Prologue
September 1, 2017
The Hogwarts Express
There are a few places one would imagine a wand ought not go. Common sense dictates that jamming a stick of enchanted wood into any orifice, cramming it down the front of one's pants, or up one's arse, would not be the most reasonable proposition for someone with the tendency towards bodily preservation - alas, not all wizards are clever enough to be sorted into Ravenclaw.
Scorpius might of thought of that before he'd made such a proposal to the feral creature stalking him through the length of the Hogwarts Express.
The hex rammed into the door to the third train carriage, splintering wood and brass and leaving a little scorch mark a little to the left of Scorpius Malfoy's ear. He dove into the next train car, not stopping to check if the door slammed behind him to block the harpy's pursuit.
Wand gripped in one sweaty fist, he shot a desperate look over his shoulder and retaliated in kind:
"Densaugeo!"
Students pressed their faced to the glass of their compartments; some slid open the doors to see what the fuss was about, but Scorpius wasn't paying attention to them; nor did he register that the hex he'd cast fizzled and dripped its remnants in splatters along the carpeting as he ran.
His father had told him the story behind that one; how it had worked brilliantly on the wretch's mother when they were children. Scorpius had never cast it before. Scorpius hadn't cast anything, really. He had figured it would just come to him naturally, the instant he flexed his fingers around eleven inches of black walnut with a dragon heartstring core. He was a pureblood, for Merlin's sake!
"Do you know what Aurors who've defeated Voldemort teach their children?" she yelled after him. "They don't put your face on a Chocolate Frog card for just nothing!"
Another hex ghosted past him. Much stronger. A stinger, at that. The girl was eleven - his age - and her repertoire of minor curses and hexes put his pathetic inherited arsenal to shame.
The last car was coming up. He would reach the end of the train, and then what? Where would he go?
Scorpius' heart did a flip flop, and he ran faster - his robes slapping at his legs with each step. He wished he could disapparate. He wished he had his broom. He'd fly her down and skewer her.
"My dad taught me a few things before I got my acceptance letter - the first being that no witch or wizard can ever be too careful - cleverness will only take you so far, but you can only be so smart. Sometimes, its best to be tough enough to take a bludger or two to the back of the head."
"I bet your father's taken a few himself," he shot back.
Scorpius heard the next hex as it winged by: a whoosh of static that landed with a crackle.
"The second," she continued, "dad taught me the theoretical applications of several defensive spells - just in case someone tried to lace my pudding with a puking pastile or fainting fancy at dinner. My Uncle George has a fondness for mischief that's rubbed off on my cousins, you see."
Another hex pinged off the ceiling, sending down sparks.
"I happen to like my pudding untainted. That's where the offensive stuff comes in."
"Rosie!" someone shouted. The boy's voice cracked on the second syllable.
"In a minute, Al!"
Scorpius turned, and it was his undoing: his robes wound around his legs, and in a moment, the wind fled his lungs in a rush. He stared at the train car's ceiling; a light speckling of golden stars winking at him as the world swam. The train rocked from side to side, and down on the carpet with a few stray Bertie Bott's, he wheezed, waiting for the inevitable.
He felt her footsteps - delicate little impressions that tiptoed around him. When the girl stopped, she loomed overhead: barely four and a half feet of Gryffindor-bound insanity already tucked into her school robes; her tie knotted perfectly. The Hogwarts crest on the breast confirmed his worst suspicions: she was a first year too.
That she'd lain him flat meant she was better than him at at least one thing.
"Are you alright?" she asked around a broad smile. There was nothing malicious in it, but he hated her just the same.
Red curls hung around her face in snarls; a wild, untamed fire lit her face with something that put a feverish colour into the freckles dusting her cheeks.
One of the Weasley brood.
"Just brilliant," he spat. His father would demand to know what happened to him. He'd have to send an owl explaining that a Weasley had ran him down on his very first day away at school, and then there would be the threats about being pulled out of Hogwarts and being sent straight to Durmstrang, or worse, that American Wizarding Academy in Massachusetts. He could barely spell Massachusetts much less willfully give up the comforts of England for it; a niggling doubt that it wasn't even a co-ed academy spun the more immediate and impossible concern that his father might make him go in drag if that's what it came down to. Scorpius shuddered.
She jabbed her wand under his chin, pressing just a little as to not leave a mark, but intending to leave a lasting mental scar instead.
"You're Scorpius." She said it imperiously; like she'd known who he was before they'd even boarded the train. "I doubt you'll forget this in the future, but just so you know: my name is Rose, and my father told me all about you."
A jelly bean mashed its yellow guts into the carpet, just within his peripheral vision.
"Where did you learn all that?" he demanded. "You're not allowed doing magic outside of Hogwarts. You'll get detention before you're even sorted."
She blinked at him; inquisitive eyes flecked with hazel swam in his vision. She dropped her wand, tucking it into an inside pocket and mercifully out of sight. Scorpius deflated, hoping she didn't notice.
Shaking her hair out of her face, she gave him a beatific grin, and pulled him to a sitting position by the front of his robes.
"I read our textbooks through for a little light preparation this summer." She shrugged. "And some of my mother's old scrolls. We have books stacked on top of books in her study. This is just -" She waved. "Field testing. Doesn't it feel good to use magic for once?"
He bristled. "I don't know. I barely got a curse in edgewise."
Rose tipped her head like she couldn't hear the raising tempo of his blood as it boiled in his veins. It made his ears seem as if they were stuffed with cotton. Field testing, indeed.
"My father -" he began, then stopped. Swallowed back the threat. He wanted to tell her that her father would hear about this, but that was a lie. He'd obliviate absolutely every last living soul who'd seen him being run down by a Weasley before that happened. The indignity of it had Scorpius inching backwards, pulling his legs out from under her, and rolling onto his hands and knees.
"What about him?" She offered him a hand, which he ignored.
"Forget it."
"Rosie, what did you do?" A boy with dark brown hair hanging in his eyes stopped behind them, panting. He held his wand awkwardly; like it didn't quite fit his hand yet.
That was a relief.
"Are you alright?" he asked him, looking Scorpius over for scorch marks or gaping holes.
"I would be much better if you both just backed off."
He got to his feet, taking inventory of the dust smears on his knees and the whizbee smear on his elbow. Shoving fingers through his hair, he straightened, pulling back his shoulders. He had two inches on the girl, and by Merlin, he would lord them over her for as long as he could. Scorpius looked down his nose at her and sniffed, "You missed."
Though she smiled, Rose narrowed her eyes. "Is that a challenge for the next time?"
"I'm not volunteering for target practice, if that's what you're getting at."
"We could take turns," she offered; something wicked in her smile.
"How generous of you."
"It's an offer only available to boys who refer to me as a - what did he call me?" She looked up, tapping the tip of her wand against her lower lip. Scorpius battled the urge to grab her hand and have her hex herself in the mouth with her own wand. His fingers twitched.
"Um," said the boy named Al. "Guys?"
"Not now, Albus." She continued to smile in a way that hinted at some darker agenda. It prickled in a way that should have been foretelling, but Scorpius ignored it for the immediate understanding that this girl - this half-blood witch - had the audacity to rub it in his face that the conciliation prize was another round of back and forth.
Scorpius leaned in to her ear, the tickle of her hair against his nose a sure sign that he was standing too close to her. He said, "An over-achieving, loud-mouthed, carrot-headed banshee, who smells like a troll's backside - probably because there's a bit of something foul sullying the family line."
He ad-libbed the last bit.
Maybe it was too much.
Both hexes flew, but only hers connected with its intended target: Scorpius wobbled, his feet feeling bizarrely disconnected from his knees and his hips; he fought against it, his muscles straining, but eventually Scorpius dropped - his legs continuing to tangle in a tango, kicking at the walls and floor.
Rose Weasley stood over him, her fists on her hips.
"They do this is muggle Westerns," she informed him. "One guy shoots at another guy's feet and tells him to dance." She aimed her wand again. "Dance, Malfoy."
"You... witch!"
Behind her, Albus had slouched against the wall. Looking down at himself, he managed, "Rose?"
Scorpius pointed at his legs, shouting, "Finite incantatem!" The spell fizzled from his wand. He didn't have the skill, nor the focus to direct the spell. A wisp of magic trailed, breaking apart before it could connect.
"Ask me to stop it," she demanded. "Go on. And say 'please.'"
"Stop it, Weasley!"
"That's not the magic word."
"Rose." Albus again.
"It's a muggle colloquialism. I find it's quite fitting."
"Spend time with a lot of muggles, do you?"
"My grandparents are muggles you intolerant git - Say 'please'!"
"Never!"
"Rose."
There was something desperate and pleading in that one word that made them stop and turn. Albus, three-shades towards ashen, a fine beading of sweat on his brow, turned to both of them with wide eyes. He clutched his stomach. Scorpius' legs continued to thrash wildly, but despite the distraction, he could see that the skin around the boy's eyes had thinned to reveal red-rings around the lashes, dilated pupils; the capillaries beneath his eyes turned blue, giving him a haunted look.
"Al?" Rose's voice ratcheted up several octaves, she spun, catching him before he could drop to his knees. "Albus!" The pair hit the floor.
His spell - Scorpius looked at his wand in disbelief - the curse had worked. It hadn't hit Rose but rather it must have clipped Albus in the process.
His wand thrummed as if waking up from a long slumber. It sent pins into his fingers, temporarily filling them with a numbing vibration so strong it made his entire arm shake. He knew this time that it would work - he knew it like he hadn't known before. The power coiled around his bones at the base of his tailbone and rose, winding serpentine with grace around his spine and threading through his limbs like venom. The feeling flooded him; lit the ends of his nerves with something fierce and hungry. He pointed his wand at the boy, at the work he'd botched trying to hit Weasley with a curse.
"F-finite incantatum," he managed. Scorpius' hair stood on end. The world hummed around him.
Magic.
Albus gasped; a rasping, desperate noise. Colour flooded his cheeks, and he gulped the air.
The world flooded in. The lights dimmed. Stunned faces gathered around them; the small corridor crammed with curious students. Someone shouted that the Prefects needed to make their way through.
Scorpius' legs continued their tarantallegra.
Rose looked up, tear-streaked, her wand forgotten.
Scorpius smiled at last, panting with elation mingled with fading dread.
"I did it," he exclaimed, breathless - not yet quite believing he wasn't a complete failure.
Rose drew her fist back and cracked him squarely in the jaw.
Stunned, legs struggling to kick the thrashing girl off of their own accord — that's how the Hufflepuff Prefects found them: Scorpius Malfoy, jinxed and bloodied, Albus Potter, cursed but recovering, and Rose Weasley — nursing a swelling fist that she would deny potions for until the split in the skin healed and left a scar to remind her of that day forevermore.
They said later that it was a day that would go down in infamy.
It would also be the last time that Scorpius Malfoy ever let Rose Weasley best him.