CHAPTER 4

Being invisible, I can always tell when Grandfather's having old friends to visit. Though it's not that hard; no one else arrives past midnight.

The mirror in the wall above the mantle is as old as the house. They say it was etched using the blood of poisoned Muggles. It speaks Italian. The backing has peeled at the corner, and you can see through from behind the tapestry in the hall.

Grandfather sits drinking with The Professor. Their faces look splotchy, and I scratch at the mercury with my fingernail.

Mad as a hatter, I think. At it again.

"Make no doubt that I love my son, but this is a difficult situation at best," Grandfather is saying. Voices carry, and it's not hard to hear.

"Seems straightforward to me," The Professor replies. "Everything that idiot touches turns to gold, you know it as well as I."

"Ah, but everything he's done until now has been above suspicion! Perfect image and reputation, precious little House-Elf Reform Bill…" Grandfather sneers. "Not to mention half the single women in Wizarding Britain spend their evenings concocting love potions and picking out wedding dresses. Your curse on the Prophet will only last so long, and then…"

"The curse will hold, Lucius," The Professor tells him. "As long as a single person on the staff thinks anything malicious of him, they shall remain unable to publish so much as an inference to the Chosen Imbecile or his family beyond basic matters of state. And until the time that such brand of deviance becomes acceptable--"

"Ha!" Grandfather snorts and drains his glass.

"What of Scorpius?" The Professor asks. He pours Grandfather more liquor.

Grandfather tips his head and accepts the glass. "Useless boy. I thought we'd see a change this year, but nothing. Unresponsive as a frightened virgin, with a face just as pretty." The way he says pretty, it sounds like a hex. "The best that can be said is that no one could suspect him of anything cruel. I doubt he's capable of the emotion. Or any emotion. Shocking that he's to carry on the line."

The Professor nods. "Best to marry him soon in the case he should require… assistance."

"I'm getting old, my friend," Grandfather replies. "I feel it in my bones. Though perhaps you are correct, and a step backward would, indeed, be a step ahead. How shall my family survive without me to pull them from the mire into which they've sunk?"

Does he forget who's sunk them? How much has he had to drink?

I scarcely notice The Professor's absence. He's gone for another bottle. Grandfather shouldn't be stepping anywhere just now, backwards or front. I jump at the feel of the hand on my neck.

"Well well, what have we here?" he asks. "A little spy?"

"I'm of average height and weight for my age," I tell him. I don't much like him. He has eyes like pits and doesn't show his teeth when he smiles. You can't trust a man like that.

His hand takes the back of my robes and pulls me into the sitting room.

"A guest?" Grandfather asks. He's had far too much.

The Professor Summons a chair and throws me into it. He pours me a drink. It is clear as water and smells like vomited wine.

"No thank you," I say.

"This conversation is for men," The Professor tells me, "and as you have made yourself part of it, you shall drink like a man."

"Do men allow themselves to be forced in such a way?" I ask.

"Drink it, Scorpius," Grandfather hisses. He composes himself and adds, "It's likely the finest you'll ever taste."

I swallow a mouthful. Clearly not Beaujolais. It tastes like burning.

Grandfather laughs.

The Professor smiles his toothless smile and sips from his own glass. His eyes are hard behind a greasy fall of hair.

I knock back the glass. My eyes water. I don't much like The Professor.

Grandfather laughs as I cough. "Come now, Scorpius, surely you're glad to see The Good Professor. After all, wasn't it your little friend who retrieved him? Brought him out of his lengthy slumber in the Shrieking Shack? Raised the dead?"

He knows the story as well as anyone. The Dark Lord's spell on the Death Eaters to preserve them if they fell. The lies it bred to keep others away. How no one came until James stumbled upon him, and The Professor slept on.

I wonder if they'd still call him a hero if they knew the company he kept.

I say, "No, Grandfather, you forget. It was the other one. The Gryffindor. He smells like turtle soup."

"Well, a Potter is a Potter," The Professor says. "Wallowing in the same dung heap, as it were."

"Al has an owl," I say.

He sips his liquor. Seems to enjoy it. "Is that so?"

"When it brings back something nasty from the Forest," I tell him, "he tosses it out."

Glass poised before his lips. "Does he."

I add, "Straight into the bin."

The Professor says nothing.

"What are you going on about, boy?" Grandfather demands.

I mean to answer, turtle soup, but my head spins. Too much drink too fast. Don't even know what it was. I may be ill.

The Professor refills my glass. The look he gives me could freeze our fountains in July. I don't much like him. "Are you enjoying your holiday, Scorpius?" he asks.

"No," I tell him. I don't drink.

"A pity," He says.

"Not really."

Grandfather has fallen asleep in his chair. They say people look younger when they sleep, but not Grandfather. His head lolls, and I can see up his nostrils.

"Despite your inference that I am… something nasty," The Professor says, "I disagree with your Grandfather's assessment of you. I fear he is being overly harsh."

"I'm sure I don't recall a word he said," I tell him.

"Likely the best course of action," he says. "He's not entirely himself when he drinks."

"Maybe he's never entirely himself," I suggest. "Like saucers. He only brings out as many as he needs to set his teacups on."

A smile touches the man's lips. Wicked. "A nice observation. Percy tells me you have many of these."

My eyes widen. I've forgotten they're friends now. Worked together last year, top secret Auror job. "Did he say anything else about me?"

"He says you are a clever and… handsome young man," The Professor says.

It must be the liquor. My cheeks are warm, and my stomach flips.

"Ah, it seems the apple never falls far from the tree." He laughs. "Not that I suspected otherwise."

I think of trees and apples-- Percy's apples-- and raise my glass. The liquid burns going down, but I don't mind.

The Professor pours me another, and I drink that too.

This one doesn't burn.

The empty glass, thick at the bottom, feels heavy in my hand. I tell The Professor about three eyelids, and growing wings. I'm my own constellation. I would look beautiful with wings. No idea why I say this.

My head spins, and he asks why I'd need them. Don't I have a broom? Surely I do. Don't I fly with my broom?

Not the same, I tell him. Brooms aren't beautiful.

But am I not beautiful already? he wants to know. Surely I am.

"No, dull." Drab and flat and grey behind the makeup. No beauty. I'm dull.

But he knows a way to fly without a broom, or wings, or anything else. Do I want to know? It's beautiful. He'll teach me. Just come here.

How without wings? Angels have wings. How?

Come here, just so. Sit with me, and I'll tell you. It's secret. Come here.

"Where?" The room twirls, and my head is light as Billywig stings. Where?

Here, don't trip over the table, on my lap, just so. Good, relax, just put your hands there, not scary, is it? Just relax.

His neck is warm against my cheek, my feelings are fuzzy. I think my hands shouldn't be there, but he puts them back. Warm there.

He learned from the Dark Lord to fly. Powerful Dark Magic. Do I want power? People bowing, begging to kiss my feet. Power is beautiful, right?

No, I tell him, power is powerful, beauty is beautiful. Teacups are teacups. I'm invisible.

How invisible? Tell.

People don't see me, they see through me, I do as I like. I know everything.

Clever boy, touch your mouth here, he says. Would you like more to drink? I'll get it for you, anything you want. Clever boy. Isn't alcohol lovely?

"Yes, more," I tell him. Voice strange in my ears. I press my lips to his neck and see Percy's apples, shiny red like Al's lips.

Such a clever boy I am, handsome, clever boy.

His laugh vibrates my tongue.

Grandfather is still asleep. Do I remember? Look. Just over there. Asleep.

The Professor's skin is soft between my teeth.

He asks, "Do you know what blackmail is, Scorpius?"

My tongue is thick in my mouth. My mind reels. I swallow. "Where I tell how you get off on little boys," I say.

His laugh is nails on chalkboards. "Clever boy," he says. "I may have use for you yet."

* * * * *

I want to die. Father says I've got to wait until after breakfast.

"But I want to die now," I insist. My eyes are swollen and my throat is dry, and looking at the marmalade makes me want to vomit.

"Let this be a lesson for you," Grandfather says. He hides bloodshot eyes behind his Prophet. "Temperance in all things."

That liquor was acid, it burned my insides. "A concept apparently foreign to Bavarians," I say.

"What was that?" he snaps.

I eat my toast dry.

"Your mother and grandmother will be home soon. Aren't you excited? Think of all the fine presents they'll bring," Father tells me. He looks tired but pretends not to be.

"Why can't Al come over?" I ask.

Grandfather clears his throat.

Father sighs. "It's Christmas, Scorpius, we spend this time with our families. Before you know it, you'll be back at school, and you'll see him every day. Why don't you write your friend a letter?"

"What good will that do?" I ask. My stomach hurts something awful. "He still won't be here."

"Well, with the whole family home, you won't have time to miss him," Father assures. "In fact, when you open up what's under the tree, I'm sure you'll forget all about him. Your mother's mentioned a few very rare books that you've been wanting--"

"I don't care. I've eaten. May I go now?" I cut across him. I can taste the liquor in my mouth.

Father stares. "What has gotten into you? I swear I've never seen you act this way in my life!"

"You haven't been watching," I say. And promptly vomit my toast.

Father comes in with a potion and lays his hand on my forehead. I drink, and he pulls his fingers through what's left of his hair.

"This isn't easy for any of us, Scorpius," he says. "I just wish you wouldn't talk about it in front of your grandfather. He only wants what's best for this family, but sometimes I think he doesn't know what that is. You're not like the rest of us. You know that, right?"

"Is adultery supposed to be easy?" I ask.

He lies down beside me. Heavy weight on the bed. "You know how things happened between your mother and I, Scorpius. Everything was a mess after the War, and there was no way to... Sometimes arranged marriages work out, and… sometimes they don't."

"She told me she was in love with you. She was glad it got arranged," I tell him. Mummy used to tell me stories about the wedding. Mounds of flowers and Father so handsome. Dancing like a fairy-tale. Her ring big as a Snitch.

He sighs. "She was just out of Hogwarts, she didn't know what she felt. She was too young, and Grandfather spent a lot of money. And then you came along less than a year later, and…"

"Were you happy?" I ask.

He smiles like rain on a picnic. "I tried to be. I swear to you I tried my hardest, darling. But your mother, she's happy travelling with your grandmother, Scorpius, seeing the world. And I don't want to take that away from her."

"Maybe you already have," I say. "And you just don't know yet."

His teeth press into his bottom lip.

When you're a child, you think your parents can move mountains. Part seas. They never make mistakes, and they love you more than anything. When you get older, you realize they only wish they did.

"Do you love your mother, Scorpius?" he asks.

"Shouldn't I?" I say.

He runs a thumb across my cheek. Smooth and cool. "What if you couldn't see her again? What if she left and never came back? If we divorced, she might not. Divorces aren't friendly, you know. You remember what your friend went through. Though his mother is off her nut of course, raving lunatic if I ever met one, wouldn't know a decent man if she wrote a feature length article on him--"

"She dyes he hair," I say.

"Yes yes, of course she does. Nasty little piece of--"

"Is it about money?" I ask.

"Everything is about money, Scorpius, you know that," he waves it away. "But leave money for Grandfather to deal with. That's what he's best at. I'm talking about you. Would it be alright with you to lose her, your Mummy?"

"I'm sure she'll still send cosmetics," I tell him.

He sighs. "Sometimes I think you were born without feelings. Does anything ever faze you?"

I ask, "Father, have you ever blackmailed someone?"

His voice is sharp. "Why? Who's saying I have?"

"No one, Father," I tell him. "I knew you would never."

Slytherins have such uneven courage.

Mummy and Grandmother arrive when I've just awoken. I feel ashamed. I haven't even applied mascara.

Grandmother kisses my forehead, her body straight and proper. She stands next to Grandfather. He doesn't look at her. Mummy dotes enough that someone who doesn't know might think she's glad to be home.

"Oh, come here, darling, I have the most lovely new shade, absolutely the rage in southern Spain, such a glamorous child, you'll look utterly smashing…"

Her fingers are warm under my chin as she glides the powder onto my lids.

"So grown up, Mummy's little baby, such a sweetheart…"

I know she loves me. I know she's sad. I can almost forgive how she pretends I'm a girl.

Though I do look smashing.

That night, Father goes to her room. The moon shines bright off the snow outside her window. I'm invisible in the shadow of the door.

"I'm glad to see you're well," Father says.

"Why would I not be?" Mummy asks.

"That wasn't what I was implying," he says. "I do still care about your wellbeing. I always will."

"Sweet of you, Draco," she tells him. "But I don't recall inviting you into my bedroom."

"I'm still your husband," he tells her. "I do care. I don't want to hurt you."

"So you've mentioned," she says.

A moment of silence.

"Astoria--"

"I know what's going on. It's not my concern. I don't want to know about her," she tells him.

"Astoria, it's not what you--"

"I don't want to know. You may still care, Draco, but I don't. I haven't for years. She's not my concern."

"You misunderstand me," Father says.

"And you, me. Do as you like with whomever you like, but keep it to yourself. I won't go through the shame of divorce and have my life ripped from me to satisfy your libidinous whims," Mummy tells him.

He sighs. "I tried, Astoria. I did. With all my heart, I swear to you. I tried to love you."

The silence stretches.

"So you've mentioned," she whispers.

Father doesn't see me as he leaves, but I see him. Hand on his forehead, he slouches back to his room. Mummy hums Adeste Fideles as she readies for sleep.

Happy Christmas, everyone.

TBC

Note: For the sake of clarification (in case I've sent anyone into a panic), Snape is NOT a paedophile. He is a teacher.