Chapter Three

are you lost without me too?

.

"He was with me when it happened."

The words are out before I can even think about them. If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have said anything, but now it's too late.

Grayson's gaze grows even more fiery, and I hear Albus mutter, "What?"

Uncle Harry grabs my arm and pulls me around to face him. "Rose, are you sure?"

"Am I sure I was with him?" I ask, not understanding him. "Yes?"

"No, are you sure?"

And then I realise what he's really asking. "I'm not lying," I say, yanking my arm out of his hand and turning to see Grayson looking at me like that's exactly what she thinks I'm doing.

She says, "A false alibi is-"

"It's true, so it doesn't matter."

"Then why not say anything sooner?"

"Because he asked me not to."

I cringe as soon as the words are out, saying something else I'm not supposed to tell anyone. Albus asked me once why I would never even consider becoming an Auror and the number one reason was this: keeping a secret is not a capability of mine.

Grayson pinches the bridge of her nose and shakes her head. "Why would he ask you to hide his alibi?"

"I don't know."

Her eyes flash with annoyance. "Are you sure you don't know this time? Because when we asked if you knew anything about Scorpius Malfoy's involvement with your cousin's murder, you said no."

"I said, I wasn't sure, actually," I say, averting my eyes and taking a step back just in case Grayson really loses her composure. "No one asked for any particulars."

Grayson's lips purse so tight they disappeared before her eyes shoot over my shoulder to glare at my uncle. "Is your entire family this skilled at finding loopholes and evading rules?"

"Technically we're only related through marriage," Uncle Harry says with a smirk.

"Not comforting," Grayson mutters.

"I'm not saying anything else out here," I interrupt, glancing towards the interrogation room, needing to do anything I can to get back inside. Grayson turns her gaze back towards me, not looking very willing to do what I want. "I'll tell you everything I know, but I'm only saying it in there."

Silence falls as Grayson and I glare at each other, both of us as stubborn as the other, but Uncle Harry breaks our stand-off by stepping between us. "I think it's as good an idea as any."

"And if she says something that takes us by surprise?" Grayson argues. "That we don't already know? We need to be prepared, to look for his reactions."

"And hear the same story twice? Like you said, this is a high-profile case of the murder of the daughter of a well-respected Ministry Head. I would think a high-standing official like yourself would appreciate efficiency."

Grayson barely quirks an eyebrow.

"Besides, Rose has made more progress than any of us have," he added.

"He's said one word."

"Two actually," Albus corrects.

Grayson gives both of the Potter men an exasperated look. Uncle Harry shrugs. "That one you can blame on me."

Before she can continue her argument, there's a knock on the door. "Excuse me?" says a short man with a youthful face that makes him look like he's still attending Hogwarts. His body is half hidden behind the open door as if he were hiding, and his high voice ends each sentence like a question. "I have a message for Lori Grayson from the Arbiter?"

"I hope you bring good news," she says, pushing past everyone in the room to get to the door. "This interrogation has been going to the hippogriffs."

The messenger takes a step out from behind the door. "You have permission to use a single dose of Veritaserum?"

~OoOoO~

My entire world shifted as soon as we left King's Cross Station at the end of the year. Scorpius greeted my parents before he kissed my cheek and made his way towards his own parents. That was when the first odd thing happened; I waved, and while Mrs Malfoy gave a polite wave back, Mr Malfoy gave me a dark look.

I tried not to let it bother me as Albus, Lily, Hugo, and I squeezed into the backseat of my family's car, the extension charm wearing off. Both my Uncle Harry and Auntie Ginny were stuck in their respective offices, so Albus and Lily stayed with us until it was time to go to the Burrow for one of Grandma Weasley's family dinners to celebrate Roxanne and Lucy's graduation. And that's when the six of us found out what had been happening while we were at Hogwarts.

"I accepted a job in Romania," Dominique told Albus and I as we mingled in the back garden.

"Really?" I asked, nearly choking on pumpkin juice. "What are you doing?"

"There's a village just a few cities over from Uncle Charlie's reserve that only allows werewolves. I'll be studying them for a while, sending back anything of substance to the Ministry. Maybe talk to them and see if any would be interested in helping to trial some new potions. Oh, and I'll be leaving tomorrow."

I couldn't believe it. Dominique had been the cousin I looked up to most for as long as I could remember, and now she was moving to Romania? Indefinitely? What if she never came back? She and Uncle Charlie were similar enough that it wouldn't surprise any of us if she disappeared to Romania just like him.

By June, I realised that not having Dominique in England was only weird every time I wanted to send her a letter or drop by the flat she had shared with Molly, which turned out to not be as often as I thought it was. I did miss her dropping by our house, though. She loved our winged horses enough to stop in and help clean the stables every couple of mornings. Now that I had magic to help make the chores a breeze, I only missed her when the mucking got lonely.

And lately, it was extremely lonely. Hugo had snagged himself a girlfriend right at the end of the year, so whenever he wasn't drawing or painting in his room, he was off to see her. And Albus was just as useless after having finally asked Cassie McLaggen out. He spent the second half of sixth year following her around like a puppy, and I suspected he was spending his summer doing the same. And Lily only ever came around anymore to disappear to our neighbours, the Brays. They were Muggles except for their daughter, Tracey, who was in Lily's year at Hogwarts. It didn't help that Tracey also had a fit older brother who played lacrosse on his school's varsity team.

Just as I finished spreading around the hay and sawdust in the last stall, I heard a knock on the door and the clunk of thick heels on the dirt corridor. "Molly," I said, seeing my cousin walk in, "what're you doing here?"

"Dominique gave me explicit instructions to come help you here every once in awhile, and since I've been avoiding it for so long, I was bored enough today to grace you with my presence." She gave a little bow, brushing her multi-ringed fingers against a stall door, then immediately rubbed it against her leather bound legs as if she'd touched a cobweb. "But really, this is not my kind of place."

I laughed, closing the last stall's door. "Well, you've missed most of the fun. All that's left is putting out the feed."

"That doesn't sound too painfully disgusting," Molly said, following me back to the feed room.

I filled bucket after bucket, double checking their contents against Mum's lists, then handed them to Molly and told her which stall to hang them in. The whole process took less than twenty minutes, and the two of us barely spoke at all, a fact I would have noticed if my thoughts hadn't been so scattered that day.

Unfortunately, Molly did notice. "So what's wrong, Rosie?" she asked as we walked out of the stable and into the paddock where most of the horses were flying about and stretching their wings, avoiding the charms that kept them contained. "I think this silence is a record for you."

I ignored the question as I climbed up on the fence to sit on the top, but Molly wouldn't stop staring at me expectantly. I sighed. "Just stupid boy trouble," I admitted, kicking the heel of my boot against the wood. "It's probably nothing. Nothing you would know about anyways."

"Okay, okay, I've done my fair share of dating boys in my time." She smirked and tucked a stray curl behind her ear, the other side of her head shaved a clean red. "Can I take a guess that this boy trouble has to do with… Scorpius Malfoy?"

"I guess it's not that hard to figure out," I muttered, already trying to think of a way to redirect the conversation.

"So what's the trouble?" Molly pressed.

I groaned, running a hand through my hair and completely ruining the loose plait I had forced it into. I fiddled with the strands to regain my hair tie as I said, "I just haven't heard from him in a while. And it's weird not seeing him all the time. Last summer we spent nearly every day together."

"Ah, the honeymoon phase," Molly said, a lazy smile on her face. "That always wears off. But you shouldn't worry about it. Just a new part of the relationship you eventually get used to."

I could tell she had more to say and stayed quiet until she started up again. "I mean, look at Sophie and me. With my work schedule and her game schedule, the most I see of her is maybe passing each other in the flat and saying 'hello.' But what can you do when you get two people already married to their careers together?" She shrugged. "But if you want to see him, Rosie, just make a plan. He'll show up."

I nodded and thanked her for the advice, suggesting we go for a flight on the horses to avoid discussing the topic any further. Molly was really trying, and in the circumstance, she thought I was in, it would have been good advice. But things were so much worse off than she knew, so much so that even flying bareback around the paddock couldn't get my mind off of it.

It was nearly July and I still hadn't gotten a letter back from Scorpius. I had sent my barn owl, Collette, off with my letter nearly a month ago, and she had returned empty handed. I had expected to see Hephaestus at my window soon after that, but Scorpius's large black owl never showed up.

As I sat behind the register at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes the next day on a slow Sunday in Diagon Alley, I thought about showing up at Malfoy Manor to try and hunt Scorpius down, but just as I was working up the nerve, Albus appeared at my elbow. I jumped in surprise, not having heard him approach, and he put a hand on my shoulder. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine, I was just thinking," I said, grabbing the stack of fliers in front of me and shuffling them into a straight pile. "It's a slow day. I don't think both of us need to be here."

"It'll make closing go faster," he said, pulling up the second stool to sit beside me. We fell into a silence as I patted the perfectly straightened papers and turned back to the loose string in my robes.

"So listen," Albus said, and I cringed. I knew those words meant he wanted to have a serious chat, which was not something I wanted. "I think I already know the answer to this, but I haven't heard from Scorpius all summer. Have you?"

I dropped the thread and crossed my arms tightly across my middle. I had been worrying over the lack of correspondence between me and Scorpius, but I had also thought that the only way it would be brought up in conversation would be if Mum asked how he was doing or if Dad asked if he would be dropping by the shop anytime soon. Albus was the last person I thought would ask, but if he hadn't heard anything either, maybe this wasn't just a bump in our relationship. Maybe something was really wrong.

"No," I said, scared to admit it now that my thoughts were spiralling down towards that conclusion that everything was not all right. "I haven't heard from him since we left King's Cross."

Albus took a silent moment to get over his surprise, then said, "Should we be worried?"

"I don't know."

We made quick plans to investigate this as much as we could. Neither of us wanted to go alone, so we waited until the next day to travel down Diagon Alley and peek into Twilfitt and Tattings. On rare occasions, Mrs Malfoy would be there to unveil a new design. We had both overheard the gossip of customers at the store and knew that had been the case a week ago, but we had no guarantee that she would still be there.

Luck was on our side, though. Through the window, I could see Mrs Malfoy instructing her mannequin on how to walk properly in the layers and ruffles of the dress. The rest of the store looked the same as last year with clusters of robes circling daises where headless mannequins modelled. All along the right wall were simple black robes waiting for Hogwarts students who were organised enough to start their shopping early.

We watched Mrs Malfoy for a few minutes before ducking beneath the window sill again. "She doesn't look any different than normal," Albus whispered.

"A bit tired."

"Not as tired as she would be if her only son were missing."

I wanted to argue but couldn't find anything to counter it. How could I accept that Scorpius was fine and simply avoiding us?

"What if I talk to her?" I suggested, eyeing the door to the robe shop.

"What do you think she'll say? Even if Scorpius doesn't want to see us, she's too polite to say it."

"I have to try," I said before Albus could stop me, standing up and brushing myself off as I approached the gleaming gold door of Twilfitt and Tattings. As I opened the door, a chorus of chiming bells echoed throughout the shop.

"Hello, hello," Mrs Malfoy greeted without removing her scrutinising gaze from her mannequin, "and welcome to- Oh, Rose," she said, finally looking over. "How good to see you." She waved away her mannequin and greeted me with a quick formal hug and kiss on the cheek. "I have missed seeing you around the manor, love."

"Yes…," I said, wary of the happy greeting. It almost seemed like Mrs Malfoy had no idea that things had changed between Scorpius and I. Maybe it was some etiquette thing I didn't know about.

"I insist that you must stop in for tea soon. I have tried telling Scorpius, but he seems to prefer disappearing from home to visit you without even asking permission. Not that I can complain, with both of you being of age now, but I would appreciate knowing when he will be gone." Mrs Malfoy talked as she walked through the store and wordlessly pointed out robes she thought would fit me, and I followed clumsily as I tried comprehending her words. Scorpius disappearing, and she thought he was seeing me? None of it made any sense at all.

"Anyways, dear, were you looking to see anything in particular?" she asked when we reached the register desk. "A special occasion coming up?"

"Oh, no, I didn't actually come to buy anything," I said, scrounging up an excuse as quick as I could to avoid offending her. "I came to see you actually. I, um, wore those robes you designed for me a while ago and I just wanted to say how perfect they are."

"Ah, so you finally had an event to wear them to?"

"Not exactly." I cursed myself, wishing I could learn from James how to charmingly lie out of a tough spot. "But I did put them on again, curious if they even still fit, and they looked marvellous." Which was true. After Roxie and Lucy's graduation dinner, I had had enough of Teddy's Firewhiskey that a trip through the Floo system sent me straight to the toilet. After that, I rode out what remained of my buzz in my room and thought it was a good idea to put the fancy emerald robes on. I didn't mention that I also slept in them that night.

"Well, I am always glad to hear when people are happy with their robes," Mrs Malfoy said, seeming not quite sure how to respond to me, a reaction I was used to from her. "And you will find a place to where them soon enough, I'm sure."

"I hope so," I said with a smile, taking a few steps back to the door. "But I can't stay to chat long. I'm meeting Albus at the… uh, family shop."

"Oh, Albus, that must be who Scorpius rushed off to see this morning. Tell them both to have a pleasant day out."

"Mmhumph," I said as I hurried out the door, hoping it sounded like a semi-affirmative noise.

As soon as the door closed, Albus stood up from where he sat against the wall of the shop, but I put a hand up to stop him from walking towards me. I put on a smile again and waved at Mrs Malfoy as I passed the window, and she waved back with a confused smile. Once I was out of her sight, I ran to Albus, grabbed his hand, and pulled him in the direction of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

"What's going on?" he asked, tripping over the uneven cobblestone as I dragged him along.

"I don't know."

I filled him in on the strange encounter as we walked, but he couldn't offer any better explanations than I could come up with on my own. We came up with nothing that sounded at all conceivable.

Albus suggested we convince his mum to invite us to Malfoy Manor and ambush Scorpius when he arrived, but I shot the plan down. With my lack of stealth, we would never be able to pull it off, and I refused to let Albus go in alone. Besides, I wanted to trust Scorpius, hoped that there was a benevolent explanation that would show up in a letter any day now. We just had to be patient.

And that anxious patience carried us all the way through summer.

Before we knew it, it was the 30th of August, and we were packing for our last year at Hogwarts. Albus would have cracked and stormed Malfoy Manor if Cassie McLaggen hadn't had his ear all summer, and I managed to keep the lack of correspondence a secret from the rest of the family. Both my parents knew something was wrong, but I suspected they kept each other from asking about it. The hope I had been riding on all summer faded, but I still held on to the thought that Scorpius would find me at the station or on the train and explain everything.

So there we were on the 1st of September, kissing our parents goodbye and loading onto the train, with no sign of Scorpius. Albus left to secure us a cabin while I headed towards the back of the train, wanting to get to the prefect carriage early and look over the patrol schedules one more time before handing them out. I'd dedicated the end of the summer to my Head Girl duties in order to distract myself. My male counterpart, a Gryffindor named Matthew Thomas that Albus was good friends with, knew that I had taken on train patrol schedules but not the corridor patrol schedules for the next three months. He was more than happy to not have to worry about them, though. I went over them with him, and he made me promise to let him do the schedules for December through March. Then we took over the responsibility of greeting all the prefects as they came in, especially the new fifth years.

Matty's punctuality had us starting the meeting at exactly 11:15, even though a few students were still missing. A pair of sixth years rushed inside a minute later, apologising too much to have a valid excuse for being late, and the seventh year Hufflepuff prefect, Travis Cadwallader, came in seven minutes after that with a story about a carriage full of enchanted and enlarged chocolate frogs.

Each interruption had my heart in my throat, but as the meeting wound down, Scorpius was still missing. I handed off the pile of schedules for everyone to take, letting Matty have the final words as I sunk behind him and tried to keep the possibility of Scorpius not coming back to Hogwarts out of my mind. Albus tried to catch my eye, but I avoided it, keeping my gaze straight to the floor.

Then the carriage door slid open, and Scorpius slipped in behind the crowd. My eyes shot straight to him even as he kept his own on the schedule that someone passed back to him.

It had only been three months since I last saw him, but Scorpius had changed so much. His cheeks looked hollow, making his face even sharper than it usually was. His hair was longer and unkempt, obviously not having been trimmed all summer nor brushed that morning. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, contrasting against his skin that had, if possible, gotten paler. His robes hung off him in an unfamiliar way, which took me a moment to realise his entire body had changed along with his face. Scorpius had always been the tall, slender type, but now he looked… gaunt.

Matty finished up the meeting with a pointed reminder that tardiness and absences would not be tolerated, then dismissed them.

"Scorpius," I called as I stepped forward. Through the moving bodies, I thought I saw a flash of grey eyes before Scorpius disappeared into the crowd and flowed out into the corridor.

No one else seemed to notice my empty call except for Matty, who stood next to me, and Albus, who stayed behind. Matty cleared his throat before saying, "So I'll see you both at dinner."

"Of course, mate," Albus said, giving Matty a pat on the shoulder before the other boy nodded and left the carriage.

Albus glanced at me. "Rose?"

"Yeah?" I said, hearing the thickness in my voice and only then realised how stuffy my nose was and how wet my cheeks were. I rubbed at them as I turned toward the window. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Nothing is wrong with you. I don't know what the hell Scorpius is up to, but I'm cursing him the next time I see him."

"Don't worry about it. Next time I see him I'll-" My voice broke, but I fought through the flow of tears. "Chuck him out the…the window and… stick him to the… the bloody train tracks."

Albus put an arm around my shoulders just in time. I buried my head into his chest, not trying to fight off the fit of emotions anymore. All the worries that Scorpius was dead or Imperiused or simply didn't love me anymore poured out into the wet spot that I left on Albus's shoulder.

My tears didn't last long. A few minutes later, I was wiping my eyes on the handkerchief Albus handed me while he cleaned off the front of his robes. In the middle of my apologising, the carriage door squeaked open again.

"There you are, Alby, we've been waiting forever. Oh! Rose, are you okay?" Cassie ran into the carriage and grabbed me into a hug before I could say anything. She was the only person in our year who was shorter than me, and it always felt oddly comforting to hug her close so that her curly brunette hair tickled my face.

"Okay, okay," she said, grasping my shoulders and giving them a squeeze. "Alby knows what carriage we're in. Find us whenever you're ready." She gave me a comforting smile before hopping over to Albus for a quick hug and kiss, then disappeared as quick as she had come.

"Alby?" I teased when the door clicked shut.

Albus gave me a threatening look. "Only she gets to call me that."

"Alright, alright," I said, hands up in mock surrender. "Guess we better go before another search party is sent."

"You sure you're okay?"

"Sure," I said with a shrug. "I mean, we were only together nearly two years." Something caught in my chest, and I had to take a deep breath before I could go on. "I managed four years of Hogwarts without him, I think I can handle one more."

"Okay," Albus said, a bit hesitant to open the carriage door but not protesting anymore. "And I mean it by the way. He's in for the worst Bat-Bogey Hex Hogwarts has ever seen."

"Whatever you say, Alby."

~OoOoO~

Grayson holds out her hand for the clear phial. "Thank Merlin the Arbiter is seeing sense today. No one else seems to be."

"Who's the Arbiter?" I ask Uncle Harry as the messenger explains in his annoyingly questioning tone that he must administer the dose.

"He is the link between the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Department of Mysteries," Uncle Harry explains over Grayson's grumblings. "He decides when the use of powerful magic, like Veritaserum, is appropriate. It's much too tempting to use such power often and make our jobs easier."

"But there are times when it's necessary," Grayson says, conjuring two glasses and filling them with water from her wand. She motions to the messenger, who steps forward, lifts the phial over one of the glasses and lets three drops disappear into the water. "There you are, Bones," Grayson says, lifting the two glasses towards the female Auror.

"What? No!" I step forward and nearly grab Grayson's elbow before I think better of it. She gives me a deadly sideways look. "I'm the one who's supposed to be talking to him."

"And are you trained to question criminals?" Grayson asks. "Do you have any experience at all with Veritaserum? Do you know how specific and careful one must be in order for it to work properly?"

I pause, not sure what I need to say to convince Grayson to let me back into that room. I glance at Auror Bones and she gives me an encouraging nod. "I've read enough about it to know how it works," I say, thinking through each word in order to keep myself from another outburst. "And I know him better than anyone here. I know what he'll respond to. And like Uncle Harry said, I've made more progress than anyone else."

Grayson purses her lips as if considering it, then shakes her head. "That is not a risk I am willing to take." Her voice is softer for a moment but hardens again as she continues. "Not to mention that now you've given him an alibi, all of our evidence against him is useless. We can no longer keep him here as a suspect."

"Technically, we should release him now," Uncle Harry says.

"Aren't you one for bending rules, Potter?" Grayson snaps at him before turning back to me. "We can keep him for one more hours, at most, without finding ourselves in trouble for injustice. So forgive me for not trusting a Creature Caretaker with our one chance to discover more about the conspiracy he's involved in."

"Conspiracy?" I ask, more shocked that the Aurors know some malevolent movement is happening than this being a surprise to me.

"There have been whispers, and Scorpius Malfoy is part of them whether you want to believe that or not. It was his connection to it that got us this." She lifted the glass with Veritaserum, nearly sloshing out the water. "This is our one guaranteed opportunity to find out critical information that could save many lives, and I will not let it be wasted." Her glare lingers on me for another moment before she turns to Auror Bones and stretches out the glasses of water towards her.

Auror Bones glances away from Grayson to Uncle Harry then down to me. "I think the girl should do it," she says.

The glasses in Grayson's hands shake. "I didn't ask your opinion. I am telling you to do your job."

"And the oath I swore after taking this job prevents me from doing anything that would obstruct the capture of Dark Wizards," Auror Bones replies cooly. "The girl is right. She has a better chance than I of getting a straight answer out of the Malfoy boy." Grayson opens her mouth to argue, but Auror Bones continues to talk over her. "Hank already tried Legilimency." She nods towards Auror Tyson who ducks his gaze in shame. "That boy was obviously trained in Occlumency which will help him resist the Veritaserum. We don't have enough information about the conspirators to ask specific enough questions yet. I think the girl knows more than she thinks she does." She flashes me a praising look. "She could brief us, which would waste time, or we let her do what you brought her here to do."

Grayson is still, her stony gaze still glaring at Auror Bones. Then her shoulders straighten, and she turns towards me. "Apparently, I'm out of options," she says bitterly, handing me the glasses. "I asked you here as a last resort, remember that. You don't have the luxury of messing this up."

My hands shake as I take the glasses, the collective stares of everyone in the room pressing down on me. "I'll try not to do anything stupid."

"Don't do anything to tip him off," Grayson says, obviously not amused by my comment. "Veritaserum works best when the person doesn't know they are being influenced by it, so don't act like anything has changed. You are to continue talking as planned and wait for him to drink. Try to make the questions come off as part of the conversation, and don't start shooting them at him right after he drinks."

"What if he doesn't drink it?" I ask, almost hoping that will be the case. As much as I want answers for both myself and the Aurors, with all of these last minute instructions, my fear of failing outweighs those wants.

"He's refused each time we ask if he wants water," Auror Bones says, her voice comforting. "He may not trust us, but if it's you offering, he might actually take it." Her expression reminds me of my parents, knowing that I am facing a challenge and confident I will overcome it.

I take a deep breath, holding the glasses more securely and forcing the tremors from my hands. "Okay," I say. "I can do this."


Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed this chapter. After all of the happiness and fluff of chapter two, there's finally some trouble in paradise. As always, a big thank you to my betas and everyone who has left a review or is following this story. Let me know what you think and I'll have the next chapter out for you as soon as I can!