IX
He asks the castle about Ginny Weasley in his second week of third year. It remembers her well, so brave and so frightened at the same time. He watches as she writes her laments and loves into a lethal journal. That was Lucius Malfoy, he realises. A man who could damn an eleven year old girl without thinking twice. No wonder his grandmother is a tiny bit odd.
He wonders at his father keeping all this bottled away and is filled with love for him. Scorpius knows that his father has done it for him. It cannot be easy. Not like Al's father. There are statues of his parents.
The castle tells him he is wrong. It shows him a little dark-haired boy, poring over photographs, tears streaming down his cheeks. It shows him the same boy hissing to a tap and sliding down a pipe to rescue the girl who would grow up to be his wife. Scorpius recognises Mr Weasley, Rose and Hugo's dad, as the red-haired boy who is with Harry Potter, but he can't place the teacher in the memory.
It shows him that the boy is scared, and will run any risk not to feel alone.
"Show me my father," he asks the castle.
Are you sure? the castle asks him. He is.
The boy does look very much like Scorpius, but the man leaning over him is larger in every way than the man the boy will grow up to be. Lucius Malfoy's features are handsome but broad and uncompromising, not like the fine-boned questioning face his son will wear more than 20 years in the future. Scorpius realises how much like Narcissa his father looks.
Lucius is angry. "Sacked! There have been Malfoys running this school practically since the day it was built, and they have the nerve to sack me! The other governors have been bought off by Dumbledore, I can feel it. Wait until the Dark Lord returns, Draco. They will run to me then and beg forgiveness, and I shall be merciful to those on their knees …"
The boy is nervous. "Can't you just tell them they should take you back? We don't need anyone else, Father. You should be in charge of things, not some Dark Lord."
Lucius laughs richly and kisses his son's forehead. "Whatever greatness I could achieve by myself will be as nothing to the rewards I will find at his side. You will see," he promises, then sweeps from the room.
Only the school and now Scorpius hear the reply. "If the Dark Lord is so mighty, how can one of my classmates beat him?"
The next day Scorpius convinces Lily to come with him to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She scouts for the all-clear and they find the tap with the snake etched into it. She is impressed when he mimics the words he heard her father use and the entrance opens, but she is not interested in exploring it. Her Mum's version of the story was terrifying enough. She does find Scorpius a rope ladder, though, and she keeps his secrets when he disappears for hours to study, or just to read and reflect. She doesn't even tell Al, who wastes hours looking all over the school for Scorpius one evening.
Scorpius begs the castle to tell him if Al is ever looking for him again, even if he has said that he wants to be alone and undisturbed. He lies to Al and tells him that he fell asleep over books. Al is just relieved Scorpius is all right, that he isn't spending time alone with Lily, because he isn't having his best friend status overturned by anyone.
Lily is banished by Al from Scorpius's company to spend time with Hugo, which she says she doesn't mind in the slightest, since they are both Uncle George's favourites.
Rose Granger-Weasley warns the boys that the young ones are not to be trusted, and devises brilliant plans to thwart their regular practical jokes. She becomes a hero to Hufflepuff when she bursts into their common room armed with antidotes for the 3W test sweets that have made their way into their house sugar stash. Scorpius makes her promise not to reveal how she found out about the sudden onset of mass vomiting, in return for helping her cover-up her brother and cousin's guilt. Scorpius is relieved when Al is not put out that he and Rose are friends, but Al expects Ravenclaws to stick together.
Scorpius has regular Advanced Transfiguration classes with Emeritus Professor McGonagall. When he is not shifting cups to candlesticks and feathers to sparrows, she tells him entertaining stories of his cousins Teddy Lupin and Sirius Black, two of her favourite old students.
Scorpius wishes he'd met Sirius, who the Professor describes as a wild child with a huge motorbike and a deep and abiding love for his friends. "He sounds like Al," he tells her.
"You remind me of him a little," she tells him. "Except your family are much kinder than his were. I was wrong about your father."
X
Rose Granger-Weasley is screaming his name down a hallway two months later. He runs towards her, and she grabs his shoulders, barely able to get the words out through her panting. "Hugo, Lily, snakes, hurry!" she drags him back the way that she has come. He helps her run, and pulls his wand out at the ready.
Images flash at him as he runs. His young friends are balanced on top of a basin in Myrtle's bathroom. The floor is a writhing mass of adders. Al and James and two Gryffindor prefects are at the door with wands drawn. There are containment spells keeping the adders from leaving the room or from climbing the walls, but, from somewhere, more adders arrive every second. Al and James are scared. Hugo and Lily are terrified.
Rose pushes the prefects out of the way and thrusts Scorpius forward. "She told me," she gasps. "I'm sorry, but please …"
Scorpius has already dropped to his knees and begun to whisper to the snakes. Instead of their angry whipping, they are stilling at the sound of his voice. He notices that it is not a case of more snakes slithering into the room; it is a spell, their numbers increase every minute.
Once they are quiet he calls out to Lily and asks her what she's done. "It's one of Uncle George's tricks!" she calls back.
James swears behind him. "That's meant to be rubber snakes! I'll kill him! Dad will kill him! Aunty Hermione will kill him twice!"
Scorpius and Rose can just hear Hugo's muttering under James's rant. They entreat Al to keep him quiet. White-faced, he does. "Say it again, Hugo," Rose calls out to him.
"I wanted to make it scarier," he confesses, filled with remorse. Lily pats him as gently as she can while clinging to a tap.
"Scorp …" Rose's voice is entreating.
He turns around to Al, but Al is looking so sick and green that he doesn't even ask. "Bugger …" he mutters, and steps over the containment spell at the door, then tiptoes his way across the drowsy snakes. Some of them politely coil on top of each other to make way for his feet as he whispers soothingly. At least, he tells himself, at least they won't kill me. They'll just make me very very ill. This could be worse. Hugo could have been reading up on American or Australian snakes.
Scorpius keeps a relaxed smile on his face for Hugo and Lily's benefit, and makes a mental note to have their older siblings destroy any books in their homes on non-British reptiles.
He hugs them briefly as he reaches their basin, makes sure they're all right, tells them to hold on. Then he moves two along, and whispers to the snake on the tap. It swings out and the passageway is open beneath them. The snakes are up to his knees now, and bunting against him, having run out of room to avoid him.
"If you would be so kind; you will find below well appointed and suitable for your needs," he tells them.
With hisses of relief they make their way down the pipe, into the cavern below. When they are all gone, he closes the passageway and slides down the wall to the rather damp floor. Ghostly eyes peer at him through fogged glasses.
"You were so brave!" Myrtle tells him.
"I really don't like snakes," he tells her.
The two prefects haul him to his feet and congratulate him. Rose and James are simultaneously hugging and shaking their little siblings, James is crying far more than Rose is. Al is still at the door, still looking green. There are many other students there now, the last part of the rescue has had an audience of dozens.
"You spoke to the snakes," Al says.
Scorpius nods. "I heard someone else do it, and I realised I could, too."
"And that's the Chamber where my mum …"
Rose speaks over him. "That's the Chamber where my Mum and Dad helped win the War by finding basilisk fangs. That's the Chamber where your dad defeated that same basilisk. That's the Chamber that was a perfectly legitimate part of this school before Tom Riddle used it for his own ends, and that's the Chamber that helped your friend save your sister."
Her voice is loud and carries out into the hallway. Scorpius realises not for the first time that he will always be the tiniest bit in love with Rose Granger-Weasley, and also that this will never begin to conquer the abject fear she inspires in him. She and James bustle out with Lily and Hugo tucked under their arms, calling for blankets and chocolate. The prefects set about shooing the onlookers away.
Soon, only Al is left with Scorpius. "Is that where you've been going?" he asks, still looking rather green.
"When I need a break," Scorpius isn't sure why he feels so guilty.
"Without me," Al goes on.
Ah, yes, that would be it. "I'm never going back," Scorpius declares.
Al is suddenly beside him, hugging him fiercely. "Don't you dare!" he whispers into his ear before letting him go.
"Can't. It's full of snakes."
They stop laughing by the time they reach the infirmary. Lily and Hugo are declaring their lack of harm, and Rose and James are just as adamant they need checking out for shock. George Weasley is summoned, and the two sets of parents, too. Scorpius is suddenly being hugged from both sides by mothers, and patted on the back by fathers. He insists that Rose is the brains of the operation, but that just drags another body into the mob embrace.
Al rescues him by announcing that it's time for dinner. Madame Bones concedes that her charges may go down for food, but only if their parents accompany them. She is winking at Mrs Granger-Weasley as she says this, and Scorpius remembers that parents and teachers have friends, too.
Rumour beats them all to the Great Hall. Mr Potter's entrance is greeted with wild cheering, amid which Professor Longbottom grabs the four adults and drags them to the staff table.
Rose and Scorpius are delayed by Professor Flitwick who calls them over to him. "Well done," he says. "I'm proud of the two of you. Clear thinking and well-organised teamwork. Malfoy, I'd like you to report on the learning process for Parseltongue, is it instinctive or is it acquired? Weasley, I think a paper on the dangers of spell adaptation would prove enlightening to some of the younger members of this school."
Scorpius and Rose both feel their head of house to be one of the wisest adults they know.
It's Scorpius's turn to eat with Al tonight, and Rose accompanies him. But when they reach the Gryffindor table Peter Crabbley and Eoin Flaherty only shift one seat along. Rose stands back and motions for Scorpius to sit beside Al. Crabbley slides back into the empty space and declares loudly: "No room for Ravenclaws here. Why don't you try Slytherin?"
Rose accidentally slaps Crabbley and Flaherty over the back of their heads with her plate. "So sorry. Terrible Ravenclaw reflexes. You know how it is. Shall we?" she offers an arm to Scorpius, who takes it.
Al stands up, glaring in fury. He takes his crockery and cutlery from the table and has the same accident as his cousin. Then he takes Al's other elbow and the three of them set off for the Ravenclaw table.
Lily, Hugo and James follow quickly. "Bugger that lot," says Lily to the Ravenclaws. "I'm dying for a spot of intelligent conversation." Cheers and laughter welcome them.
Scorpius spots Mr Potter watching them from the staff table. He smiles reassuringly. Mr Potter smiles back, but he looks worried.
When the Headmistress calls Scorpius and Rose to their feet and awards them one hundred house points for their courage, most of the school cheers. Some of the Slytherins begin to chant "One of us!" at Scorpius. Some of the Gryffindors agree: "One of them!" joins the cry.
Scorpius waits until they are mostly quiet before declaring to the whole Ravenclaw table, in a voice that carries throughout the hall: "What can I say? They're desperate. They can see the Quidditch Cup being snatched away again before their very eyes."
The Ravenclaw cheers overwhelm any other noise. Scorpius sneaks a look. Harry Potter is grinning at him. He grins in reply, then turns back, Al is beaming up at him, too.
The next morning an Owl arrives with a long letter from his father. He asks if Scorpius is all right no less than eight times. He seems to know everything that has happened, and in detail.
Albus also gets a letter from his father. It tells him to take care of Scorpius.
James is outraged. "How many times do I have to tell him I have that covered?" he fumes. "If it wasn't for Lily and Hugo being idiots, I would do nothing else with my days."
"That's right, James, he's so unfair," murmurs Maisie Carrington, part of James's growing Ravenclaw fanclub.
Rose leans in to mutter at Al and Scorpius. "I feel sure things will be calmer at the Gryffindor table now. Can't we send him back?"
Al and Scorpius watch as Emily Craddock piles bacon onto James's plate while another girl fetches him kedgeree and eggs from further up the table. "I just don't think he'll go," Scorpius is forced to admit.
"I could strangle him," Rose mutters.
"That would take the heat off me!" Scorpius laughs brightly.
His shoulder is tapped from behind. It's Lily. She forces him to move along and squeezes into the space between him and Al. She drops her eating gear to the table with a clatter and throws her arms around Scorpius, pressing her lips to his cheek. "I forgot to say thank you!" she announces, before turning to the meal.
Albus catches Rose's eye. "If you're serious about homicide, I'm fine with being an only child," he tells her.
XI
Scorpius is reading when he realises the castle is trying to get his attention. "Not right now," he tells it gently, "unless it's important."
The castle shows him a slim, dishevelled boy running riotously through its hallways, looking for someone.
"Oh, thanks." Scorpius pats the wall fondly.
He's two minutes away, it tells him.
Scorpius is at the bottom of the Ravenclaw staircase by the time the running figure sags against the balustrade, gasping for breath. "Hi, Al," he greets his friend cheerfully.
"That's – uncanny –" Al pants. Then he straightens up. "You have to come with me. Right now. I have found the best thing." Al doesn't wait for an answer but simply drags his friend along. "I knew it was here, but not where it was. Actually, I thought it was destroyed, but it was just that one version. And anyway, James doesn't know and he is going to die when he finds out. If we tell him. Although, why Dad didn't tell me …"
"Albus!" Scorpius is shouting now, and they have both begun to jog. "What on Earth are you on about?"
Al grins widely, all devilry. "Just wait!" and drags him along at a run.
A few minutes later Scorpius is deposited beside a battered tapestry. "Wait," Al tells him, and then walks up and down the hallway, concentrating intently and whispering to himself. A doorway appears. Scorpius is amazed.
Al is beaming at him. "It's the Room of Requirement; remember it from the War stories? I found it, and it still works." He takes Scorpius's arm and leads him through the doors. "I asked it for the perfect room!"
The inside is a terrifying glance into the subconscious mind of Albus Severus Potter.
"You are a madman," Scorpius tells his companion.
Huge sofas are littered around the room. A great brass machine against one wall bears taps labelled "Coffee", "Tea", "Hot Chocolate" "Iced Chocolate", "Orangeade" and "Lemonade". Beside it is a sideboard packed with mugs and glasses. Games boards cover one large table, while an enormous wizard's train set chugs around its tracks, avoiding landslides and bearing down on tiny shrieking heroines tied to the rails.
A team of house-elves bustles in, one bearing a large jar of sweets and the others carrying jugs of drinks which are poured into the brass machine. They bow cheerfully to Scorpius, who wonders exactly how much of his soul Al has sold to achieve this much favouritism.
Stacks of Quidditch magazines and annuals are piled untidily about, and on one wall, a long row of broomsticks of varying designs, plus tool kits and cleaning equipment for polishing and tinkering. The ceiling is a masterpiece: it can't be less than seventy feet high, and broad oak beams curve down from its central axis in arcs and loops that beg to be flown through.
At the far end of the hall there is a small writing desk, with a bookshelf beside it and a good lamp. Scorpius walks down to it and finds that the desk is stocked with quills and parchment. "For your homework?" he raises an eyebrow.
"Don't be stupid," Al grins. "That's your bit."
Al throws him a vintage Firebolt. "Race you round the room!" he cries, jumping on his own, newer model.
Scorpius is aloft and chasing before he's even properly mounted his broom, and they are both laughing like lunatics as they loop in and out of the graceful oak curves. Scorpius beats Albus by the narrowest of margins, and he is flying hard, so Al doesn't mind that he has lost. They come to a stop at the drinks machine, and both select Lemonade.
"Why no water?" Scorpius asks.
"Common as muck. You can pop outside or ask the house-elves yourself."
"Why no pumpkin juice?"
"Cos you're allergic. I've sworn off it in case there's a terrible case of mixed glasses."
"You've sworn off it because it's not full of sugar and you found out it was healthy."
"There may be an element of that, yes."
"Why no butterbeer?"
"Common."
"Milk?"
"Common."
"Iced coffee?"
"Destroys the good name of coffee."
"You are so selfish," Scorpius grins. "What about when you invite all your friends and relatives over?"
Albus shrugs. "Not sure I want to, it's nice having somewhere that's just for us. You can study if you want to, and I can keep busy when you need to do your work."
Scorpius's smile slowly takes over his face.
He's moving without meaning to.
"Oh, I have the best idea. Let's see your perfect room!" Al is dragging him towards the door.
"But what about this one?" Scorpius is dragging his heels.
"It'll still be here!"
"But I'm not sure I actually require a room, I think the castle only gives it to you if you need one!"
"Scoop," Albus stops beside him in the doorway, "You're the equal smartest kid in our year, I never give you time to study, and when you're in your common room people are either asking you for help with their homework or to find their quills. Thanks to my sister and cousin being idiots, you had to fill your study place with snakes, you deserve another one. That's why I went looking for the Room in the first place."
Scorpius leans against the wall. He can feel the Castle chuckling. "Well, then, I'll give it a go," he declares.
With mounting excitement, he walks up and down the hall three times, muttering to himself. He opens the doors when they appear and Al follows him in.
"Oh …" Scorpius is rapt.
"You are kidding!" Albus is horrified.
Row after row of shelves stretch away into the distance, all laden with books. At the end of every second row is a small desk with a good lamp, comfortable chair and an adequate supply of writing materials. Near the doorway is a single large sofa and table, bearing the same jar of sweets and a text on Quidditch strategies. Scorpius walks straight to the first shelf and tentatively touches the spines of the books.
"Oh that's it - Lily can have you. I'm finding a new best friend," Albus exclaims.
"Excellent," Scorpius teases him, reaching for the nearest volume. "She's a girl, that means that at some point there'll be experimental snogging. I wonder what it's like?"
"You are such an idiot." Al grabs Scorpius's robes, pulls him close and presses his lips against his friend's. For the first time in his life, Scorpius drops a book. Al lets him go. "Girl kisses are just like that, only feebler, and with a lot more giggling."
Scorpius has no words to convey the suddenly obvious fact that he has no interest whatsoever in Lily Potter's kisses.
Al bends to pick up Scorpius's dropped book, which is time enough for Scorpius to walk quickly to the far end of the private library, looking for a dark corner that will hide the red washing over his face.
Al's voice follows him: "I've changed my mind. I don't care that you're an idiot. I like your house too much - I'm keeping you. All right?"
"Right," Scorpius calls back, amazed at how even his voice is. "Besides, you'd have to hang out with your brother's friends if you ditched me."
Al joins him in the aisle, leaning against the shelf marked Charms, Cu-He. "That's true," he says. "And who'd give me flying tips? And who'd keep you from reading yourself into an early grave?"
Scorpius smiles wryly. "I thought this was all about finding me a place to read uninterrupted."
Al nods. "I should leave you to it."
"Or … we could go outside and I could show you the Krum inside turn again. I can come back and study when it's not so sunny."
"That would be great," Albus's smile stretches all the way to his eyes again. They walk towards the doorway together. "So, you like it?" Al asks.
"It's brilliant!"
"That's good." Albus pauses. "Sorry."
Scorpius is walking ahead of him. "Are you kidding? This is so much better than the Chamber of Secrets."
"Oh. Yeah, yeah it is."
That night Scorpius presses his hand against the castle wall tentatively and asks if there is something horribly wrong with him. Not at all, it answers. What can be wrong about a kiss?
The castle shows him scenes of kisses it has seen. He sees Albus's parents, and Rose's, too. There is Professor McGonagall, very young, with a young man only a little older; it is impossible to think of her that age. There is James and Emily Craddock, and James and Maisie Carrington, and James and … is that a sixth year? There is a girl with dusky skin and huge eyes in the Ravenclaw common room tentatively brushing the lips of a slighter blonde who looks somehow familiar. There is a teacher in tattered robes, passionately embracing a man with black hair, and there, fleetingly, is himself and Albus, except the castle is looking at them from below, they're not really that tall.
Friendship and love, that's all, it tells him. And if you are afraid, just wait until you aren't.
"I don't want him to think I'm an idiot," Scorpius whispers.
Albus has never thought that you are an idiot, the stones tell him, and they are serious and truthful.
XII
Slytherin come out in favour of Ravenclaw for the finals of the Quidditch Cup. Anything is better than Gryffindor, they say, and they like Malfoy.
"Even if you're pale and bookish," Lester Biggs, the Slytherin captain teases him.
"Pale, bookish, yet wiped your team from the pitch in fifteen minutes," Scorpius smiles brightly.
There are rude hand gestures, but they are made without malice and Biggs waves his Ravenclaw flag as he walks off to find a seat. Scorpius has been even-handed in his treatment of his schoolmates. Most of them like him, and the ones who think he's evil are either intrigued or tend to hide when he's about. Anyone who can convince that many people he's guileless, they theorise, is not to be trusted.
The rest of the Ravenclaw team arrives and Scorpius follows them into the changing room. Shinpads, kneepads, elbowpads go on. Brooms are checked. Extra body armour is strapped to those who will need it. Scorpius slips on his Quidditch robes and feels the rush of anticipation that precedes every game. He smoothes down the blue garment, turns his bronze lapels out. Taps his toes firmly into his boots.
"Three simple instructions," Mari Bott tells her team. "Hold to our strategies, don't lose your heads, and don't let those flashy gits distract you."
Her team murmurs their agreement and waits for her usual oration on the importance of working together. She looks at them impatiently. "That's it! We've got a Cup to win!"
"Yes, Captain!" they cheer her this time, and Scorpius is filled with nervous energy as he walks out onto the pitch, broom in hand.
Mari and Nathan Spinnet, the Gryffindor captain, shake hands in the centre. Scorpius nods at James, his opposing Seeker, and Albus, whose excellent work as Keeper has in no small part brought their team to the final. The call to mount brooms goes out, and Scorpius is aloft at the first sound of the whistle.
Beneath him, Mari has grabbed the Quaffle and is flying fast. He can hear the commentator: "Ogden smacks a Bludger at Bott, who avoids it in a lovely spin, nice flying! and there's Carrington in support, but Bott is taking the shot herself and it's - OH! Brilliant save by Potter the younger and now Spinnet is moving the Quaffle out of the Gryffindor danger zone …"
Scorpius focuses on the seemingly aimless flight of James Potter. He recognises the potential here - their styles are very much alike. They both prefer to feint, they both rely on misdirection. They both fly nearly as well as each other. Scorpius knows he is a tiny bit better, but James has longer arms, and enough weight to make the difference in a dive.
He decides to fly up and sit beside him.
"Good day for it," he chats pleasantly.
"You're not going to distract me," James tells him cheerfully.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Scorpius replies.
"Crap ..." James mutters as the blue-banner waving part of the crowd below goes wild. Maisie Carrington has intercepted Spinnet's pass to Rufford and gone on to score.
"Bad luck," Scorpius mutters, glancing about idly. The Cup is theirs now, if he can catch the Snitch. When Ravenclaw's Laura Wadcock snatches the Quaffle from a missed pass, Scorpius can feel the tension run through the audience. He almost looks down at the state of play, especially when a goal is scored, instead he looks across at James, whose face is an open book.
Scorpius kicks against the air, throwing his broom sideways in a roll that gets across and ahead of James in the one move. The Snitch is maddeningly close, yet so erratic in its flight. At any moment it could dart past him and towards James.
Below them the spectators have noticed the pursuit and bellows of "Go Eagles!" and "Go Lions!" begin until it is all one thrilling cacophony.
The snitch plummets and both Seekers are in close formation with it. They stream through the centre of the play below, neatly missing Mari, who has just intercepted a pass between Piers Duke and Merewyn Rufford if the commentary is to be believed.
James edges to the lead by virtue of greater mass, but when the Snitch climbs again it is Scorpius who is ahead, his skinniness proving a boon for once. Then the Snitch jags right, and it is in front of James, only a little out of reach, and Scorpius can only reach it if he moves his broom across into the other Seeker's line, but they are so high, and James has one hand outstretched, and if he should slip ...
The crowd screams with either glee or fury as Scorpius barrel rolls across James, reaching out his hand while upside down to snatch the Snitch inches before the Gryffindor's fingers can close on it. He swings upright again and holds the golden treasure aloft, laughing wildly.
James is laughing, too. "You jammy git, that was amazing! Damn you and well done!"
And then he is mobbed on his way back to Earth. Mari nearly falls off her broom, she is hugging him so hard. Charles Derwent and Ryan Timms use their bats to form an arch for him to fly under, and Laura and Maisie are swooping around him in complicated loops. Rose has thrown her Keeper's gloves to the ground and is hugging every part of him not already claimed by Mari. Scorpius concentrates on flying so he can get them all to the ground.
There things become even more chaotic. Rose kisses him joyfully and dances about, Mari promises she will do his Potions homework forever, Professor Flitwick joins the crush, and the Gryffindors come over to shake the team's hands, "Good job, well flown," is traded back and forth.
Al shakes his head at him in mock dismay. "You are trying to get us disowned. Dad may actually kill James."
Lester Biggs claps Scorpius on the back and pushes a black cashmere scarf into his hands. "Fifteen galleons!" he crows, "and Margaret Tyndall owes me a date. I knew you'd do it!"
One of the younger Slytherins who is always following Lester presses a butterbeer bottle into Scorpius's hands. "Have a drink," he says.
He takes a mouthful and immediately realises that it's not butterbeer. His mouth is itching, he spits it out over his boots and the shoes of the younger Slytherin. Lester laughs, but Scorpius is gasping for breath now, and Lester is horrified and shouting at his housemate: "What was in that?"
"It's just pumpkin juice," comes the sulky reply.
Scorpius can just hear the voices over his own ragged breaths. "He's allergic!" Lester is shouting. "You know that, everyone knows that!"
"I thought he'd just throw up! It was a joke!"
"Scoop?" Al catches him as his knees start to fold. It's strange, his throat seems to be closing in on itself. That can't be good, he reasons.
"Professor! Rosie! Where's Madame Bones?" Al is shouting over everybody, and he's holding him now. Scorpius realises he's on the ground, in Al's lap. That's nice. If only he could breathe.
"Scorpius Malfoy!" a sharply burred voice makes him focus. Professor McGonagall is there and her hands are pulling back his robes from his throat and chest. It's nice and cool.
"Pay attention boy! There's no time! Remember when you turned the rabbits into fish? Remember how we worked on the gills? You need to make yourself gills!"
Which is ridiculous, because gills don't work in air, but he knows the spell, and she's placed his wand in his hand, so he does as she says because it's too hard to argue when your mouth and throat feel like this.
"Good boy. Now hold on." With Al assisting she manoeuvres Scorpius onto his own broom, and kicks off the ground. "Potter secundus, I'll need your help," she says over her shoulder.
Al flies as close as he can, steadying his friend as needed. The Professor aims straight for the lake and lands in the shallow water. Oxygen floods back through Scorpius's veins.
Al is white and scared on the shore, dragging Scorpius's broom out from the wet, but McGonagall is there beside him "Are you all right, Scorpius?" she asks.
He nods, there's still no room in his throat for voice. But he smiles gratefully at her, and at Al.
Al runs in, too, and hugs him, and the professor, and starts to laugh with relief. "Thank you!" he kisses McGonagall's cheek.
She blushes, but is pleased. "I've been saving students from each other since before your parents were born," she demurs. "Ah, here's Susan."
Madame Bones is running towards them, wand at the ready and pack of potions slung across her back. She smiles when she sees Scorpius wave, then laughs when she sees the gills.
"We'll just have to fix you in stages," she says. "Unless you're planning to start a swimming team here, which may upset the giant squid."
