Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter. I don't. And is this really necessary on every damn chapter?

Lily had been right in that they weren't caught for their Portable Swamp. It was discovered when the first wave of students attempted to enter the Great Hall. There was about thirty of them, and most of them were very similar in that they were the good students, the teacher's pets, and the ones who just showed up early for everything rather than risking being late. In other words, the people who would have the best reaction to the swamp. It wouldn't have been as fun for Lily and Scorpius if it had been people like them, the pranksters, who had seen it first. People raving about 'how awesome is this' wasn't the reaction they really wanted to see. They hid in the Entrance Hall under the Invisibility Cloak, while Rose joined the crowd of the early-to-dinner students.

"What the hell is that?" a seventh year Hufflepuff said loudly.

"Gross!"

"Ew, what is that?"

"Who would do such a thing?" That last one was Rose, and both Lily and Scorpius had to hurriedly stifle laughs. Luckily for them, they went unnoticed due to the commotion.

People had their theories. Through the month of December, which was a boring month for the trio, they amused themselves by listing the craziest theories that they had heard. They had nothing else to do - Lily had run through most of the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products that she had brought, and there was no new news on Teddy Lupin - and this was their way to stop the boredom. Although many students did indeed believe that Lily, Scorpius, and Rose had been behind it, the lack of proof made some people doubtful. Luna Scamander's twin sons, Lorcan and Lysander, had the wildest theories of everyone.

"Guess what?" Lily said, sliding into a seat next to Scorpius. It was the day before they were going to leave for Christmas holidays at Scorpius' home. Lily refused to think of it as Malfoy Manor. Way too imposing. "Lysander Scamander believes that the Portable Swamp was giant bogies, placed there by Minister Shacklebolt and Professor Clearwater, who are apparently co-conspirators in something known as the Asaldoos Corporation. I'm curious where he gets these things."

"His mother."

"Be nice. I love Aunt Luna."

"You have to admit she's a bit of a nutter," Scorpius said, plucking the Daily Prophet from the delivery owl and dropping a couple Knuts in its ankle pouch. "She seems pleasant enough, but she's certainly a nutter."

"That's my newspaper, first of all." Lily snatched it out of his grasp. "Second - Merlin!"

"What about him?"

"Scorpius Malfoy, can you take a single thing seriously?" Lily shoved the newspaper in his face. The headline read HARRY POTTER ATTACKED. "That is my father. Who was apparently attacked! Damn it, what now!" She stuck her nose in the article for about a half a second before glancing up at Scorpius again. "Go get Rose, please. She needs to hear about this."

Lily immersed herself in reading. The article was quite long - it seemed as if any article regarding Harry Potter was entitled to be twice the length of a normal, non-Potter one. She had to weed through lists of her father's achievements both in the Second Wizarding War and in the Auror division before finally reaching the important part - his attack. Apparently he had been attacked while investigating reports of a minor disturbance in Diagon Alley. The attacker was reported to be blond and male by witnesses, but nobody had gotten close enough to successfully identify him. Harry Potter was in St. Mungo's, recovering. Lily let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding as she read the final sentence, something about 'he will be fine and will be released within four days'.

Rose and Scorpius hurried over. "What happened?" Rose said instantly. "Scorpius just came running over and said that something's happened and you're reading the newspaper." Lily handed over the article. "Oh Merlin!" The sixth year scanned it quickly, apparently better at picking out the important bits. Maybe all that studying. "What are we going to do? I think maybe we should go home, our parents might want us there instead -" Her sentence was interrupted by Lily's owl, Artemis, flying in and dropping a letter right into the fourth-year Slytherin's lap.

"It's from Mum," Lily said. She tore open the envelope and rapidly skimmed the contents of the letter. "She says to go ahead and have fun at our friends' houses, and that goes for both of us, Rose. I guess she doesn't want the reporters to be all over us, too. You know they would be. We'll have a little more safety at Scorpius' house than our own. Not that either Mum or Aunt Hermione knows exactly where we're going, but still, it does make sense. We should visit my dad in hospital, though. If he's in St. Mungo's, it must be somewhat serious."

"I wonder if this has anything to do with the Teddy thing," Scorpius said. "It doesn't really sound like him, attacking one of the Battle survivors directly rather than one of their children. And attacking Harry Potter, a trained Auror..."

"It makes sense," Rose said quickly. "All of the Battle of Hogwarts survivors depend on Uncle Harry. He's a hero to them. He's the one who defeated Voldemort. If someone defeated him, the Wizarding world would be devastated. Not as much as individuals would be for their own children, yes, but every survivor knows Uncle Harry. It would affect all of them. He might have done this since he can't enter Hogwarts. We said he would be re-thinking his plan - well, we have to start re-thinking what we know, too. He's not going to be the same that he was here. He'll have a different plan."

"This is why you are a Ravenclaw," Lily muttered, secretly impressed. In a more audible tone she said, "You are pretty right. And then if we go visit Dad, then perhaps we can ask him a couple questions. We can't do too much since we're in school, but at least if we have a general idea of what this man looks like, well, if we see him anywhere we can do something about it."

"All right," Scorpius said. "We'll visit him...how about Christmas Day? My parents are no doubt going to one of their elite pureblood events, and, no offense, but I don't think that you'd be allowed to go." He rolled his eyes at Lily, who had swatted him. "It's good for us. We can sneak off to St. Mungo's - they would never know that we left the house if we use Floo. We'd get to St. Mungo's, see your dad, and come back within an hour or so. Since my parents will be away for several hours, we'll have time to spare. It's practically foolproof, and certainly much better than trying to convince my dad to go see his school nemesis."

"It's settled, then," Lily said.

Thanks for reading! Please review.

-Jess