CHAPTER TWO
The common room was unusually quiet that night. The firewood cracked as students whispered amongst themselves, heads bent over tables and gazes cast down to the ground. Albus and Rose sat on a sofa furthest from everyone else, right near the portrait door. They were silent. It didn't seem there was much to say.
No one had been attacked this badly in Hogwarts since the war. Owls had been swooping in all night from frantic parents, leaving a flurry of feathers wherever they went. Professors had already started an investigation into the student or students behind the attack. During dinner, James had been called to the Head of House to answer some questions. No one was surprised, given the scene so many had witnessed in the hallway before.
"Like it's really that big of a deal," Richard Davies, one of James's seventh-year cronies, said a little more loudly than necessary from across the room. "Everyone's acting like it's the end of the world, just because a Slytherin fag got his ass kicked. It was gonna happen eventually anyway, right?"
"Do you think it was really him?" Rose whispered to Albus. "I know James is an ass, but even he wouldn't do something like this, would he?"
Albus didn't answer her. The truth was, he wasn't sure.
"I heard he was in really bad shape," Rose said. "Malfoy, I mean. I heard he was a lot closer to being dead than the professors wanted to let on. A Ravenclaw found him. Said she thought he was already dead when she saw him at first. Barely breathing, and his bones clearly broken. Says he showed signs of having the Cruciatus Curse used on him."
"Can you stop?"
Rose looked at Albus in surprise. "Sorry. I was just repeating what I heard."
The portrait swung open and heads turned. James Potter stepped through. James's friends stood up immediately. Everyone watched him walk slowly, hands in pockets, half-grin on his face. "Bloody hell. It's like someone died in here."
"Someone did almost die," Rose said. "In case you forgot."
James's eyes got narrow. "No. Didn't forget that one, thank you."
There was just a second where everyone watched James, before laughter and talk broke out, as though no one had just been whispering about him at all. James started across the room towards his friends, but Albus jumped out of his seat and got in his brother's way.
"Hold on," Albus said. "Are you going to tell me what the hell happened?"
James eyed him. "Why would I do that?"
"I'm your brother."
"You're also a twat."
Albus clenched his jaw and took a breath and leaned in so only James could hear him. "Did you attack Scorpius or not?"
James didn't answer right away. When he did, he said, "You're right. You are my brother. So you should know better than to ask me a question like that."
He shoved past Albus, but Albus grabbed his elbow. "If you didn't, who did?"
"How the hell should I know?" James asked, a little more loudly this time. "In fact, why the hell should I care? Why do you care so much?"
Albus let go of his elbow. "I'm allowed to be worried, right? People are saying it's going to be the war all over again."
"Trust me – if there was going to be another war, it wouldn't be a Slytherin lying half-dead in the infirmary."
James kept on walking, and Albus let him go this time, looking over his shoulder at the seventh-years that started laughing and smacking James on the back, as though he'd just scored a point in a Quidditch match.
"Do you believe him?" Rose asked him.
Albus shook his head. "I don't know."
Days passed. Without being able to see Scorpius in the corridors, or look at him across the Great Hall, Albus was able to think about little else but the boy he was so used to watching. And it didn't help, of course, that the attack on Scorpius Malfoy was all anyone would talk about. Whispers filled the halls. Apparently, Scorpius downright refused to say who it was that'd attacked him. A matter of pride, some supposed.
By the end of the week, Albus considered sneaking into the infirmary to get a look at Scorpius Malfoy himself. He'd already gone to the infirmary once. He stood outside its door for a long while, pretending he'd stopped to tie his shoe whenever a professor or a student walked by, before he'd go back to pacing and trying to think of what to say – struggling to think of an excuse to visit the Slytherin – until finally he decided he was mad and went back to his dormitory.
It was when a full week had passed that word spread: Scorpius had been released. Albus spent the better part of breakfast staring at the doors of the Great Hall, waiting for the Slytherin to appear – and when he didn't, he walked as slowly as he could through the corridors, staring around with wide eyes, so that Rose eventually asked, "What the bloody hell is wrong with you?" And when he reached Potions, he sat expectantly, sure that Scorpius wouldn't miss his first class after an entire week of being in the infirmary – but he never showed up to class either. When the professor asked where Scorpius was, Odile Zabini said that no one had seen him all morning.
Frustrated, Albus opted out of eating lunch with his little sister Lily and Rose, as he usually did in the Great Hall. He instead walked out onto the grounds with browning grass and the red of trees and the crisp wind. He came close enough to the edge of the lake to hear the lapping of the water against the muddy shore. The breeze coming over the water was even colder than it'd been before.
He expected to be the only one outside, seeing how cold it was, but he could see someone sitting on a cluster of rocks overlooking the shore, beside a tree that'd already lost its leaves to the wind. He walked closer and closer until finally Scorpius looked down at him from his seat.
"What do you want?" he asked.
Albus swallowed. Shrugged. "I just saw you, and I –" he stopped. "What're you doing out here?"
"Avoiding other people. I don't feel like being stared at today."
Albus knew this was Scorpius's way of telling him to leave, but he took another step towards the rocks. "So if I don't look at you, it's all right to stay, then?"
Scorpius laughed, but it didn't give Albus the impression that much was funny at the moment. He was even paler than he had been before. Albus could see the blue veins running through his arms.
"What do you want?"
"What?"
Scorpius made an impatient noise. "Can't imagine you're here to give me shit for being gay. No one's around to watch."
"No – I'd never do that. Give you shit for being gay, I mean."
Scorpius gave him a strange look, but he didn't say anything to that. Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Albus leaned his back against the cold rock. He tried to stay still – didn't want to seem too nervous by rubbing his hands together, or patting down his hair. The wind whipped up and stung his cheeks. "I'm sorry about my brother," he said. "He was a prat to you before – the day that you – you know."
"Nothing new about that."
"I'm still sorry, though."
"And you think you're better than him?" Scorpius said. "Is that why you're talking to me? You're trying to prove you're not the prat your brother is?"
Albus shook his head. "That's not it."
"Then what is it?"
"I'm just – curious," he said. And when Scorpius didn't say anything, he added, "About what happened. About who attacked you."
"I haven't told anyone that. What makes you think I'd tell you?"
Albus looked up. "Can you just tell me one thing? Just tell me if it was my brother. You don't have to tell me who it was if it wasn't him, but if it was – you have to tell me."
"I don't have to do anything."
"It was him, wasn't it?"
"And if it wasn't?" Scorpius met Albus's eyes. His stare was hard enough to make Albus want to look away, but he forced himself not to. Scorpius said, "You think he's innocent in all this?"
Albus shook his head. "No. I don't."
That must've caught Scorpius by surprise, because he kept quiet. He blinked and looked away. "It wasn't him."
Albus couldn't even be sure he believed Scorpius – but he also couldn't think of a reason why Scorpius would protect his older brother. "Who was it, then?"
"You said you wouldn't ask."
"I don't get it. Why would you protect someone that's tried to kill you?"
Scorpius made a face. "Don't be so dramatic. No one's tried to kill me." He took a breath. Hot air steamed out of his mouth. "Beat the shit out of me, sure. But he wasn't trying to kill me."
"They didn't use the Cruciatus Curse on you?"
He laughed, and Albus thought the laugh didn't sound as cold this time. "You've been gossiping too much, Potter."
Albus could feel his face turning warm, even in the cold breeze. "I'm right that you're protecting someone, though."
"You and the rest of the school. But that's no one's business but my own." He looked at Albus again. "And why do you care so much?"
It might've been smarter for Albus to say that he didn't care – to swear it up and down – but instead he said, just above a whisper, "I don't know."
Scorpius watched Albus long and hard – unashamed, like he knew it was making Albus uncomfortable, but he didn't care. "I see you watching me, you know. You're always staring at me."
Albus didn't know what to say.
"Why?"
Albus shook his head.
"You don't know."
"It's just that I'm – curious."
"Thought you were just curious about who attacked me." When Albus didn't answer, Scorpius smiled. He stood up from the rock, stretched, stepped down from one rock to the next until he was on the ground beside Albus, and he turned away to walk back to the castle.
"Hold on," Albus said. Scorpius turned to look at him. "Would it be all right to – I don't know – talk to you sometimes?"
"You're talking to me now, right?"
Scorpius kept going. Albus just stood there, watching him walk away until he couldn't see Scorpius anymore – and when he could finally breathe again, he started back to the castle himself, wondering how he'd be able to convince Scorpius to say who his attacker was, and trying his best not to think about why he was so interested in Scorpius Malfoy in the first place.
