Chapter 24: Whispers
POV: Scorpius
I want to say after the little mishap during Christmas dinner that things went back to normal, that conversations and laughter continued to ring through the cold, cheery night, but I'm sure Mrs. Weasley would wash my mouth out with a bar of soap if I said such a bloody lie.
Truth is, I fucked up.
By the time Mrs. Potter announced it was time to open gifts, I realized this truth, but, of course, it was too late.
The others were too busy letting themselves get caught up in the presents (seeing as the alternative was to think back to the awkwardest dinner in history), but I found it hard to smile even when Mrs. Molly Weasley gave me a hand-knitted, emerald sweater with a silver S on the front. It matched the ones Al and Lucas got (to go with our Slytherin pride, I suppose). I placed the sweater among my pile of unopened gifts, reaching into my pocket to pull out a small, thin parcel I had saved in there.
I knew it was guilt the moment my heart picked up in rhythm when I thought about facing Emily. I thought it was anger before, for her distancing herself from me at the start of term, for her not trusting me enough to let me know what happened inside her head, for her dating someone like Lance Greyback. And maybe it still was anger. Maybe I was still mad that I did not know my best friend, but Emily was...is my best friend. And I hurt her.
No amount of courage was going to brave me into going up to her, but I knew it had to be done. I forced my feet forward to where she stood silent, pale, and lonely. I saw the distance in her emerald eyes, so I pressed my palm on her shoulder, trying to reel her back in. No words were going to be good enough, I knew, so I extended her the parcel after waving my wand over it, ending the enchantment that made it compact.
Emily did not look at me as she slowly peeled the glitter wrapping to expose a smooth, silver picture frame with thin, gold letters engraved along the edges. I saw the reflection in her eyes, the reflection of that picture perfectly snuggled in its frame. It was of us. It was the last day of Fourth Year, we were sat on the grass, she in a pretty dress, sunglasses on the tip of her nose, long, black hair tied up at the top of her head, as I had my arms wrapped tightly around her, giving Louis Weasley the most stupid grin I could come up with when he requested a serious pose for his photography project.
I remember thinking then, Salazar, how I love this girl. I remember thinking then, She knows just how much I do.
I don't think that's true anymore.
Emily let out a breath as she turn the picture frame over, hiding our smiling faces over her chest. She leaned over, pressing a kiss on my cheek before she turned on her heels, heading to the backdoor of the Potter home.
She never looked me in the eye.
Mum came to find me a moment (or an hour) later, telling me it was time to go home. We made way to the Floo, balancing gifts and my father as the Potter/Weasley clan bid us a good night, as well as thanking us for having attended their festivity (equally as drunk as my father was, Ron Weasley had called out that it was the last time, too). We vanished in green flames as Hermione Weasley smacked her husband over the head at the same time as Mrs. Potter had.
Sleep had arrived in hour episodes before I had the energy to call it a new day. It was a mindless one the first hours as I sat with my cousin Liam, playing Wizard's Chess and hearing him talk about his new girlfriend Lily Potter (much to my annoyance), his almost-kiss with Harper (much to my disgust), and how, no, he had yet to hear from Emily (much to my dismay).
Liam left me soon after because I kept grumbling to myself every time the Floo would sound off and it was not Emily crossing the flames or giving a call to tell me she forgave me. I didn't see him again until a few hours later when he Accio'd jeans and a jumper from my closet.
"Al's birthday party today, remember?" he said when I glowered at the trainers that hit me on my shoulder. "Cheer up," he added when I forced my pajama bottoms off, "it's his sixteenth and his Uncle George promised him a bottle of Firewhiskey. One sip and you'll be fine."
"Last time I had a sip of alcohol you read me the penalties of underage drinking," I told him with another scowl.
"True, but you weren't being a tosser then," Liam replied with a sympathetic grin.
It was stupid to assume (not me, Liam was the hopeless optimist that thought otherwise) that the awkward, angry tension that had formed between us the night before would disappear when we were all gathered up again. Emily was there, sitting the furthest from our friends, her body turned in angle that I could not see her beautiful eyes (no matter how much I tried to get a peek at them). I managed to catch Rose's eye, though, and she kept throwing daggers at me. I was very much used to her ire as of late, so I paid no mind to it. I tried to focus instead on all of Harper's snide remarks whenever she looked over to Lily and Liam (some of them were quite hilarious) and when she and Al frowned at one another.
While James looked to be very aware that, alike me, he, too, had fucked up when it came to Emily, it was Louis and Freddie who saved Al's birthday gathering. They managed to convince the adults to leave the vicinity for a few hours (promising they would be responsible for us younger ones), they magicked bottles of Butterbeer and Firewhiskey into Pumpkin Juice, passing them around with smirks as they explained a muggle game of Truth or Dare (as it turned out, everyone was smart enough to know limits when it came to that horrid game).
"Stay the night," said Al as I reached for my coat before the first farewell was given. "Mum's taking us to Muggle London tomorrow morning. You should come." He turned to our friends, smiling with a glitter of a plea in his eyes. "All of you should come."
"I can't," Emily had said as she, too, reached for her coat. "My family is expecting me. I was only allowed a few hours."
"Please, Em," Al said, reaching over to take her coat from her hands. When he tossed it back on its hanger, he grabbed her hand, holding his smile. "It's still my birthday."
"Yeah, Em," Lily had chorused. "Stay!"
"I, uh," for a moment I had thought her eyes were going to look over at me, searching for some assistance, but she glanced at her boots before being guilt into saying, "Okay. I'll have to Owl them first, though, to ask for permission."
So here I am: four in the bloody morning, wrapped in a fort of quilts Mrs. Potter had set out for me and the others in her living room, with remorse filling up my veins.
I don't know how long I had been lying there, overthinking every move I had made that hurt my best friend, but it seemed I was not the only one who was having trouble sleeping.
Somewhere in the living room, Harper's voice broke out into the night in a hushed murmur of, "Potter?"
"Yeah?" Al (who had graciously given up his bedroom to Lucas and Freddie and Roxanne so he now had to sleep on the floor of his living room with the rest of us) had replied almost instantly.
"Happy birthday," Harper whispered.
"It's not my birthday anymore," he said.
"I know," she sighed, "but I didn't say it."
"I didn't notice," Al mumbled, but the lie was clear.
Silence had sprung and I thought I was safe from eavesdropping into this conversation, but Harper's inhale forced me to still my body.
"I shouldn't have told your family about Nott," I could hear the strain in her voice, trying to keep an actual apology from coming out.
"Why did you?"
I cringed at the question Al asked. I didn't have to be looking at Harper to know she did, too.
"I'm a horrid friend, I suppose."
"Friend," mumbled Al again.
"Friend, yeah," Harper echoed him before adding, "I won't meddle in your life anymore, Potter."
"It's not meddling," he said and it almost made me scoff. "It's...."
"It's done," she said.
"Done?"
Harper did not answer him. Instead the sound of her turning over in her spot cut through the lingering confusion in Al's question.
Following Harper's action, I rolled over, too, onto my back to lock eyes on the glowing constellations on the ceiling Rose had conjured before she fell asleep beside her best friend.
Everything had gotten complicated between all of us. There was no point denying it anymore. We were still friends, but things were changing. Hormones, arrogance, and pride were getting in the way of previously pure friendship.
I know I needed to fix my failing relationships with two certain people under this roof, but I no longer knew how to approach either. My pride had pushed them further away from me.
Before more guilt could crush me down into the floorboards of the Potters' living room, the sound of a crack echoing inside the kitchen made me get up.
I maneuvered effortlessly over the sleeping bodies of my friends and into the kitchen. When my eyes adjusted to new light, I was greeted with a, "Scorpius Malfoy."
I swatted away the wand pointed at my face. "Teddy Lupin," I returned.
Light from his wand filled the kitchen, letting me see silver eyes and blue hair. Then a lopsided smirk appeared on Lupin's face. "Thought you were my mum," he said as he walked over to the refrigerator, pocketing this wand on the way. "I was preparing for a beating. She still believes in a good ear-tug, ya know?"
"Don't you have your own place?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest as he yanked out a carton of milk and a block of cheese from inside the refrigerator.
"You think that stops my mother?" Lupin laughed a little too loudly. "I'm expected home once a week and for every special occasion," he explained, "even if she doesn't seem to understand Albie doesn't want his big brother around when he has such charming friends."
I let out a grunt.
Lupin laughed again. "She doesn't like when I spend too much time with Vic. I think she reckons we are going to pop out a little monster soon. Joke's on both of us, though; Vic is studying to be a Healer and I'm not allowed to screw it up. So I got a good snog, left her studying, and then she kicked me out."
"Sexual frustration led to you getting pissed drunk?" I asked with an unimpressed scoff.
It was his turn to grunt before he took a giant bite of the block of cheese. "Fuck off," he said humorously before adding, "I met up with Molly at a pub."
"Molly...?"
"Our cousin." He frowned when I raised a brow. "Lucy and Artie's sister, you twat."
"Oh. Right," I mumbled. I had met her once in my First Year.
Lupin no longer looked amused. "Everyone has the same reaction when I mention her, even the family." He sounded bitter. "She's my best mate, you know? I miss her. But there's something she is looking for that none of us can give her. I don't have a clue what it might be, but I think I'm the only one who wishes she finds it."
"I don't think that's true," I told him as I pulled out a chair from the table. "Your family is more united than Slytherins when seeking revenge on Gryffindor."
Lupin took a gulp of milk to wash down his cheese. "They are. But Molls and I....She knew she didn't belong, so she left. She broke everyone's heart, but she wanted something more than her family legacy. She wanted to be something more than a witch. I guess she broke my heart, too," he mumbled, frowning at the carton now. "We were supposed to be misfits together."
His blue hair slowly faded to a mousy brown as he slid over the carton in my direction. I took it, unsure why it felt like something more than just an offering.
"Molls buys me alcohol to make up for abandoning me," he said with a small chuckle, "and I'm not one to refuse anything free. Nor do I have the luxury to reject family members. I'm scarce of those, you know?"
Our eyes locked. His were still silver. Just like mine.
A link.
"I know what we are," I said, the words coming out so easily, I was almost taken aback by it. I had always known this truth, everyone around us knew it, but no one ever said anything. No one dared mention it. I never knew why, but I respected that silence. It had served us well for so many years, why disrupt it?
"I always thought you hated me," Lupin said. "All of you. For who I am. For what I am."
Son of a werewolf, that's what he wanted to say.
"I always thought you hated me," I said. "For who I am."
Son of a Death Eater, that's what I wanted to say.
"Your blood is my blood," he said instantly, a little too somberly for someone who had a drunken glaze in his eyes. "Your history is my history."
"Partially," I interrupted him. "You have good in you. You have history of warriors, not servants of Voldemort."
"Your fucked up is still my fucked up," he let out a laugh.
I frowned. "My grandmother told me about you," I revealed a story I had tucked away to the silent, unseen parts of myself. "She told me about your grandmother and their lives as Blacks. She told me about your mother and your father. She told me about our great Aunt Bellatrix and how my family tried to kill yours. She told me how there will never be enough remorse to earn your forgiveness."
Lupin motioned for the milk carton. I slid it his way. "I met your grandmother once," he said. "I was five. My nan had just died. She was standing in our garden, underneath the willow tree outside my nan's bedroom window. I had seen her a few times before when Nan got sick, always standing outside, looking in when the Healers showed up, but I never said anything to Nan. I recognized Narcissa from old photographs Nan kept in a box in the attic. When she died, I walked out to that willow tree. I grabbed her hand and she squeezed back. She didn't say anything, but I felt her grief. I don't think anyone felt the pain of Nan's death harder than Narcissa and me."
"There could never be any words to excuse the damage we have caused," I repeated the same phrase my grandmother would use when she told me stories of her fallen sisters, of her shattered family. It was something so close to what my father would say when his ongoing nightmares kept him up at night, forcing him to find solace by a fireplace with a drink in hand and demons on his shoulders whispering into his ear.
Lupin took a seat on the chair to my right. "That's the problem, isn't it? We have been too focused on the past to think about what we have at the moment. You've been cautious around me all this time out of shame, just as I have. Out of fear, too. And we've gained nothing. We've just lost time, mate, because we're cousins. Second cousins or some shite like that, but family nonetheless."
I almost grinned, but the sound of footsteps coming toward our direction distracted both of us . A muffled, "Ted, Malfoy," came from a sleepy-eyed redhead. "Keep it down, will you?"
"Blimey," Lupin cursed with a frown. "Don't sneak up like that, Rose. I thought you were my mum."
Sleep left Rose's freckled complexion to be replaced with her usual parental scowl. "Your screaming isn't going to keep her asleep, you idiot. And you're drunk," she added, raising a finger when he started to protest, "don't deny it. I can smell the alcohol from here. And I see the cheese. For some reason you crave lactose when you're drunk. Now, off to your bedroom upstairs. Don't even dare to apparate. You'll splinch yourself in this state."
Lupin rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, Aunt Hermione." Rose's outraged expression made me smirk. As he got up, intent on following Rose's orders anyway, he turned to me, squeezing my shoulder as he said, "Better late than never, right, Scorpius?"
"Right, Teddy," I said.
As Teddy tip-toed out of the kitchen with his block of cheese still in hand, Rose turned to me with her same frustration, asking, "What was that all about?"
"Family stuff," I told her. "Nothing that concerns you."
She narrowed brown eyes at me. "Oh, you're going to have attitude, then?"
"Really?" I scoffed. "You're talking to me about attitude? You, Rose Weasley, drama queen extraordinaire?"
"I am not—" Her foot had stomped down on the tiled floor before she stopped her retort. Rose took a deep breath to settle the anger that came so easily to her when she was anywhere near me.
It did not used to be like that. We did not use to be like this.
Sure, at the start of it all there was an awkwardness that we kept tip-toeing around, two legacies of two former rivals trying to find common ground in a neutral place. Once we moved past our families' demons, their history, and accepted that it did not pertain to us, we became friends. We enjoyed walks to Hogsmeade together, late snacks at Hogwarts' kitchen (she never letting the house-elves feed us), sitting under the willow tree overlooking the Black Lake, study sessions in the library, long letters in summer, and stargazing when the others got too loud.
Then everything changed.
"I can't remember why I'm mad," I heard her say, pulling me away from my thoughts of her. She fingered the ruffles on her pajama shorts, frowning to herself before meeting my eyes. "Can you remember why you're mad at me?"
"No," I told her. "Can you remember when everything between us changed?"
Rose knew the answer, but chose not to share it when she shook her head, red curls swaying everywhere as she also gave me a shrug. She repeatedly tapped her middle finger into the pad of her thumb—her tell-tale sign of nervousness, of when she was about to lie. It was rare to see the sign because nothing nor anyone made Rose Weasley nervous, and as a wholesome person, she did not lie. She believed in honesty.
"Haven't the foggiest," she mumbled.
But she was choosing to be a liar now.
I let out a strained laugh. "Right, then."
And so was I. Sometimes it was better to ignore what we are not ready to admit.
"Shall we go to bed, then?" she asked me. "We do not want to be awake when Aunt Ginny catches Teddy in his drunken state—and, believe me, she will find out. You don't want to be in the crossfire."
I nodded, standing from the chair and following her out.
When we quietly and successfully made it back to the living room without causing a disruption, Rose's place beside Harper had somehow become nonexistent as the latter was now stretched out across both sleeping bags.
Rose let out a small grunt. "I'll just go to Lily's—"
"I've got room," I whispered to her before she attempted to climb over all the sleeping bodies scattered on the floor.
The stars she had conjured on the ceiling allowed me to see the pink on her cheeks. Her tell-tale sign started again. "Are you sure?"
About you?
About us?"
"I don't kick in my sleep if that's what's got you worried," I said as I knelt on my makeshift bed. She smiled lopsided at me, but carefully knelt with me.
After arranging blankets and ourselves, with her body pressed into my side, Rose carefully reached for my hand. I held my breath. When I did not let go, I realized she inhaled in what I was sure was relief.
I could almost smile, but when I looked away from the glowing stars above, I found green eyes looking back at me. They were brighter than the lights above.
Tears were in her eyes, but there was something I never thought I'd see from my best friend when she looked at me. Defeat.
Maybe I could fix things with Rose, but I was starting to believe there was no fixing things with Emily.