One

I cannot explain to you the mass of events I've gone through in my lifetime. There are too many with too great of detail and if I ever finished the telling of even one of these, you would have a hard time finding the significance. They all add up, though. I realized these events were forming into a mountain when I was merely sixteen, in the prime of my youth which was also during the great decline of my school.

My family name has lost its power and with that, I've been harassed my whole life. With this, I've gained appreciation for the mysteries in life, the opposite spectrum of the world in which my father could not fathom. With this, I can stare at the young Lily Potter and wonder if she views me the same way my father viewed hers.

She's sitting across the courtyard with the Potter's adopted daughter, Avery who is in my year. She looks like a Potter, sounds like a Potter, even casts her spells like a Potter. She takes care of Lily, keeps her away from any young man looking to take away her innocence. Avery has been through things in life that I cannot imagine, which, I believe, is why Harry Potter took her in and under his wing.

I'm looking at the two of them, wondering if it's true that Avery has finally lost her virginity. Rumor had it that she rebelled over the summer, traveling across Europe for the experience but unraveling the beast of which she was inside.

"The new robes are in." Devereaux Parkinson tells me. I look up at him. "For Quidditch."

"Did you see them?" I asked.

"Yeah, they look good. Tell your father thanks." I nodded and looked back at the Potter girls. I catch Avery's stare quickly. She looks down at a book in her lap, and then shuts it hastily. She gets up, grabs Lily's hand and walks into the school. I sigh and stand up, crossing the courtyard after them.

The "decline" is explained on three points; sex, drinking, and dark magic. The school slowly fell apart after its reopening. Mr. Potter paid the bills for its repairs and is compensated bit by bit every year. I'm certain that his kids promised each other not to tell him about the decline. Kids, overwhelmed with the glory of their school being a battlefield for the war, threw parties every weekend when it reopened which began the rise of alcoholism on campus. I wasn't sure how they got alcohol in the school to begin with, maybe they had brewed it themselves, but administration didn't seem to care because they saw it as just school spirit. When the alcohol met the student body, the student body met each other. Everyone slept with each other, and the girls who managed to keep their virginity until year seven were chased more than the girls who had lost it in year six. Some were even harassed and in the worst cases, raped. This is when the dark magic became a heavy secret among the students. Girls practiced it to defend themselves, and the most horrible of young men used it when they wanted a piece of ass.

In my time, dark magic is used for fun. Bets are placed against one another and if there is a rivalry, it won't be settled through Quidditch but through duels, during parties.

We no longer hold parties in the woods; they are broken up too easily. The abandoned house in Hogsmeade is the perfect setting most of the time. Other times, if everyone is lucky, the head boys and girls will hold the party in their dorms. If one can find it, they share the room of requirement with the rest of us.

I keep my eye on Avery as the student body passes from class to class. She's making her way down to Potions, as am I. But first, she's walking Lily to Defense Against the Dark Arts. They talk for a short moment and I pass them by, hearing only a bit of their conversation.

"Are you going out tonight?" Lily asks Avery.

"I don't think so, no. There's talk of a duel; it'll be dangerous." I look down and keep walking. It's only a couple minutes later when I can feel her presence beside me.

"You couldn't have made it any more obvious." She speaks clearly and assertively. I don't look at her.

"What's obvious about walking past you? You're the one talking to me, aren't you?"

"You don't have to have an attitude, Scorpius."

"I'm not. How was your holiday?" She scoffs.

"It was good."

"Yeah, I heard it was." I look at her finally and she's clenching her jaw. "Six months we were together and then you run off to Spain to find a Latin lover." I whisper. "That's really classy, Ave."

"I wasn't ready."

"No, but you were ready when you were on X, weren't you?" She says nothing to me and I look ahead. For six months we had been the best kept secret at Hogwarts. "You did well, Avery. Real fuckin' well."

We enter potions and she sits at the head of the class, leaving me to my seat in the back. I watch Avery from across the room and I can only see her profile. She looks like she wants to cry but she looks too angry to do so. Why should she cry, I ask myself. What reason did she have to cry? I was the one who was hurt.

I'm watching Dacia Parkinson, Devereaux's twin sister, walking towards me that night. Dacia's got the body of a goddess and could send any man into shiver and aches. She's tipsy and still in her school uniform. I'm sitting next to Dev and he doesn't mind that Dacia sleeps with most of his friends. He could care less about his sister. Pansy Parkinson, being a whore as well, couldn't find a good man to marry after Hogwarts and so got knocked up with twins. Dev hates his mother more than anything as she relies on him heavily at home to punish Dacia for her wrong doings. It is my understand that, when the chance comes, he will leave his rich mother and comfortable home to get as far away from his life as possible.

"Are you taking me home tonight, Mr. Malfoy?" She whispers into my ear, leaving me chilled. She puts her cool hand on the back of my neck and then begins to suckle on my lobe. I laugh.

"I'm not allowed to have people spend the night." I tell her.

"Oh, fuck it. Who's gonna find out?"

"I can take you back to your dorm, not my own, Dacia."

"Fucking Christ, Dacia. Get off the poor man." Dev says and pushes her away from me. She glares at her brother and I grin as they bicker. Dev is only protective over me because he knows my devotion towards Avery, though he doesn't know we dated. That and the fact that I am his oldest playmate, untainted by his sister.

"Go take it up your fucking arse, Dev. Jealous 'cause I'm getting some and you're not? Or is it 'cause you want him for yourself?" Dev stands up and grabs his sister by the throat. She shows no fear.

"I will drown you in that fucking lake if you keep talking to me like that."

Tonight, the seventh years are braving it in the woods around a fire. Tonight, Avery has lied and she makes her way towards the fire with her brother Albus, which most of us call Al. She has lied to Lily to make her stay in. In reality, I know she wants to see the duel, as do the rest of us. They're the drug none of us can pass up, filled with adrenaline to see someone get hurt with spells we've never seen. Who is the most creative wizard on campus? Who is the most evil? Who is most like the devil?

It starts like this; we party and the viewers get as drunk as they possibly can beforehand. The duelers come with their crowd of people hours into the party and they disappear into the woods by their selves to first try and discuss their matters. If they come, we all they're pussies. If we see streaks of light in the darkness, we all gather around them to watch.

This night is a particularly good match up, one all of us have been waiting for years. Harper Zabini has finally made an effort to put a stop to Samuel Finnigan's Irish-mouth, one which he runs about everything including Harper's sister. All of us know that Samuel took Brandolyn Zabini's virginity after drugging her over the summer. All of us also know that he delved in dark magic when he was only in year three.

I hear a scream unlike anything I've ever heard before, terrible and spine-tingling. I stand up instantly and run towards the woods with everyone else, wand tight in my hand.

I had never minded Sam Finnigan before that day, but Dev had told me about Brandolyn at lunch. Having dated her briefly, I couldn't understand why anyone would want to hurt the girl. She was sweet, too sweet.

Red struck the sky, cracking like thunder. It sends a tree toppling down near Sam. He sends the tree back towards Harper. All of us back away from the scene; I had never seen a fight like this before. I looked over and saw Avery's lips parted and her eyes wide with astonishment. She was holding onto Al for safety.

Harper sets the tree on fire and sends it back to Sam. Sam lets it fall this time and for a moment that felt like forever, everything was silent with the exception of the fire crackling. There was no movement. It could have been assumed that Sam was now dead, the tree toppling him. Everyone's hearts raced, hoping that wasn't the case. If it was, the woods were sure to be cut down and the school would have a curfew, every door with a timed and unbreakable lock on it.

I looked down as the ground shook beneath us all. There was a roar in the air and I looked up to see Sam standing in the flames, not on fire whatsoever. Harper waited for his next move, but I had a notion that his next move had been sent and was on it's way. I heard a gasp and looked over to see Avery turned. I looked back and saw lightning forking the sky horizontally. I looked towards Harper and saw it coming from the opposite direction.

It caught Harper in a matter of seconds and every girl was screaming. It picked him and held up above the crowns of the trees. And in a matter of seconds it let him go and he crashed to the ground. He lay still for a second and then the spell took effect; his body went into a spasm, his nose spewing blood.

"Oh my God," Avery exclaimed and she ran for him. She wasn't close to Harper in any way shape or form, but she had never seen anything so grim. She knelt beside him and her hands hovered above him. "Someone fucking help him!" She screamed.

"No!" Sam Finnigan bellowed. He pointed his wand at Avery and casted her against a tree. She cried out in pain. I stepped forward and pointed my wand at him. He grabbed at his throat and fell to his knees. Just like he had lit up Harper Zabini, I sent him into the sky with his tree and then out into the lake, taking out at least trees on the way. With no source of light left, no trace of Sam Finnigan, panic grew thick in the air.

I looked at Harper who was staring at me in disbelief. His fit had stopped.

"Where is Harper?" Someone yelled.

"Fuck." I whispered. Everyone bolted in different direction. The fire in the distance was put out.

"Get to your fucking dorm, mate." I felt Dev's tight grip on my shoulder. "Take Avery with you." I looked back and saw her standing up, trembling, her eyes still wide. I walked towards her and took her by the hand. We ran back to the school as fast as we could and back to our head boy and girl dorm in the north tower of the school. I locked the door and she stared at me, fear growing more obvious in her eyes.

"Did you kill him?" She asked, her voice shaking.

"I don't know."

"What if someone finds out you did it, Scorpius?"

"Then I'm fucked, Avery." I told her bluntly. Her eyes glossed over.

"You shouldn't have stepped in. Everyone will know about us."

"Why the FUCK would that matter at this point, Avery?" I yelled at her. I stomped to my room, taking off my tie and unbuttoning my shirt. She followed me.

"Al will kill you, Scorpius. Sam is his best friend and I'm-" I turned around and looked her dead in the eye.

"You are not his sister, Avery. His dad took you in because he felt sorry for you." I told her. "I've been in love with you since the day I saw you when you were introduced to the school; I was fourteen fucking years old. You were sorted into Slytherin because you're a goddamn cunning and manipulative girl. You're not in Gryffindor like Al and James who have the hearts of a lion, and you're not in Ravenclaw like Lily because you're not smart enough. You're in here with me because of what's in your blood and I know what's in your blood. I wasn't just gonna watch you fucking go into a convulsion because of Al Potter. Does that make sense to you?" She said nothing, and a tear rolled down her face.

"If he's dead, so be it, send me to Azkaban, but just know I was protecting you." I turned and walked away into my room. I took my shirt off. I heard her inhaled at the sight of my back.

"What happened to you?" She asked. "Did your dad…"

There was a gash running from my left shoulder to my right hip, sure to leave a massive scar.

"It doesn't matter. Go to bed, Avery."