ALBUS POTTER AND THE DIRICAWL DEBACLE
"Holly and phoenix feather. Eleven inches."
Mr Ollivander held the wand out. His bushy brows rose expectantly.
Harry Potter nudged his son forward, but Albus didn't want to move. He didn't want to take the wand. Other than his unfortunate name (being named after one prominent war hero was bad enough, but two?), Albus Severus Potter had also, unfortunately in his eyes, inherited the scruffy good looks of his famous father. He had the same black mop of unruly hair, the same green eyes, and just yesterday his mother had taken him to get his glasses fitted: round spectacles with black frames, just like his father before him.
And now Mr Ollivander was holding out the exact same wand his father had made famous. Technically not the same because the feather encased in this eleven inches of holly hadn't come from Albus' namesake's phoenix; but still, it was similar enough that Albus was sure he would never hear the end of it if he came to Hogwarts with this particular wand in his pocket.
Albus shook his head. "No."
Mr Ollivander withdrew the wand, but he didn't put it down. "The wand chooses the wizard, Mr Potter," he said mysteriously.
Albus imagined the old man saying those same words to his father nearly thirty years ago. He felt sick. His shook his head more emphatically when his father knocked him on the shoulder in warning.
"No, sir," he said. He gulped.
Mr Ollivander put the wand back in its case. He turned around, his back cricking loudly, and pulled another dusty cardboard box from the multitude of shelves that lined his little store. He set it down in front of the Potters and lifted the lid. A cloud of dust rose into the air. Albus coughed.
"Try this one," Ollivander said, holding out a shorter, paler wand for Albus to inspect. "Willow and unicorn hair. Nine and a half inches."
It was the same as his mother's wand. Albus laid his hands down on edge of the counter. He took a long breath and tried to make his smile as unaffected as possible. He probably failed. Albus never had been very good at lying, especially not when the lying involved adults.
"I think I'll just look around for a while," he said brightly. Too brightly, obviously. His father visibly winced. Mr Ollivander looked away, setting his gaze out the curved window to the crowd of witches and wizards beyond.
Albus could hear his father and the old wandmaker mumbling quietly to each other as he slowly made his way around the store. Their voices were too low for him to hear what they were saying, but he could imagine the words well enough. "It's hard for Albus," his father would say. "I placed quite a burden on him, by giving him those names." Mr Ollivander would say no, like everyone else. He would say, "Albus is strong enough to accept that burden, Mr Potter. He's like his father in that regard, I'm sure."
It was always the same. Albus was sick of it. He was sick of being compared to his famous, fabulous father – the Great Harry Potter, Auror Extraordinaire. He was sick of being likened to his namesakes, of hearing people gossip in the streets about the skills and expertise he knew he didn't have. He was sick of the speculation that he would grow up to be just as successful and as popular as his older brother, James, or that he would be an astounding Quidditch player, like his mother. Albus was sick of it all.
He wanted to shed his skin. He wanted to rid himself of all expectation. He wanted to be his own person.
The door to Ollivander's back room was open a crack. Albus could see a light on in there, shining on a perfect shaft of jet black. It was round on the ends and had a sculpted handle carved with an intricate design Albus didn't recognise. He'd never seen it on any of the other wands on display, but more importantly, he knew neither his father's nor his mother's wands bore such a distinctive pattern.
It was for this reason and this reason alone that Albus knew he had to have that wand.
He stole a glance at the counter. His father and Mr Ollivander were still there in deep conversation. Harry Potter had his own wand out on the counter. Albus watched his father nod, and then Ollivander curled his fingers around the holly handle and lifted it between them.
Albus took his chance. He ducked down low and scooted past them and in through the crack in the door. His heart was hammering in his chest. Just the thought of being caught by either his father, or Ollivander, or both, had set a hot streak of adrenaline pumping through his veins. He felt daring and reckless.
The black wand was right in front of him, close enough to touch. Albus stretched a hand out, reaching for it. He could feel the power of it radiating out from the glossy wood, tickling the tips of his fingers, flowing up through his hand and his arm and resting in his chest, humming. One more inch, and he would have that power in his hand. He stretched that last centimetre, readying his fingers to make the grab, and–
"Albus Severus Potter, what do you think you're doing?"
He panicked. His green eyes grew wide with horror. He was like a deer caught in the headlights of one of those muggle vehicles. He didn't know what to do, so he stood there, hand still stretched out, tingling fingers a hair's breadth away from the perfect black wand.
Mr Ollivander appeared at Harry Potter's side. His complexion was even more ashen than it usually was. When he spoke, it was in a slow and clear voice. He held his wrinkled hands in front of his body in a pacifying gesture.
"Whatever you do, Mr Potter, do not lay one finger on that wand."
Albus didn't know how it happened. He was standing upright, still as a statue. His fingers were still hovering over the desk the wand was sitting on. Mr Ollivander and his father were in the doorway, the former pale and sickly and the later redder than Albus' uncle when his team had lost the Quidditch World Cup last year.
Somehow, Albus had tipped over. It was so slight a movement that it couldn't really even be considered as one; but it was enough to make his fingers brush the surface of the ebony wand and in that instant, Albus was gone.
"What in Merlin's name just happened?"
Mr Ollivander wrung his hands together as an incensed Harry Potter regarded him with flaming eyes of emerald green. He poked his wand in the old man's face and growled.
"Where's my son? Where's Albus?"
"Well, you see, the thing is," the wandmaker stammered.
Harry pushed past Ollivander into the backroom, where Albus had been only moments before, fingers clutched guiltily around an unfamiliar black wand.
The wand…
Harry spun to face the old man, blind panic igniting the anger in him. He didn't know if this had been a deliberate thing: if it had been an attack instigated by one of his enemies, maybe even a former Death Eater looking to settle old scores. His position within the Auror ranks was high, and he'd arrested a lot of shady characters over the years, wizards and witches who the former Gryffindor was sure would love nothing more than to get one up on the famous Harry Potter.
"The wand," Harry spluttered.
"Is the key, yes," Mr Ollivander finished for him.
"How?"
Mr Ollivander's grey eyes sparked. "Let me show you."
The enchanted quill made a smart check mark next to the line "One (1) set of glass or crystal phials" on the parchment and settled back into its home in Draco Malfoy's robe's pocket, signifying that he had finally purchased the final item his son Scorpius would need for his first year at Hogwarts.
The onset of the Hogwarts term meant Diagon Alley was bustling with more activity than usual today. Ten- and eleven-year-olds were being hurried about by their parents between Gringott's, Flourish & Blotts, Madam Malkin's, and all the rest. Many of the children were legacies at Hogwarts, and Draco recognised a few of the parents.
However, Draco's own memories of Hogwarts were unpleasant, to say the least, and the familiar sights and sound of Diagon Alley, especially with so many prospective students brought them back. He did not particularly like returning to Diagon Alley, and was certainly not looking forward the glances his erstwhile classmates were sure to give him when he saw Scorpius off at Platform 9¾.
Of course, Draco had come to Diagon Alley with his son and would see him off at the platform the following day. He loved his son dearly, and he was indeed proud of him. When Draco felt pride he felt it strongly, and he was as proud (some might say "as arrogant") a person as he had ever been.
Scorpius, for his part, seemed to having a grand time. He was quite looking forward to starting at Hogwarts, which was very likely due to the fact that he knew little of his family's history with the school. That was Draco's doing. It crossed Draco's mind that he might be setting his son up for a rude awakening, but he hoped his actions had been well enough forgotten that they wouldn't affect his son, at least. In any case, Draco figured, it was probably better to have his son have his innocence and enjoy the idea of school while he could.
Suddenly, Scorpius' expression darkened a bit. "Dad, d'you think I'll really be in Slytherin?" he asked, looking up at his father. There was a note of apprehension in his voice, as Scorpius very much wanted to follow in his family's tradition and enter Slytherin House, and feared his father might answer in the negative.
"Oh, I'm sure," Draco said confidently. Scorpius smiled again. But Draco thought for a moment. "And even if you're not," Draco began. There was always an outside chance Scorpius might not be sorted into Slytherin, and Draco had to account for that. Don't want the boy to get a complex, he thought. "There's nothing wrong with the other Houses. I had plenty of, er, friends in the other houses and they were, um…fine people," Draco stumbled. "I'm sure you'll be in the House that's right for you." His son's expression became more ambivalent. Draco smiled at him. Inwardly, he forcefully thought, Please, please let this kid be in Slytherin!
Scorpius caught sight of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, and his face lit up. "Ooh, dad, can we get ice cream?" The boy's eyes were wide in a way that suggested subtle pleading.
It had been a long day of shopping and they both wanted it. "I suppose so," Draco said confidently, though his eyes stayed trained on the shop's sign for a moment.
Scorpius opened the door to the tinkling of a bell and Draco followed him in. A young man, presumably Florean's son Claudiu, who had taken over the store, was wiping down the plastic top of the freezer. The coldness charm that preserved the ice cream made the interior of the store noticeably chillier than the Alley outside.
"What flavour d'you want, Scorpius?" Draco asked.
"Umm…" Scorpius pressed his lips together, looking over the selection. "Mint chocolate chip," he said finally.
Draco walked to the counter. "Cone or cup, mate?" Claudiu asked preemptively.
"Er, cone," Draco replied. "Two please. One with two scoops of mint chocolate chip, one with a scoop of chocolate."
"Sure fing," Claudiu said, his enchanted scoop already digging into the ice cream on its own. Momentarily he handed the cones to the Malfoys.
Draco and Scorpius turned to find a place to sit, but no sooner had Scorpius taken a step forward than he bumped roughly into a bespectacled boy, mushing Scorpius' green ice cream all over his brand new school uniform in a very wide diameter. The cone cracked a bit and Scorpius let it and the remainder of his ice cream fall to the floor in shock.
The mysterious boy had a mop of black hair and held a wand. Draco nearly dropped his ice cream, for the boy seemed to have appeared out of thin air, and furthermore looked exactly like Draco's old rival Harry Potter at the age when the two of them had first met, not far away from that spot.
Scorpius looked down at his ruined sweater briefly as anger welled up inside him. He lifted his gaze to the boy, who appeared more shocked and a bit frightened than anything. He seemed to be trying to stammer something, but Scorpius just glared and grabbed the top of the boy's wand. "What do you mean by–" Scorpius barked at the boy. "I don't know wh–" the boy started before Scorpius had finished his question, but in that instant they were both gone, vanished into thin air with only a subtle snap left behind.
Draco's eyes went wide. "Scorpius!" he cried. He waved his hands through the air his son had just occupied. He threw his ice cream down and dashed out the door to the ice cream parlour. On instinct he dashed into the midst of the alley, spinning on his heel as he looked frantically for his son, not knowing what else to do or where else to look.
Back inside Florean's, Claudiu sighed at all the ice cream that had just been dumped on his floor. He lifted his wand and charmed a mop and bucket to clean it up.
"–pointing a wand at somebody!" Scorpius finished, jerking Albus' wand tip out from in front of his face.
"–what's happening!" Albus cried earnestly. "I was in the wand shop a second ago and…" Albus trailed off as he realized that he had spontaneously changed locations again.
Scorpius intended to continue with "Look what you did to my uniform!" but in the same instant he realized that they had just involuntarily Apparated from the ice cream parlour. They were now inside Quality Quidditch Supplies, near the back where the bludgers were kept.
Scorpius looked around, then back to the boy. "What did you do?" he asked indignantly. "Where did you learn to Apparate already?"
"I can't Apparate" Albus insisted. "I was in Ollivander's, I touched this wand. And that was it. I just…" he turned his palms up, half-shrugged in confusion, "…appeared in front of you, and then here."
"You touched the wand?" Scorpius asked. His eyes narrowed. "What kind of wand is it? What's the core?"
"I don't know. It's not mine," Albus said.
"Not yours?" Scorpius asked in a dismissive tone, perhaps meaning to imply that this boy was stupid. "Let me see that." He grabbed at the wand.
Albus resisted giving it up. "No, don't! It could be dangerous!" He yanked back on the wand.
"Yeah, it is to you!" Scorpius jeered, continuing to pull on the wand. He finally pulled the wand from Albus' grasp, but Scorpius' own hand slipped off the polished wood and knocked two cases of bludgers off a shelf. Scorpius wheeled around at the sound of the falling boxes. The boxes began rumbling, and the eyes of both boys went wide with fright. Scorpius dropped to the floor while Albus ducked beside the shelf as four bludgers exploded from their cases, causing the other customers to panic and flee. The wand skittered across the floor.
The bludgers careened, pinball-like, around the store. Albus jumped aside to dodge one, and Scorpius rolled out of the way of another. He lifted his head and noticed where the wand had fallen, and Albus did the same almost concurrently. Pushing himself up, Scorpius made for the wand. The bludgers continued to shatter objects all around the store and bounce off the walls. Albus dashed for the wand too, just as a bludger trained on him and zoomed straight at the back of his head. As Scorpius reached out to touch the wand another bludger caromed off the ceiling and headed straight for him. Albus ran and desperately dove forward for the wand as the bludger flew over him through the space he had just occupied. His hand touched the wand at exactly the same moment Scorpius' did, and both boys vanished with a snap as bludgers impacted with the floor where they had been, leaving deep craters in the hardwood.
The parchment was in tatters and covered in near indecipherable black scrawl. Harry didn't know what he was looking at. He said as much, shaking his head, the anger that had dimmed when Ollivander had taken him under his wing and drew him forward flaring back to life again.
One word stood out to him above the rest of the mess of text.
Diricawl.
Harry had never heard of it, but it was all over the papers now that he really looked at them. He pointed to the word and Ollivander nodded sagely.
"I've been working on this for years. Diricawl is a very ancient wand core, very rare and extremely hard to handle. After much trial and error, I found that if paired with ebony–"
"Look," Harry interrupted harshly, "I don't want a lesson in wandlore. I just want to know what happened to my son."
The excitement in the old man's expression died. "In short: he Apparated."
"Apparated?" Harry was aghast. He didn't understand how that was even possible. Albus hadn't even set foot inside the gates of Hogwarts yet. There was no way he would be able Apparate himself.
"The diricawl has a most amazing property," Ollivander was saying. "When wielded with ebony, it can teleport the user anywhere he or she so wishes."
Harry felt sick. The colour drained from his face until he was swaying on his feet, light-headed and on the verge of passing out. Albus had stumbled upon some strange prototype of the old wandmaker's, and he'd Apparated somewhere, alone and with no protection. He fell heavily into the chair at the desk, crushing the parchment that littered the split leather seat.
"I'm sorry, Mr Potter."
Harry knew he should cut the old man some slack. It wasn't his fault Albus had snuck into the backroom and touched a wand that was quite clearly supposed to remain hidden. But Harry couldn't help it. His son was missing and defenceless.
"I need to know how to find him. Now." His tone was hard, all edges, giving nothing. "Please tell me you know how to find him."
Mr Ollivander pulled a little silver dial from his back pocket. It was glossy on the rounded part, the flat base transparent and filled with an array of bright yellow lines and a marker in red, like a muggle compass only animated. He handed it to Harry with shaking hands and swallowed the lump in his throat.
"Follow the red marker," he said, "and you will find your son."
Harry raised his wand and muttered the incantation that would take him far away from Ollivander's and, he hoped, to whatever place Albus had teleported to. He concentrated on the little red dot in the centre of the living map. Shop names shot up at him: Albus was still in Diagon Alley. He pictured the store in his mind, clear enough that he could almost touch it, and then he felt the familiar curl in the pit of his stomach, and Ollivander's backroom peeled away until it was nothing more than a blur of light and technicolour.
When the street spread out beneath his feet once more Harry Potter noticed two things. One: Quality Quidditch Supplies had been ripped apart from the inside out, and two: Albus wasn't here.
Harry grabbed the first person he could get his hands on; a young woman with dirty tracks down her cheeks. Her left wrist was hanging awkwardly at her side, a deep gash over the knuckles. It looked broken.
"I'm sorry," he said when she turned her tear-stained face at him, "but I need to know if you saw a boy here, about half my height, black hair and glasses?"
"You're Harry Potter," she stated in a wobble.
He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and blew out a noisy puff of air. "Yeah, yeah. Look, my son is missing; I need to know if you saw him here."
The woman waved her good hand at the carnage before them. "Look at this place!" she wailed. "I barely made it out alive. Do you think I saw anyone when I was trying to get out of that mess?"
Harry apologised and moved on. He wandered aimlessly around the scene of destruction, one thought swirling through his mind: Albus had been here. The moving compass Ollivander had given him had said so. If he was still here now, that meant only one thing: he was inside what was left of Quality Quidditch Supplies.
"Please, no!" Harry moaned.
"Potter!"
The voice was distinctly familiar, and even though it was tinged with two parts anger and despair, it still held the same air of superiority Harry had grown accustomed to during his years at Hogwarts.
"Not now Malfoy," he said tiredly, brushing past the man to get a closer look what remained of the store. But Malfoy had grabbed him by his shirtsleeve and tugged until the Gryffindor tripped backwards.
"Yes, now," he hissed. "Your speccy snot of a child has kidnapped my son!"
"Albus took Sc-Scorpius with him?" Harry was having a hard time keeping up with all this. First, Ollivander had created some unheard of wand with a core that teleports the weilder places, and now he'd just found that Albus had seemingly Apparated Scorpius Malfoy, too. He glanced back at the broken walls of Quality Quidditch Supplies and closed his eyes. Albus and Scorpius couldn't be in there. They just couldn't be.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Yes, Potter, that's what I'm saying. Now what are you going to do about it?"
Harry held out the living compass weakly. The red dot had moved.
"Gringotts," Malfoy snapped. He grabbed Harry's arm roughly and held his wand out in front of them. "If something's happened to Scorpius, if he has so much as a scratch on him, I'll sue you for all you've got."
It was no warning. Harry knew Malfoy was speaking the absolute truth.
They weren't at Gringotts.
They weren't at the Leaky Cauldron.
They weren't at the little muggle bakery on Theobald's Road, the one Hermione had taken Albus and Rose to once when Harry had been working particularly hard on a case and Ginny had been away for a quidditch match.
Each time, the little red dot moved on the animated map, and each time Harry and Draco were too late. The boys were already gone. They'd moved on, and although Harry didn't want to say it out loud, he knew Malfoy was thinking it, too – that they might not ever catch up with their sons.
Malfoy threw his bony behind down on a freshly painted bench seat and sighed. "Fabulous, just fabulous! The school year hasn't even started and I've already lost Scorpius." He sounded about as bitter as Harry felt.
Harry sat next to him, staring at the wizarding version of a compass. As he looked at the face of the silver device, the little red marker moved again. Harry grabbed Malfoy without thinking and cleared his mind of the jumble of places they'd already visited, fixing his thoughts on one particular place.
He Apparated.
The Westfield Shopping Centre's Marks & Spencer was having a sale on their new HD flatscreen televisions, and one salesman in particular was gunning hard for his commission.
"Just look at the picture quality!" he implored to a doughy, balding customer in a peach sport shirt. "That's what you get with a 1080p LCD display." The salesman was emphatic. Sweat began to form under his arms, but the customer seemed disinterested at best. The customer's attention was not even held by the footage the television was showing, which was a loop of the "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" remake trailer. The film was about to come out the following day – actually, in a few hours at midnight – and the mall was currently full of various promotional displays and merchandise that had been generated by the marketing blitz the film's distribution company had executed.
"Listen," the salesman said, "you pair one of these with a good stereo system, I'm telling you, it's like being there. Your kids like Harry Potter?" He gestured briefly toward the screen. "They'll feel like the movie's real, with this system."
The customer tilted his head back and forth in indecision. "Here, try looking at it on a bigger screen," the salesman said. He picked up a remote and pressed the power button, turning on another, larger television.
Just as the signal crossed through the air to snap the television to life, Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy appeared in front of it, holding the wand. The dumbstruck salesman stared at the boys for half a moment then promptly fainted into a chair.
"WOW!" the customer exclaimed. "That's amazing! I'll take it!"
Albus and Scorpius looked around slowly. This place was truly like nothing they've ever seen before, full of strange instruments and devices. Albus wished he had about eight more eyes. There were walls full of things that looked like giant enchanted picture frames, except the images moved continuously. There were little devices the shoppers were pushing into their ears. Everywhere there seemed to be handheld devices the shoppers were using for different things, either attaching to those ear-things, or clicking with their fingers, or talking into.
"Oh, great," Scorpius snorted. "Where are we now? Are we even still in Diagon Alley?"
"Ay! You boys can't play around in here!" came a voice. Another store employee stalked over to them. "Why are you frightening my staff? How did you get in here?"
Albus and Scorpius had no idea how to respond. They began to notice the whispers of the other customers: "Did you see that?"…"It looked like they just appeared."…"Well, I don't know how."
Scorpius addressed the man. "I, er, think this took us here, sir," he said, lifting the wand.
The salesman thought the item the boy held looked like some kind of antenna for a miniature music player, or, more likely, a navigation device in the handle. "It brought you here? What does it do?"
"Well, we don't know exactly," Sorpius said.
The salesman seemed frustrated. "Where'd you get that? Brookstone? Is it some kind of new Apple thing?"
"Apple? I don't think so," Albus said. "Looks like it's probably ebony to me."
The salesman dragged a hand over his face in exasperation. "Look, just stop causing trouble and get out of this store."
"Hey, we weren't causing trouble," Scorpius began.
It was then Albus noticed the boy in the picture, looking very much like him. Not entirely, but the resemblance seemed much too close to be a coincidence, like someone was trying to impersonate him. This whole place is too weird, he thought.
Albus pulled Scorpius aside and stepped in front of him to address the salesman. "Yes sir," Albus said. "We'll be leaving right now."
He tugged Scorpius' arm and they left the store together, the blonde still indignant.
As they left, Scorpius' eye caught an image on one of the screens. "Oi, kid, that guy in the picture looks like you!"
Once they'd exited the Marks & Spencer the boys were struck by the size of the space.
Wow, Albus thought. And it's all indoors…What is it?
"Say, who are you anyway?" Scorpius asked Albus.
"I'm Albus Potter," he replied.
"Potter? Are you related to Harry Potter?"
Albus sighed. Here we go again. "Yes, I am. What's it to you?"
Scorpius shrugged. He wasn't expecting the change in Albus' tone. "Nothing really. I just think my father knew him."
"Who's your father?"
"Draco Malfoy. I'm Scorpius Malfoy."
"Draco Malfoy? You know, I think my father did talk about him a few times." Neither of the boys knew their fathers' enmity. Harry didn't emphasize old school rivalries to his children, and, to his credit, nether did Draco. He felt it was beneath him. But of course, the names did sometimes come up between Harry and Ginny or Draco and Astoria.
"Scorpius, we need to figure out where we are. I don't think this is Diagon Alley."
"Well, it must have been the wand," Scorpius reasoned. "You Apparated from Ollivander's when you touched the wand, we Apparated from Fortescue's when I touched it, and we left the quidditch shop when we both touched it again."
Albus gasped with a sudden realization. "Quick, take off your sweater!"
"Excuse me?" Scorpius replied.
"Your sweater's already stained," Albus explained. "We can wrap the wand in it to avoid touching it."
"Oh, good idea," Scorpius said, doing as Albus suggested so that he now wore only his white collared shirt and Hogwarts tie. "You know, you're rather smart, Potter. But I still expect you to pay for a replacement sweater."
"Pfft. We'll see," Albus mumbled dismissively.
They walked on past a video game retailer. Outside the store was a display consisting of a cardboard cut-out of the boy who had been impersonating Albus on those screens in the other shop. The boy held a wand. An owl was in flight behind him, below lettering that read, 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: The Game.'
This made the boys stop dead. "Wh–why is your father's name on that?" Scorpius sputtered.
"I don't know," Albus replied, staring at the display blankly.
They decided to try and find either a way out of wherever it was they were, or at least why Albus's father's name was everywhere. Not knowing what else to do, this plan took the form of wandering around the mall. They saw Harry's name on a marquee outside a movie theatre, almost an entire shelf of books bearing his name in a bookstore, and another display inside a video store.
They entered the store. There were racks and racks of flat boxes, in addition to other merchandise like posters, action figures, and prop replicas. Albus examined the place with an almost scientific curiosity. He'd begun to think they were in some foreign country. He had heard wizarding society was much different overseas. He picked up one of the flat boxes, shook it, but it was sealed somehow. The borders of the box were marked with 'SECURITY TAPE,' and Albus saw no way to remove whatever charm held it shut.
"Albus, look at these," Scorpius said, motioning him over. "More wands. And look, this one says it belongs to your father." Indeed, 'Harry Potter's Wand' was emblazoned on the box in the same font as all the other items that bore Albus' father's name, although the wand within did not look much like authentic holly.
"Wait, this one says it's dad's too," Albus said. "All six of these say 'Harry Potter.' That can't be right."
"Look, these two say they belong to my dad," Scorpius said, digging through the boxes and lifting two. "And this one is Hermione Granger's."
"This whole place is starting to give me the creeps," Albus said.
"Well, maybe one of these wands will do something," Scorpius said. "After all, a wand got us here."
"Well, I don't know what else to do," Albus shrugged. "I'm sure we should be allowed to use these anyway, since they belong to our parents."
The boys tore into boxes, fishing out a wand each. Unfortunately, this attracted the attention of a clerk who rushed over and snatched the wands from them. "Hey, hey, hey!" he cried. "You've got to pay for that stuff before you open it, boys." The clerk spied the sweater Scorpius was carrying, clearly concealing something. "Are you shoplifting? Let me see that."
The clerk snatched the sweater from Scorpius and opened it to reveal the wand, though his hand had not touched it yet. As soon as he did, however, Albus snatched it back. "Don' touch that!" he gasped. It had become clear that if this stranger touched the wand he would very likely involuntarily Apparate to who knows where, just like he and Scorpius had.
"Can you pay for that?" The guard barked. "Because if not you'll have to come down to security."
"Of course we can pay for it," Scorpius said, fishing into his pocket. "What's it cost? Five Galleons? Six?" He pulled the corresponding amount of money from his pocket.
"Galleon?" the clerk asked, squinting. "Oh, I see. You're some kids here for the premiere tonight. Look, I'm not in the mood for games. Shoplifting is a serious crime. You'll have to sort this out with the shopping centre. Now give me the wand and–" He reached for it again. Albus withdrew. Security guards had entered the store and they now approached the boys. Albus and Scorpius weren't sure what would happen, but they knew they were in trouble.
Desperate, Albus removed the wand from the sweater. "Scorpius!" he cried commandingly, thrusting the wand at him. Scorpius understood and touched the wand in the same moment Albus did, and once again they were gone, leaving the baffled guards behind.
Westfield Shopping Centre, the sign above the gargantuan building read. It was a muggle place.
"This place is huge!" Malfoy spluttered. "How are we going to find them in there?"
Malfoy was right: it was huge. But they had the living compass on their side. Harry tapped it with his index finger. The dot didn't move. For once, Albus and Scorpius were still in the place the compass had brought the two distraught fathers to.
"C'mon," Harry said to the other man. "They're still inside."
On second thoughts, they should have transfigured their robes.
Everyone was staring – and by everyone, Harry meant muggles. Malfoy pulled his robes tighter around his lithe frame as if he was a naked mannequin who suddenly realised he was on display. He lifted his chin in what Harry considered to be typical Malfoy haughtiness and surveyed the mall with critical, pale eyes.
His top lip curled. Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't even say a word, Malfoy," he warned.
The little red dot on the map flashed twice and then disappeared. Malfoy blanched.
"What just happened?"
"I don't know." Harry shook the thing. He held it up to his ear when the dot still hadn't reappeared after a few seconds, like it was a seashell and he was listening for the rush of the ocean to greet him.
"That's not going to help!" Malfoy argued.
Harry shushed him. They both stared at the living compass, willing the tiny marker to come back. After another anxious breath, it did, flickering back into existence further in the labyrinth that was the mall.
"This way," Harry said, grabbing Malfoy by the hand and dragging the man along behind him. He noticed the blonde's ears had turned red at being manhandled by a Gryffindor – no doubt Harry would get an earful for it when this was all over.
Along the way they passed an entertainment store, filled to the brim with impatient muggles waving money around as if it was nothing more than useless paper. Malfoy craned his neck and looked behind as they passed, taking in the muggles' frantic cries and the large cardboard boxes that were leaving the store in droves. He read the name on the boxes and furrowed his brows.
"What's a television?" he asked.
"Didn't you take Muggle Studies, Malfoy?" Harry sighed.
Malfoy sneered. "Forget I asked. I don't care anyway. Let's just find our wayward children and get out of this dump."
"Agreed."
The next store they came to, the one the map had lead them to, stopped them dead in their tracks. Harry and Malfoy stared at the window display, jaws dropped and their eyes wide with disbelief.
"No…Way!" Malfoy exclaimed. "It's us!"
Harry's expression turned sour. A life-size poster of what looked astoundingly like he and Malfoy – in full wizard gear, complete with wands and Draco's trademark scowl – stood before them in the window of the store labelled 'Film and Television Memorabilia.' It wasn't them as they were in the flesh: Malfoy's eyes were the wrong colour to start with, and Harry's hair was two shades lighter than it actually was, but the resemblances were uncanny.
He and Malfoy were in a muggle movie – a very popular muggle movie, if the posters and other matching paraphernalia he could see through the window was any indication. And he knew who was behind this breach of privacy, too. It really couldn't be anyone else.
"Bloody Rita Skeeter!" Harry cursed.
Malfoy just looked impressed. "They've really got my sideburns right, haven't they?" he said.
The muggles, meanwhile, had begun to notice their presence. A grizzly looking man stepped out of the crowd milling around them and the memorabilia store and pointed to Harry.
"You look like that boy," he said, "that boy what tried stolin' that wand."
Harry could see Malfoy sneering at the man's poor use of the English language. Or maybe he was sneering at Harry and the mention of his son being involved in thievery. He shot Malfoy a look that said 'your son's in this, too,' and the foul expression dropped from the other man's face.
"Where did the boy go?" Harry asked the man. He stole a furtive glance down at the device in his fist. The red dot was flashing again, which meant the boys were on the move.
"Guards chased 'em," the man said. "Him and this blonde kid – hey, he kinda looked like you." He was pointing at Malfoy now.
"Great!" Malfoy exclaimed.
"We don't have time for theatrics, Malfoy," Harry reminded him.
He really shouldn't have opened his mouth. They should have just taken off and hoped the compass would point them in the direction of Albus and Scorpius again. But Harry was prone to bouts of stupidity from time to time. One of the other muggles let out a squeal and bounced on the spot – a young girl about the age of fourteen.
"Malfoy! Your name is Malfoy!"
Rita Skeeter hadn't even changed their names. That witch!
Malfoy was revelling in his new-found attention. Harry grabbed him by the arm (he felt like he was always the one doing the dragging) and took off at a dead run without warning. The blonde spluttered like he was about to spew expletives at a rapid rate, but then checked himself, remembering his audience. He waved regally to his admiring fans as Harry sprinted them both across the glossy floor of the mall.
The boys appeared again with a snap, but it was immediately clear they were still inside the massive structure. They had appeared away from the general pedestrian traffic, somewhere down a hallway near the bathrooms.
"Well, that did it," Scorpius groused.
"Now we really have got to get out of here," Albus said, looking around.
"I'll say." Scorpius pinched his nose.
The boys returned to the main concourse. Soon Scorpius spotted a small crowd of people gathered around something. He indicated it to Albus and they cautiously approached. They caught a glimpse over the shoulders of some people and saw that what everyone was looking at was some sort of map. Scorpius edged his way up to it. "This is just what we need," he said. As he tried to orient the map, he discovered a small red dot that read 'You are here.'
Scorpius gasped. "Albus, look!" he said, pointing to the dot. "They're tracking us! They know where we are!"
"Oh no!" Albus breathed. "They must have put a homing charm on us somehow!"
"Come on, run!" Scorpius said, dashing away from the sign with Albus close in tow.
Unfortunately, this was perhaps the worst thing they could have done, as the security guards – still on the lookout for the shoplifters – easily spotted the boys sprinting through the crowded mall. The guards gave chase, and were soon noticed by the boys, which only caused both parties to speed up.
The boys took a sharp left into one of the larger stores, a housewares retailer, and split up down the aisles. They weaved through rows of toilet paper, can openers, drapes, and flatware as Albus cradled the wand and the security guards puffed after them to stop.
The boys rounded a corner and were met head-on by a dead end. Scorpius' heart sank, but Albus was thinking quickly and noticed they were surrounded by exactly the items they needed to escape.
"Brooms!" cried Albus, snatching one from its rack. "Quick, Scorpius! We can fly out of here!" Scorpius grabed one off the shelf and the boys straddled them, but it was no good. The brooms must have been defective or both duds, because there was no way to induce them to fly. Four Westfield Shopping Centre security guards closed in on them.
A particularly large one, who coincidentally looked a bit like a shorn Hagrid, grabbed the concealed wand. "Awrioght, boys. We've 'ad qouite enough o' this," he said, in a tone that was cold and gruff, but also indicated he had been through similar scenarios many times before. The brooms dropped from between their knees and their eyes widened and welled up as fear rose within them. "We'll be returnin' this to the store" he said, wagging that most dangerous wand about like it was a toy, "and then you're gonna sit in the awffice whoile we phone your parents. I suspect you'll be in a lot of trouble wif both 'o them an' the shopping centre."
Albus and Scorpius wished they could be so lucky that they could somehow contact their parents again.
This time the compass led them to the boys. Only they weren't alone.
A wall of burly security guards surrounded a very frightened Albus and Scorpius. The boys were huddled together, arms wrapped around corresponding shoulders that were trembling. They didn't have the wand. It was in the hands of a particularly large guard, who was twirling it around in his fingers as if it was a cigarette he could light on command. And maybe it was.
Albus was the first to spy his dad over the bulk of the guards. "Dad!" he cried. "Help!"
Harry and Malfoy pushed their way to the front of the circle, the former making sure to keep his wand holstered. He knew the consequences of attacking a muggle. Malfoy, however, had his on display and was waving it around in front of one of the guards, threatening to turn him into a toad.
"Classy, Malfoy," Harry muttered.
"These your younguns?" a gruffly-spoken guard asked.
"That one's mine," Malfoy said, pointing at Scorpius, who shrunk back. "Can't you tell?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Look sir," he said, trying to be reasonable, "I'm sorry if our boys caused any trouble. We'll take them home straight away and we can all forget this ever happened, okay?"
He waved his hand in front of the guard closest to him. The guard was wearing a vacant expression.
"You trying to Jedi mind trick me, son?"
Harry slapped his forehead. "No, I–"
"Because it looks like you were trying to Jedi mind trick me," the guard continued. "And there are rules against that, you know."
Harry groaned and Malfoy asked, "What's a Jedi mind trick?"
The guard went to explain. Albus tugged on his father's sleeve. "Dad, let's get out of here," he pleaded.
Scorpius nodded from behind Albus. "Please, Mr Potter," he said timidly.
Harry sighed. The Ministry was going to lynch him for this. He pulled out his wand and held it vertically in front of his face. He cleared his throat. It was loud enough that Malfoy turned to him, looking puzzled, and the guard stopped mid-explanation.
"I need you all to look at this wand," he said calmly.
One of the guards scratched his head. "Is this like that scene from 'Men in Black' where you erase our memories?"
"Of course not," Harry said, and then in the next breath muttered, "Obliviate!"
He snatched the ebony wand with the diriclaw core from the guard's hand and flicked it left and right. Nothing.
"Dad, give me the wand," Albus begged.
"Absolutely not! We're taking this straight back to Mr Ollivander, where it will never see the light of day again. Now how do you work this damn thing?"
Albus and Scorpius clutched onto Harry's legs. Malfoy was gripping his forearm so tight he was sure it would leave a bruise.
"Think escape," Albus said.
Harry did. And then, just like that, the mall fell away and they were gone.
Platform 9¾ was just as Harry remembered it. Bustling with activity, junior witches and wizards running this way and that, some saying goodbye to their parents, others trundling trunks down the walkway.
Albus was somewhere in the crowd with Scorpius Malfoy. Their little adventure the day before had all but solidified them as best friends. A Potter and a Malfoy – Harry smiled at the thought.
He glanced at the muggle paper in his hands. The headline that screamed across the front page made yesterday's debacle seem more like a distant nightmare than anything else. 'Movie Studio Admits Mall Incident a Stunt: More Inside,' it said.
Bless those good men of the magical clean up crew, Harry thought.
As for Rita Skeeter and the whole 'Harry Potter' muggle phenomenon, well, he would deal with that in his own time.
A flash of white caught his eye. He turned and saw Draco Malfoy and his wife, Astoria, looking regal in their long black coats. Malfoy must have felt eyes on him; he turned, too, and when he saw Harry, gave him a curt nod before facing forward once more.
Harry followed the other man's gaze. Albus and Scorpius were standing near the platform edge, and they were laughing so hard their cheeks had turned beet red. Harry smiled. All was well.