Since I put up last chapter during the alert-system fail, (Another one..) I'm going to bet some of you didn't read Hagrid's chapter. It's plot-important, you should.

And now a Scorpius interlude, since people were wondering about him.


Aunty had forbidden them from using magic.

Well, not all and out banned it. She had prohibited them from saying spells. The problem was that very few students in the school knew non-verbal magic, being something that wasn't even touched upon until sixth year, but they did have the one advantage that most of those students were snakes anyway.

Students with still working watches who bothered to check them said it was the eighth day underground. Scorpius didn't particularly care. Time had already blurred in front of his eyes.

"That's the third one today," Al said, looking down at a note Splash had delivered. The pregnant white ferret heaved herself up onto Scorpius's lap, stretching out to display the splash of grey on her chest that named her.

"Third one of what, mister Potter?"

Aunty stood over them. Al's eyes scanned the note, which he then crumpled and tossed onto a nook where green fire had been relit. "Love note, Aunty. Trap us underground and suddenly all the snakes are in breeding season."

A well-done lie, and a rather sharp critique of behavior around the dungeons. Scorpius almost smirked as he heard the rustle of fabric, a couple splitting apart in embarrassment. Then, of course, he was reminded that he could have been one of those couples. Why couldn't Lily have been a Slytherin? She would have been an amazing snake, and they could be snogging the daylight out of each other right now, waiting for their doom...

"Don't lie to Aunty, Albus. I don't like it." Her tone was sad, silky, veiling a threatening tone. Scorpius's cheekbone throbbed just hearing it, he wasn't sure what was up with it, but it hadn't really stopped hurting this entire week. "I know you've been misbehaving this entire week. You don't want to go on time out."

Scorpius glanced at Albus and his sickened face. Time out was where one sat in the small room on the side where their Head of House sat an insane gibbering mess and tried to talk to you and managed to give you nightmares. No one was sure what Aunty and Uncle had done to him, but Miles Bletchley was broken.

"Oh, don't be stubborn! All you have to do is admit you broke Aunty's rule! Oh, I'll be so upset, but I'll get over it!"

Al rolled his eyes. "Nope."

Scorpius winced as a high heel kicked him in the chest. As he doubled over, it came up again.

Scorpius closed his eyes tightly as the shoe came away red. Al let out a strangled cry of pain.

"Oh, come on, sis! Don't do that, his family will want him back whole!" Uncle placed a hand on her arm. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and then began to do it up in a bun again.

"Oh, Uncle," she said in a condescending voice. "Don't you know? They didn't tell the Potters! Oh, poor little Albus, he's never going home!" Aunty lowered her hands and patted Al on the head, trying to gently flatten the unruly black hair, a sickening gesture after her harshness a bare second earlier. She tipped away.

Al lifted his head to Scorpius. "How bad is it?" he asked in a rough, quiet voice. Scorpius stared. The heel had missed his cheek. The toe had hit his forehead, the skin was split there. The heel itself had collided with his eye, which was now leaking blood from the green iris.

"...It's bad. Er... Your brother ever tell you any healing spells? Y-You're going to need-'Scuse me." He dashed across the common room to the little bathrooms, opened the door and puked on the tiles. He heard Al say, "That bad?" a first year scream and someone groan. He panted for air and left the door open, walking back across the room and resuming his seat to say, "Yeah," in a quiet voice. He refused to look up at him and the blood.

There went the quiet tipping of heels, Aunty passing and waving her wand as she passed the boys bathroom, the door to the Time Out room opening with a creak and shutting with a groan.

Immediately, Polaris, bless that seventh-year, bounded right over. "Hold still, Al." She gripped his chin and wiped the blood away with her sleeve, ran her wandtip over the eye, and the flow slowly began to stop. "It's slow-acting, try not to touch your eye too much, should have sight back by tomorrow. Scorpius, while we have time." She touched his cheek and the throbbing lessened. "Hm. Must have broken it."

She whirled back to the other side of the room as Aunty came back out. Al clutched at his eye, and Scorpius saw her almost smirk. "Oh, Malfoy, child, how is your cheek? Does it hurt? Aunty is sorry if it does, but she wants you to behave."

"It's fine." He stared at her eyebrows, for all appearances looking to meet her eyes. Her weight shifted. And again. And then-

"Duck!" Al pulled him to the side as a jinx hit the couch where he had been.

"Oh, little Scorpius. Don't challenge authority. You want to go back to your family, don't you? And what about little Baddock?" She turned to the first-year, who Uncle had been guarding, keeping him from noticing Polaris and her healer work. ('Gods bless her mother, while they at it,' Scorpius added.) "You hurt Aunty. She hurts too." She waved her wand. "Crucio!" She screamed and writhed on the ground, obviously bruised limbs slapping against the walls and screams rough and hoarse, suddenly contorting, bending like a bow till her head nearly touched her heels. Aunty flicked her wand back. "See? She hurts! Apologize, Scorpius!" Her sugary-sweet voice dripped with venom.

"I'm sorry, Aunty, Baddock."

"Good, now go on time out." She pointed at the door.

"What? I-"

"Go!"

Scorpius stood slowly, headed across the room and pushed the creaking door. Bletchley, grey hair disheveled, latched onto Scorpius's arm, saying something about "The monsters, corner, eating me!" before Scorpius brushed him off.

"Two hours, Scorpius." Aunty waved her wand.

Instantly, Scorpius understood why no one liked Time Out. An illusion settled into place, monsters leaping up, the floor was red, he was chained down... The monster stood over him, a small figure at its side-

Lily. She was cold, eyes impassive, the monster changed, split, became itself and a boy...

The boy changed, sometimes Lysander, sometimes other classmates, sometimes people he didn't know, but the monster tore into him and Lily and the boy... Part of him was trying to scream it wasn't real, but she acted like Lily, talked like her, murmured to the thing with her and let it touch her.

"Don't know what I was thinking, choosing Scorpius..."

His nightmares alive, but they didn't end. Instead, Lily and the boy dissolved, becoming other people-his father with disdainful eyes ("And I called it my son. That... Thing..."), his mother, grandfather, all these people, and it all came back to Lily...

§º§

He was screaming. Eventually, the monster and Lily had become one, become his tormenter, ripping at his skin, cursing him, liquid form interchanging with so many beasts with her voice.

Scorpius looked up as Aunty sent the vision away. "Learned our lesson, Scorpius? Oh, Aunty is so sorry if that hurt. But bad children must be taught." She helped him up as he shook, still feeling claws against, in, his skin. He was untouched, though. It was almost... Confusing... He stumbled from the room, gazed around the common room with bleary eyes, it was mostly empty, the few people giving him sympathetic looks as he made his way across the room, feeling ill, ghosts of pain sweeping over his nerves.

He made it halfway up the stairs to his dorm before he curled up on the stairs in a fetal position, whimpering.


Wow, physiological torture! Remember kiddies, that's illegal! Don't do it, or Harry Potter arrests you!

Review, you know what works.