I wasn't going to drop it - anyway there are like twelve more, downstairs."
"Oh, just give it here," Scorp sighed. "Don't throw it - not all of us have your reflexes."
Albus handed the potion over with exaggerated care, and Scorp downed it with a grimace. "Gross," he muttered, and yawned.
"That's how you know its good for you," Al said. "You better - er, I mean - do you want to have a rest, or...?"
Scorpius shot him a look that suggested he saw straight through the switch of approach as clear as glass. "Do I have a choice?"
"Of course you do," Rose said, resisting the sudden urge to flick Albus around the ear. "You can do whatever you want."
"Yeah, right." Scorp winced and put a hand to his ribs, swallowing hard. "Hell. Knox didn't mention how hard that stuff kicks in."
"Should I fetch -" Rose began, but he shook his head.
"Just... help me out of this thing," he muttered, not looking at either of them but pushing the chair back towards the bed.
Albus took a hesitant step forward. "You want to get changed?" he asked.
"No. Once was enough for one day, thanks. No one's going to care if I'm rumpled."
Al nodded and looked at Rose. Their quarrel temporarily forgotten, they went around opposite sides of the chair and physically lifted him out of it and onto the bed. His body below the waist was very stiff under the paralytic charm, and would not twist from side to side, though his legs bent at the knee just enough to allow him to lie down. He was surprisingly, worryingly light.
He made a low, pained noise as they let him down, though they couldn't have been more careful if he had been made of glass. When they stood back, his eyes were scrunched up and his lips pressed tightly together as if holding back a cry.
"Sorry," Rose said helplessly. He let out a low grunt of acknowledgement, and then a sort of strangled whimper as his body spasmed. Rose looked up at Albus in disbelief. "Can't we do anything?" she demanded.
Her cousin frowned at her and beckoned her away from the bed. Reluctantly she followed him to the edge of the room. "He's in pain," she whispered. "Can't we do something?"
"The pain is the potion working," Albus pointed out. "It's regrowing his spine. It's bound to hurt. And he's not allowed a numbing potion till tomorrow... I don't like it anymore than you do, but if the Healer says it's okay..."
"Knox is a madman," Rose snapped in a low hiss, only just remembering to keep her voice down. "I don't believe he's ever had so much as a splinter in his whole life, or he'd have some sense of human -"
"Rose." Albus nodded towards the bed.
Rose looked. Scorpius' breathing had evened out, and one arm had fallen limply across the bed. He was still pale, but it looked as though the fit had passed.
"He needs to rest," Al said, when she would have gone back to him. She stopped, reluctantly. Lying on the bed, his chest slowly rising and falling, you might not have seen there was anything wrong with him at all.
She turned away and let Albus lead her back into the living room. "I hate this," she muttered, when they were well out of earshot. "I hate it. If I ever see Malfoy again..." she clenched her fists, fighting back expletives, and then rounded on her cousin. "And all you can do is joke around!" she burst out.
Al looked surprised. "Oh? And what am I supposed to do? Moaning and moping around is just going to remind him how much his life sucks right now. It's killing me, too, you know. You're not the only one who cares."
She was about to snap that of course she knew he cared, she just wished he would show it, but the look on his face made her hesitate. "This is our fault," she said, softly. "If we hadn't been there..."
"I know," he said, darkly, his expression suddenly as serious as her own.
"I should be in that chair," she said. She had had the same thought several times already, but saying it out loud made her realise just how true it really was.
"If he'd hit you, you'd be dead," Al said. "Knox was clear about that - Scorp was really, really lucky. The only reason it didn't kill him was because he was in the air, at an angle, and cos they got him back in time to give him back the blood he'd lost."
"I don't know if that makes it better or worse." Rose swallowed and sat down in one of the Longbottoms' living room chairs. She put her head in her hands and tried to gather herself. "So what do we do now?"
~*-S-*~
~*-S-*~
This time he dreamed that he had got in another fight with Jian Chung, and the Slytherin boy was looking up at him from the ground with an odd expression on his face - not malice, but something else... fear, perhaps? It was weird, not just because Scorpius couldn't imagine himself knocking anyone down - particularly Chung who was a dab hand at curses - but because Jian just sat there, staring at him. When he woke up, he lay there for a while, reflecting on the strangeness of it. He hadn't even spoken to any of the Slytherins outside of class since Jian had hexed Rose in Defence Against the Dark Arts. That had to be two years or so ago, now.
He lay in the soft bed and stared at the spot on the wall that was a slightly different colour, probably due to a poster that had hung there for a long time. The room hadn't changed much since Tony had lived here - or at least, that he could tell. The sheets on the bed were creamy white, with a thick duvet in a neutral sort of dusky grey. It was very warm, and comfortable, except for an itch on his knee that he couldn't quite reach. He grimaced and did his best to ignore it.
There was a chest of drawers, and above that hung Tony's framed OWL and NEWT results. They were too small to read from here, but Scorp knew the Longbottoms' eldest had come top of his year in almost everything, particularly in his NEWTs. Poor Lizzie, he thought. No wonder she didn't want to get her mother's hopes up.
There was a little bookshelf as well, and while the books in it were obviously Tony's - he could make out 'A Study and Comprehensive Glossary of Eastern Runes' from here - he could see his own books in a pile on top. There were quite a lot, he realised, when you added the Muggle books to all his school things, including the NEWT texts from Durmstrang, most of which were now in a jumbled, half-translated state. What a waste of time that was, he thought, half annoyed and half relieved. He really hadn't been looking forward to doing his NEWTs in Russian, and even the French Charms exam had made him nervous. In comparison, the June exams stood in the future like a bright beacon of hope and joy.
There was a framed mirror, and various wooden or metal pendants hung off it. He guessed they were charms used in Cursebreaking. He wondered why Tony hadn't taken them with him. The mirror was too high for him to see into, he realised, and wondered if he could move it with magic, or if he'd have to ask someone to do it for him. He sighed inwardly as he realised just how much help he was going to need.
The objects in the room that stood out were his own things. His school trunk at the foot of the bed - hard to see from here, but knowing it was there was comforting - holding all the things he had had to leave with Albus before the sudden move to Durmstrang; his Muggle clothes, presents from his friends, the new iPod he had had since his birthday, and the old one he had carried around with him since he was eleven. It didn't work anymore, but it had been a part of him. After two months or so without it though, it seemed a little silly to hold on to it, even if the thought of getting rid of it was highly uncomfortable. His notebook, with months worth of music-related scribbles, was sitting on the desk next to his wireless. It was strange to see the book there, because he knew he had hidden it in the loose floorboard in the cupboard of his room in Paris. The Aurors had been quite thorough in their search of the house, then. He wondered if they'd been able to get into the safe.
And then there was his guitar. It stood in the corner beside the bookcase, the afternoon sun peeking through the gaps in the curtains and gleaming off the polished woodwork, making it harder and harder to ignore.
Last summer, here in this same building, he had played every night in front of a crowd. People had liked him. He had spent all his free time tuning, tweaking and experimenting with the magical strings from the little knick knacks shop on Horshom Alley, and inventing his own charms to improve the sound. Before Durmstrang there had hardly been a day he hadn't played. There had been band practices every Saturday and there had been plans for concerts - or 'gigs', as the others called them - and there had been a dream.
He turned his head to the side to the much less interesting view of the bare wall. The thought of picking the guitar up now made him feel sick. He could only imagine clumsily trying to jam it into the chair, and if speaking caused his chest to burn, then singing would be even more painful, and probably impossible. The thought of sitting on stage with Cleo, Trevor and Dave was laughable. If people didn't laugh at him, they would pity him, and he couldn't decide what would be worse.
The pain wasn't so bad now, though he still had the disconcerting feeling that things inside him were moving around. He had a feeling he was going to dread the administration of those little green vials of potion, however important they were in aiding his recovery. He was sure he hadn't actually fallen asleep but rather passed out from the pain in his back as his friends moved him onto the bed. There had to be a better way of doing that. He imagined being at Hogwarts in the Ravenclaw boys' dormitory, having to ask Albus, Peter or Gaius to help him into bed, or to help him dress, twice a day, or - he shuddered inwardly - help him go to the lavatory. At least, he determined, he wasn't going to be pushed around everywhere. He was going to learn how to use the damn chair properly if it killed him. Gritting his teeth, he planted his palms firmly on the mattress beneath him and dragged himself into a sitting position. That much at least he had figured out in the hospital, but it was risky. Sometimes it set off his back again. He waited a few seconds until he was sure he was safe, and let out a long breath.
There was a soft knock on the door, and Neville came in. He smiled when he saw Scorpius sitting up. "Wasn't sure you were awake," he said. "How're you feeling?"
"Been better," Scorpius admitted.
"Rose told me you struggled with the potion." Neville's smile faded. "I'm sorry, lad. It's going to be a tough few weeks."
I had noticed that, yeah. He almost said it. But to speak to Neville like that would be like base ingratitude, and Scorpius wasn't quite so far gone as that, just yet. The man had accepted guardianship of him, wheelchair and all, with three kids of his own, apparently without a thought to how the rest of the Malfoys would take this news. Scorpius tried not to imagine his father's reaction. He tried not to think of his father at all.
"Listen... I've managed to fend off the Department of Magical Law Enforcement so far," Neville said, perching on the end of the bed. "Since you're not actually a suspect anymore, they can't force you to answer any questions. But... well..."
"You think I should," Scorpius guessed.
"You don't owe them anything," Neville reiterated. "Merlin knows. But yes. Maybe it's just the ex-Auror in me speaking, but now that you can speak about what you know... yes, I think it might help."
"I really don't know much," Scorp pointed out. "I didn't know about any of it until about fifty Aurors were forcing me to the ground in Borgin & Burkes."
Neville nodded. "Well, it's up to you, anyway. Whatever the paperwork says, as far as I'm concerned you're of age, and you don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
Scorpius smiled gratefully. "I... don't mind doing it if it's Mr Potter," he said, surprising even himself with that statement.
"Well, Ron's unlikely to be there, if that's what you're worried about," Neville said, shaking his head. "Honestly, that man. I don't know what gave us all the impression that he'd given up terminal idiocy after he had kids, but it appears we were all mistaken. Don't tell Rose I said that," he added, as an afterthought. "Do you want me to come with you?"
Scorpius started to say 'no', but the word stuck in his throat when he remembered the last time he had entered the Ministry building. Anything could happen, and it wasn't as if he was in the best condition to defend himself. "Do you mind?" he asked instead.
"Course not," Neville said cheerfully. "I'll tell Harry. Do you think you'll be up for it tomorrow?"
Scorpius shrugged. Then he winced.
"Better make it the day after tomorrow," Neville answered his own question. "I know it's probably the last thing you need right now."
~*-A-*~
~*-A-*~
Albus went to Flourish and Blotts that afternoon. Technically he was still grounded, but even his mum couldn't argue with letting him stay the rest of the day with Scorpius, when Rose was living at the Leaky Cauldron. That morning, he had promised Ginny that he would be back in only a few hours, but she had to work in any case, so she wouldn't be home. James was in charge, but he had never been the responsible type. He was unlikely to be biting his nails waiting for his brother's return, so Al took his time. He left the pub and ducked into Wizarding London with his head down, in case anyone recognised him. There had already been a close call with a reporter the day before. Apparently having a family member on the Prophet staff was no longer sufficient protection from the media, when you were friends with the son of the Shadow. Draco Malfoy's face had been front page of the paper again that morning.
He was surprised to find, however, that he was recognised as soon as he entered Flourish and Blotts, not by a reporter, but someone he knew. "Hey, it's miniature Potter, isn't it?" the young man behind the counter grinned at him. "Not so miniature anymore."
"Ben!" Albus grinned and shook the man's hand. Ben was a close friend of Teddy's; they had shared a dormitory at Hogwarts. He had chocolate-dark skin, close-cropped black hair, and an infectious sense of humour that had always been the ideal balance to Teddy's often serious and occasionally cynical personality. "How long've you been working here?"
"'Bout three months," Ben replied. "Terrified of the Hogwarts rush already. I've heard all the horror stories. You're early, aren't you? I didn't think the book lists had come out yet."
"Oh, they haven't," Albus had assured him. "Anyway I have all my NEWT stuff. I need something else... for a friend."
"Ah." The man seemed to sober a moment, and Al wondered if he was just now making the connection between the boy in front of him and what he might have read in theProphet recently. "I see. Anything I can help you with?"
"Er..." Albus looked up at the tall, endless bookshelves. "I'll go with yes, I reckon. Um, my friend is... injured, temporarily, and he can't move around much. I was wondering if there were any charms for, well, getting dressed, washing, self-levitation, that kind of thing."
Ben grinned a bright white grin. "I love it when people ask for cool stuff like that," he said. "If one more mopey girl comes in here asking about love spells, I'm quitting."
"Yeah, right." Albus remembered Ben as a notorious book nerd, and Flourish and Blotts was known to be choosy about its staff. It could afford to be, after all, with all the hundreds of resumes they received every year from newly-graduated students with no idea of what they wanted to do with their lives.
"Mm, you're not wrong," Ben agreed, leading him through the maze of shelves. "It can't get much better if you're into books, barring the post of Hogwarts librarian, and that old fellow seems intent to stick around until he dies. Here we go," he said, tapping a shelf as they reached it. "You're right - plenty of wizards have had arms and legs cursed off, or turned to stone, or whatever. They have better Healing charms now, of course, so it's not as common, but there's still a good supply of material."
"Thanks!" Albus said, pleasantly surprised. Ben helped him pick out a few volumes that might be useful. One was centuries old and cost a small fortune, but Scorpius didn't need to know that. As far as Al was concerned, Scorp's pride could go be damned.
"Must be a pretty important friend," Ben said off-handedly as he packed the books into an unbreakable paper bag. Al saw through this straightaway - the man surely knew exactly who it was.
"I messed things up for him big time," Al muttered. "I owe him."
"Well then. Good luck with it. And it was good to see you."
"Yeah, you too. See you round." Al turned round and was almost at the door before Ben called out -
"Oh - well if I won't see you for your Hogwarts books, I guess I'll see you at the wedding, then?"
Al turned and stared. "Er.. what?"
~*-A-*~
~*-A-*~
"So get this," he said later when he had found Rose and Lizzie camped out in the Longbottoms' living room with Scorpius. "Did you know Teddy and Victoire are getting married?"
"What?" Rose gasped. "No! How do you know? Did he tell you?"
"No, I got to hear it from his best man," Al said, dumping the bag of books beside Scorpius' wheelchair. "Ben Washington is working at Flourish and Blotts. Apparently he didn't realise none of the rest of us had any clue."
"Well... I always knew they'd get engaged eventually," Rose said, shaking her head in disbelief. "But why on earth wouldn't they tell us? Teddy can't be afraid of telling Bill and Fleur - they love him." She sounded a little resentful at that. Albus could guess why.
"Maybe they're just waiting for the right moment," Lizzie put in wisely. Albus turned to look at her. She was sitting cross-legged on an armchair, using some sort of potion to clean the dirt out from under her fingernails. "I probably wouldn't want to announce something like that right now, in the middle of all your family drama."
"Oh," Rose said, with an air of guilty realisation. "I suppose that might be it."
"When's the wedding?" Scorpius asked. He looked a little less beaten down than he had earlier, but there were noticeably dark circles under his eyes, his hair was drooping lifelessly over his forehead and he was still wearing the same clothes he had slept in.
"May," Albus replied. He couldn't help feeling hurt that Teddy hadn't told him. He wondered if his dad knew. Teddy usually told Harry everything, since the man was the closest thing he had ever had to a father, and the Potter children always considered him more of a brother than an honorary cousin. He especially couldn't believe that Victoire had managed to keep a secret like that. She was usually the first to share such juicy gossip, and if it meant she could be the centre of attention, so much the better.
"But that's during term," Scorpius said, frowning. "Won't you miss it?"
"Flitwick'll let us go home for something like that," Al said absently. "And say 'we', Scorp, for Merlin's sake, you know Teddy'll invite you."
"You really think so?" Scorpius looked mildly surprised. "I've never been to a wedding."
"You're his cousin, so he'd better," Rose said fiercely. "And if he doesn't, you can be my date, so there."
"I still can't believe they never told us," Al said sulkily, flopping into the only remaining chair.
"I'm sure they'll get around to it eventually," Rose sighed.
Albus made a face. "Well, it's not a secret anymore, is it? Don't see why I shouldn't tell anyone, no one's told me to keep it a secret."
"You oughtn't," Lizzie argued. "What if there's an important reason they haven't told anyone?"
"Like what?" Al demanded. He couldn't think of anything so important that Ted wouldn't tell his own family.
Lizzie shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe Victoire's pregnant."
Rose gasped. "Oh my god! Do you think she is?"
"Well I don't know, do I? I haven't seen her since your birthday. Have you?"
"No-o... but she didn't look pregnant."
"How d'you know? Maybe it's recent. You couldn't tell Mum was pregnant with Alice 'til about four months in, I reckon."
Rose was still frowning with a slightly far-off look, as if trying to remember if Victoire had been glowing with some kind of pregnancy radiation at all the last time she had seen her. Albus decided to change the subject before the discussion went somewhere he was uncomfortable with. "Those are for you," he said to Scorpius, pointedly nodding at the large paper bag at his side. "Ben knows his books, I'll give him that. How'd you manage to get up?"
"Neville helped me," his friend muttered, reddening slightly at this admission. He reached carefully into the bag and, with a pained grunt, pulled out the first book, which was entitled Forty-Seven Tried and Tested Techniques for Self-Levitation: Ideal Charms for the Witch or Wizard with Limited Mobility. "This is great!" he said, opening the book and flipping through the pages to look at the diagrams. Then he peered down into the bag. "Oh... there's a lot of them," he said, with a tone that suggested concern while erring on the verge of not wanting to appear ungrateful. "How much do I owe you?"
"Don't be a prat," Al growled.
"Albus -"
"Shut up." He glared at his friend. Sometimes being rude about it was the only way you could get the younger boy to accept things. He remembered, all the way back in first year, trying to give the Scorp his iPod only to have it practically thrown back in his face. Pride was one thing, however, but in this case he felt that it would take a lot more than a few books to pay back what he owed Scorpius for almost getting his heart blown to smithereens.
Scorpius seemed to struggle internally for a minute, but then gave up. "Don't have any money anyway," he sighed. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Al said firmly.
~*-R-*~
~*-R-*~
"I'm worried about him," Rose said later, lying flat on her back on the bed next to Lizzie's. It was several inches lower than Lizzie's bed, and made her feel like the seven year old child she had been the first time she had slept over at the Leaky. It had been Transfigured out of an old futon, and she would have to renew the charm each day, but it was comfortable, and safe, and at least she could get in and out of it whenever she wanted. Midnight, who seemed to have no issue with the move from Rose's parents' house to the Longbottoms', was curled up by her feet, already vibrating with her sleepiest purr.
Lizzie sighed audibly. "We're all worried about him, Rosie."
They had put Scorpius to bed an hour ago, this time making sure to get him in bed before he drank the potion. It didn't seem to get any easier each time he took it. She had held his hand while he spasmed through the magic burning through his veins, until his breathing evened out and the permanent frown he wore now had softened in sleep. She had wanted to stay with him, but Hannah had convinced her to come away.
Rose shook her head, though she doubted Lizzie could see it by the thin slice of moonlight coming through the chink in the curtains. "That's not what I mean. I mean, yes, Iam worried about the chair and... and everything. But he'll get through that. I know he will. It's the other thing."
She heard Lizzie roll over, and saw her silhouette as she bent her elbow and rested her head on her hand. "What other thing?"
"He hasn't.... he hasn't talked about it," Rose said. "About what happened. Except when his mum came. And even then..." she chewed her lip for a moment, thinking.
"He might have talked to Al," Lizzie suggested. "Or Dad. I could ask."
"But he always talks to me about things," Rose protested. "And it's not healthy... just bottling it all up like that... I just wish he'd have some sort of reaction."
"Isn't it good, that he's calm about it?" Lizzie flopped back onto her back, making the bedsprings creak slightly.
"He's always calm about things," Rose muttered. "That's what's so bloody frustrating. He's always just put up with people treating him horribly, since we were little. Those Gryffindor boys in first year, Jian and his lot... my uncle George, his own grandparents... Even... my dad." She swallowed hard, glad it was so dark so Lizzie couldn't see the look on her face. "It's like he doesn't even care that Dad used him like a... like a pawn. Like he was disposable," she added, the word grating on her tongue.
"Your dad made a mistake, Rose," Lizzie's voice came out of the darkness. "He wasn't deliberately trying to get anyone killed."
Rose refused to listen to such logic. She wasn't ready to forgive yet. "But this was Scorp's father that hurt him," she continued. "He's seriously hurt, and he's not even angry. That you could tell, anyway," she sighed. "And if he does get annoyed he goes all surly and quiet and you can't get a word out of him. He won't talk about anything."
"So you want him to have a screaming fit?"
"No! I just wish... I wish he'd say how he was really feeling, for once." She heard a snort from the other bed. "What?" she demanded.
"You're one to talk about real feelings," Lizzie said. "Who was it harboured a secret crush on him for months and then sprung it on him out of nowhere without giving him a chance to get used to the idea?"
Rose shifted guiltily. "Okay, but that's different..."
"Is it though? Listen, he's just getting used to everything right now. We all are, right? Things'll go back to normal once we're back at Hogwarts."
"But the day after tomorrow he has to go to the Ministry - and after what happened- "
"Dad'll look after him." Lizzie sat up and tugged the gap in the curtains closed, a clear signal that the conversation was over. "Don't worry about it."
But Rose did worry. She couldn't help it. All she could think was of Scorpius, alone. If it was her, she knew she would be terrified. Terrified of being kidnapped again. Terrified of waking up in the middle of the night in agony. Terrified that she might never wake up again once she closed her eyes. She lay awake for what seemed like hours, staring up at the ceiling until she imagined she could see shadowy shapes moving across them, and for the first time she wished she was home, in her own bed, with Hugo's snoring coming from the next room. When it got to the point she thought she couldn't stand it a moment longer, she pushed back the covers and gently slid her feet out and onto the floor. Midnight opened one orange eye and purred in protest. "Shh," Rose whispered. "Here. You can have this one all to yourself." As an afterthought, she reached under her pillow and pulled out her wand.
She tip-toed along the corridor to Scorpius' room. The door was already ajar, since no one felt quite right closing the door on him all the way. From here she could see Neville and Hannah's bedroom. That door was ajar, as well. Dimly she wondered if anyone was sleeping properly at the moment. She pushed the door so that there was just enough space for her, and slipped inside. Scorpius was lying in the exact position she had left him, too exhausted to do anything but sleep. She padded over and crawled onto the bed, carefully, one limb at a time, so as not to disturb him, but he didn't even stir. She had to hold her hand close to his nose to make sure he was still breathing. She put her head beside his on the pillow, and ever so gently lay one arm across his waist. She positioned her wand in her other hand, pointing away from him just in case.
If anyone came for him now, she thought, at least she would be ready.