What are you saying?
I can hear them talking about me; I can hear them saying things in the dark, I can hear James and Teddy and Victoire arguing. I'm not even meant to be here. None of us are. It's two am, and we're not in bed, we're in the Common Room, and I'm trying not to cry by the fire as everyone else paces and looks and me and no one knows what to say.
Because what the hell. We should have known, right? Straight off. When I kissed Scorpius Malfoy and he fainted. Madame Pomfrey should have figured it out. Maybe she has. Maybe they're going to expel me, or lock me up in St. Mungo's.
I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm not there yet. I'm not smart enough, there aren't enough pieces, but right before we get started on this story, I want to make one thing clear: putting the pieces together is the worst thing for someone like me to do; because we fall apart.
What are you saying?
In my defense, what else could I have done?
I see it behind my eyelids when I shut my eyes. The Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. The Dementor in the box. Becoming cold as ice.
When the professor released it, and first when James with his fox, and then Victoire with her antelope, and then Scorpius and his magpie, and then I...
And then I stood in front of the trunk, and it was opened, and I screamed
EXPECTO PATRONUM
and no light burst out of my wand.
There was no beautiful animal form of my soul, no lux guardian. The room became so, so cold, and I looked at Rosie, for a split second, and her face-
Their faces.
Looking at Lily Luna Potter, my wand straight in the back of a Dementor. Not the Dementor that came out of the box. No, not the Dementor they'd all vanquished by the beautiful righteousness of happy moments.
My wand was sticking into a Dementor's back because the Dementor had burst out of my wand. It was mine.
It had poured out of my wand like a spider crawling froma web, unfolding, and I knew I wasn't controlling it. I could not wave my wand and dictate it's motions.
It was there, it was alive, and no one knew what to do with it, because no one...I mean, what on earth.
So I watched my Dementor's bones click as it surged forwards, and then it was holding the box Dementor's throat. It was opening its mouth. It was tearing off its jaw.
It kissed the box Dementor. Killed it.
By then, I think someone was screaming. It might have been me. But then the Professor took out her wand, sent forward a monstrous tiger of a Patronus, and my Dementor-
and then everyone was screaming and Rosie and Victoire were holding onto me and I was crying, body shaking in great seizures of shock, as my Patronus was forced into the box, and my wand dropped to my feet.
And I was screaming for them to give it back. My heart. Give it back.
Scorpius in front of me, face white, and I remembered kissing him, how he fell to the floor, and our eyes met and his heart poured to the floor and then, finally, people were ushered from the room altogether as the Professor tried to speak to me.
If I'm honest, I wasn't the most lucid of conversationalists. My Patronus was a Dementor.
That wasn't possible.
And now we were in the Common Room, and the fire was dying. James had taken up a spot near me out of solidarity, and he kept trying to throw a blanket over me, because my skin was still ice-cold.
I didn't really feel it.
Rosie sat down beside me. "I sent an owl to my mom," she said, voice small, and then I thought, Dad.
Oh, Merlin's beard, what are my parents going to say?
James kept talking with Scorpius and Victoire, and I tried to imagine they weren't listening in.
"And she replied," Rosie added. I looked at her and her pretty, round face was full of uncertainty. ""Have you ever heard of patronus pereo?"
My eyes must have been bleary enough for her to guess that I had absolutely no notion of what the pants she was talking about.
"Well," Rosie grimaced. "Um, 'pereo', it's...it's almost directly close to Latin. It means 'I am lost'. According to my mom, some people-"
"Do patronus pereo instead of expecto patronum?" I muttered.
"Well, right," she answered earnestly, and everyone had stopped pretending to not eavesdrop. "It basically means that your Patronus isn't...isn't...well, it's not standard. It usually only happens to children with...you know, who's parents are into really dark magic."
"Then why isn't James- why isn't Albus-" I was starting to choke up again. "My dad isn't a dark wizard! He's a hero."
I could see Scorpius out of the corner of my eye and I wished he'd be closer. Tell me it was going to be okay.
I'm sorry I kissed you.
In the end, we didn't get any further that night. We fell asleep in the Common Room. Rosie kept me warm on one side, and James -for once demonstrating that we might actually be related- kept me warm on the other side. The rest fell asleep in heaps in armchairs all around the room.
If I hadn't been outed as a freak, I would've thought that was one of our best nights as far as bonding went.
By the next morning, everyone knew.