A/N: Okay. This is the last chapter. However, this is a trilogy and the first chapter/prologue of the third will be up shortly (ie after I finish posting this and edit it) so you should all add me to your alerts list so you can be notified about it *wink wink nudge nudge in the least subtle way possible.* Special shout outs to everyone who reviewed, particularly charlottembp, rolo197, FairylightsandGlitter, and Guest who did not sign in and to whom I could not reply.

Also, as long as I'm in the mood for shameless self-promotion, this update is so late in the day because I spent my morning writing a one shot about George and Angelina that is called Fix Me and can be found on my profile.

Thank you all for reading, and please enjoy the last chapter.

Chapter Nine - Running From Lions

"Everyone please be seated," McGonagall said. "When I call your name, you will pass through these doors into the Great Hall where you will be sitting your practical Charms NEWT."

She started listing off names. Dylan Abernathy was first, looking deeply uncomfortable. I recalled for the first time since we'd been friends that he had been the first in our year to be sorted. When he ended up in Hufflepuff, the yellow table had burst into wild applause. Next was someone called Anderson, Alan who I had never spoken to in seven years; Eleanor Avery; Sam Baker, who grinned heartily at the lot of us before he walked into the room. He'd freaked out when we'd had to do Transfiguration. There were a few more Bs, a few Cs, Will Corner (who looked much less comfortable with the Charms NEWT than he had with Transfiguration). The list carried on until Ioan Finnegan was the last to go.

The rest of us stayed in the antechamber waiting.

"Any ideas?" Al asked, popping off his shoes and feigning comfort.

One of the other girls in our year looked disgusted by Al's feet and edged away.

"Almost every fireplace has proved to be a bust, and the only ones that haven't are ones we have yet to check," I said. "And we've only got two weeks left after this."

"Great," Rose muttered.

"We could ask for help?" Al suggested.

"We're seven of the smartest students in Hogwarts," I pointed out. "If we can't figure it out together, then there's a serious flaw."

We lapsed into thoughtful silence until we were called forward to sit our Charms exam. My examination was going well, until there was a familiar squeaking noise and I was suddenly surrounded by the red and gold clans of pygmy puffs. They swarmed across my lap to my examiner's confusion, rooted through my pockets for spare chocolate buttons – which they found in abundance – and then rolled off towards the head table.

To the great confusion of everyone who had noticed them, they rolled straight into the giant fireplace at the head of the room and disappeared.

"Erm…did you see that?" my examiner asked. I nodded slowly.

Red and gold pygmy puffs that had rolled into the fire.

Gryffindor house colours were red and gold. They had gone into a fireplace.

I finished my exam and met Rose and Al outside, all three of us talking over each other about my pygmy puffs and their odd behaviour and colouring.

We kept talking the whole way up to our abandoned classroom, where we found Em poring over a book on Gryffindor while Sam, Dylan, and Will lay sprawled across various desks looking dead to the world.

"Why do the three of you look so chipper?" Em asked, raising her eyebrow at us.

"For once Scorpius's pygmy puff fetish paid off," Al said, looking excited.

"I do not have a fetish!" I exclaimed, tossing the nearest piece of chalk at his head.

"Right," Rose said like she didn't believe me. "But the red and gold puffs turned up in the hall while we were sitting our test and after they finished – what were they doing to you?"

"Raiding my pockets for chocolate buttons," I replied haughtily, avoiding any of the insinuations she might have been implying.

"Right," Rose said. "They went through the fireplace. Pygmy puffs aren't exactly fireproof, so…"

"I mean, we don't know for sure that they were going to Gryffindor's grave, but there's at least something there," Al continued.

"So tonight?" I suggested. "After everyone's gone to sleep?"

Everyone nodded in agreement and we spent the next few hours lying on the desks wishing we hadn't just violated our own brains needlessly with Charms testing. Finally it was time for dinner and we headed down to the great hall.

"Hey Malfoy!"

I turned to discover Ioan running up to us. He stopped about three feet too close to my face.

"Yes, Ioan?" I asked. "May I help you?"

He looked thrown by my courteousness, which had been the point.

"I just wanted to let you know that I shagged your girlfriend," he said, glancing between me and Rose with a triumphant look.

"We've been over that a few times," I reminded him.

Ioan considered for a moment, and then turned to Rose. "If you were dating him why did you sleep with me?"

He seemed genuinely confused, which I found highly entertaining.

"Well, charity cases," Rose replied, smiling sweetly at him.

Ioan frowned at the lot of us and then grinned triumphantly. I was still entirely unclear as to what he was attempting to achieve, but he seemed to know where he was going with his nonsensical accusations, so I let him continue.

"Also, I've figured out where Gryffindor's grave is," he said.

"Have you?" Em asked, sounding unimpressed.

"Yeah," he said. "It's in the Great Hall. I asked the Sorting Hat."

"How did you ask the Sorting Hat?" Will asked while the rest of us exchanged looks that clearly lamented our idiocy. We certainly spent enough time in McGonagall's office to have had ample opportunity to ask the hat ourselves, but it hadn't occurred to any of us.

"I went to visit Professor McGonagall," he replied, sounding triumphant.

"You went to visit the headmistress?" Al asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Ioan said as though this wasn't strange.

Without conferring, Dylan grabbed a passing third year and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes widened and she giggled, glanced at Ioan, and ducked off into the Great Hall.

"What did you just say?" Ioan asked.

"Oh, nothing," Dylan replied, smiling innocently at him. As precisely zero of the things any of us do are innocent, I didn't believe him.

"So Gryffindor's grave is in the Great Hall," Sam prompted, steering everyone into the Hall. He gestured sweepingly at the four house tables, the floating candles, and the head table. "Where?"

Ioan gaped like a hooked fish and then stalked off to the Ravenclaw table looking disappointed. He had been sitting for about ten seconds before a sixth year leaned over to him and asked him a question with a deviously delighted smile on his face. Ioan's whole body turned red.

"I do not have a hard on for Professor McGonagall!" he exclaimed.

While everyone in earshot burst into hysterical laughter, Dylan wiped a tear of mirth out of the corner of his eye.

"Oh Hogwarts rumour mill," he lamented wistfully. "How I'll miss you and your ease of manipulation."

"Whatever happened to the bloke who set the record straight by standing in the middle of the table and announcing his relationship status?" I asked. "He would never have fucked with the rumour mill."

"Yeah, well, you lot've been a bad influence on me," Dylan replied. "Meet here at midnight?"

"Sounds good," I agreed. He nodded and headed off to the Hufflepuff table.

Em kissed Will and went over to the Slytherin table, while Rose, Al and I made our way to the Gryffindor table. Around us, a bubble formed. Our neighbours talked in stage whispers about the article in the Prophet about our discovery of the tombs, but they didn't talk to us.

"You know, I would say it's a bad thing that we've failed to make friends these past two years, but we got each other out of the deal so I can't say I care too much," Al commented, taking a bite of his shepherd's pie.

"Rose, did you actually have friends before?" I asked, realising for the first time that I was entirely unsure. Before I actually met her, I had known Rose Weasley was second in our year, and rather easy, but now that I was thinking about it, I wasn't sure she had ever really had friends.

"I had Al," Rose said with a shrug. "Sometimes. I didn't really need friends though."

"Everyone needs friends," Al replied.

"I managed," I pointed out.

"No, you didn't, which is why you have friends now," Al said, handing me a Cornish pastie. "Eat. You're too thin."

"And you're turning into Grandmum Weasley," Rose informed him.

He shrugged as though he didn't care and kept brandishing the pastie at me. I rolled my eyes and accepted it.

OOooOOooOOooOO

"You know what I want?" Al grumbled as we ducked into an empty classroom to avoid a prefect.

"An Italian model with a six pack and a tan and an incredibly sexy accent?" Rose suggested.

Al considered for a moment. "Yes, but that's not what I was talking about," he replied. "I want my dad's invisibility cloak."

"What? The Marauder's Map doesn't do it for you?" I asked, checking to make sure the coast was clear. After dinner, we had realised that in order to get everyone to the Great Hall safely, it would be best to have those of us with the Map collect the others. As such, we were on our way to the Ravenclaw common room to collect Will and Sam.

"It's all good and fine for knowing when to avoid someone, but when it comes to actually avoiding them you've got to improvise," he replied, reading over my shoulder. We ducked out of the classroom and down the staircase to the fifth floor. Rose crept up the stairs to the Ravenclaw common room while the two of us kept watch. Within moment, she returned with Sam and Will in tow.

"You know what I want?" Sam asked. "A functioning mobile."

"Functioning mobile what?" I asked as we made our way down towards the dungeons to gather Em.

"Mobile phone…" Sam replied, trailing off like he didn't understand why he had to explain. "It's a Muggle electronic. If we had working ones we would be able to text each other."

"You're the Charms person," Will reminded him. "Figure it out."

Sam was immediately lost in thought while we waited for Em to leave the Slytherin common room. She smiled at all of us, kissed Will hello, and then we were off to collect Dylan.

He was waiting for us looking impatient.

"Shall we?" he asked the moment we arrived. We backtracked to the Great Hall and slipped inside. It was entirely empty.

In seven years, I had never once seen the Great Hall empty, and it was a little disconcerting. The problem, however, was immediately apparent. The central fireplace through which the pygmy puffs had disappeared was still lit.

We approached with caution and started inspecting the sides. On the back of the fireplace was an engraving of the Hogwarts crest and other than that, there was nothing remarkable about it.

"So there's nothing," Rose said, looking disappointed.

"Apparently not," Em agreed, looking equally put out.

I kept staring at the flames. There was something wrong with them. It wasn't normal fire, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

Before I could try, the door opened and Ioan walked in.

He stopped dead when he saw us and then his face contorted in rage. "I was going to be the one to find it!" he exclaimed, running up the aisle between the tables towards us.

"Well we haven't found anything anyway," Sam replied.

Ioan didn't seem to care, because he dragged me away from the fireplace just as I figured out what was wrong with it. There was no wood.

"You shouldn't have been in Gryffindor, Malfoy," Ioan informed me, gripping me tightly by the front of the shirt. I was about four inches taller than him, which probably made it a comical sight for the rest of my friends. "You should've been a Slytherin by virtue of being a dick."

"What the fuck did I ever do to you?" I demanded, grabbing him by the wrists to try and pull him off.

"And not all Slytherins are dicks," Em informed him, kicking him in the foot.

I glanced behind me at the fireplace. A familiar squeaking purr announced the presence of a pygmy puff just out of view. I smiled.

"Why are you smiling?" Ioan demanded.

"Because I know why I was sorted into Gryffindor," I replied, taking a step backwards towards the fire.

"And why is that?" Ioan asked.

"A certain willingness towards reckless endangerment," I replied.

And then I jumped backwards into the fire, dragging Ioan with me.

He screamed and let go of me, but it was too late. We had already been whisked away to a stone corridor lit by red and gold torches.

"Where are we?" he demanded, looking around in panic. There was no sign of the fireplace. The corridor behind us just ended.

Before I could answer him, Rose, Al, Dylan, Em, Will, and Sam materialised next to us.

"Any chance you had proof that was going to work?" Dylan asked me. "I want to be able to properly gauge how worried I should be for your sanity."

"Well, the pygmy puffs had disappeared into the fire during our NEWT, so-" I started.

The lot of them cut me off with various groans and interjections along the lines of, "not with the fucking pygmy puffs again." Ioan looked beyond confused.

"Scorpius is 90% responsible for the pygmy puff infestation," Dylan explained.

"And you're responsible for the other ten," Al reminded him. "Since you're the one who suggested we buy them in the first place."

Ioan glanced around at the lot of us with a worried expression on his face. "You really are responsible for everything that happened to the Slytherins back in fifth year, aren't you?"

"Yeah," we chorused.

"Let's go," I suggested, heading down the corridor. As we walked, red and gold pygmy puffs appeared and started swarming my feet. I reached into my pockets and offered them chocolate buttons which they accepted, but they kept walking with us.

As we rounded a corner in the corridor, we came across a roaring fire that completely blocked our way. On the other side, I could see a stone dais and hear heavy snoring. Figuring the fire was probably the same as the fire in the Great Hall, I stepped through it without a second thought and realised that the snoring was coming from a giant lion stretched out on the dais.

"Ow!" Ioan exclaimed from behind me.

"Scorpius, we can't get through," Will explained.

"Maybe you can't," Rose replied, walking through the fire and appearing next to me unscathed. Al joined us shortly and then yelped.

"There's a lion," he said, pointing at it.

The lion yawned and stretched out its paws before it blinked its great yellow eyes and stared at us. It sighed exasperatedly and slumped off the dais towards us.

"None of you are proper Gryffindors," it said, padding closer and sniffing the three of us. "You're all part of the way there, but you're missing things."

"Sorry," I said.

"You boy," it roared, staring me in the eye. "Where is your confidence?"

"I-" I started, but it ignored me and cuffed me in the shoulder with a paw the size of my head. I stumbled sideways and only just managed to keep from falling over. The strangest hot sensation was spreading from my shoulder around the rest of my person.

"And you, young lady," it continued, giving Rose the evil eye. "What exactly have you done with your loyalty?"

Rose's body blow went to her side rather than her shoulder and she fell over. I pulled her to her feet and she dusted herself off looking offended.

"What am I missing?" Al asked, looking wary.

"Courage," the lion informed him. The three of us exchanged confused looks. "You've got bravery certainly, enough bravery to get into the house, but not courage."

It smacked Al in the chest, but Rose caught him before he could fall over.

The lion hopped back onto the dais and stared at us. "What did you come here for?"

"We're looking for Gryffindor's grave," I explained.

"Well you've found it," the lion said. "I've been down here for centuries, but no one's come to visit."

A swarm of pygmy puffs hopped onto the dais next to the lion and started gambolling around his feet. I worried momentarily that the lion was going to eat them, but he didn't seem interested in them as food.

"These creatures are delightful, whoever thought of them," the lion informed us. "Great company."

"That's what I've been saying," I replied, smirking at Rose and Al.

"Well, now you've found Gryffindor's grave and it won't be forgotten by time," the lion said. "Good luck."

"With what?" Al asked.

"With whatever you find yourselves needing luck for," the lion replied, assuming a seated position in the centre of the dais. Before we could ask it anything else, it turned to stone.

The fire separating the rest of our friends from the chamber died and they ran through.

"Who were you talking to?" Dylan asked.

As one, we pointed to the lion. It didn't come back to life, and it didn't move.

"Do you suppose it was just waiting for someone to find it?" Rose asked. "A thousand years down here in the dark waiting for a Gryffindor to stumble across it?"

"I think it might have been," I agreed.

"That's sad," she said.

The rest of us nodded in agreement and made our way out of the tomb, secure in the knowledge we had successfully found the graves of all four founders.

OOooOOooOOooOO

Naturally, this called for a celebration as soon as the rest of our house found out we had discovered Gryffindor's final resting place. The party happened to coincide with the evening following the end of year feast. We won the Quidditch Cup and the House Cup, so there was lots of cause to celebrate.

"And there was a filthy great lion!" Al exclaimed while he recounted the story to a gaggle of wide-eyed, slack-jawed first years. "Who had just been waiting centuries for a Gryffindor to find it so it could bestow upon us its final gifts of courage, loyalty, and confidence."

I laughed to myself and wandered away, where I was promptly dragged into a corner by Lily Potter.

"You're going to accept the offer the Magpies gave you, aren't you?" she demanded.

I laughed at the desperation in my diminutive Quidditch captain's voice. "I dunno," I said, taking a drink of my pumpkin juice. I was on official Al watch to make sure he didn't relapse, so that meant I didn't get to drink either.

Contrarily, Rose was on her seventh shot of Firewhiskey on the other side of the common room.

"I was thinking I might accept the Cannons," I said, smirking at Lily with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

She groaned in exasperation and slapped me in the arm. I snickered.

"Blondie!" Rose beckoned from across the common room.

"Gotta go," I said to Lily before I fought my way across the room to Rose. She grinned up at me with a faraway look in her chocolate eyes and threw her arms around my waist, nestling her face against my chest.

I stared at the top of her head with my eyebrow raised.

"Hi Rose," I said.

"You should put me to bed," she suggested, looking up at me.

"As much as I would love to do that, I cannot access your dormitory," I reminded her. "Would you like me to call Lily over?"

"No!" Rose replied in a surprisingly sharp tone of voice for the amount of alcohol she had consumed. "You'll just have to put me in your bed."

"Right," I said slowly, starting to suspect an ulterior motive. I just wasn't sure what it was. Nevertheless, she was very drunk, so I steered her up the stairs to the boys' dormitories and up to the third floor. She collapsed happily onto my bed.

"Hmm," she said pensively, kicking off her pointy black shoes that had red soles to go with very tall heels. "All your dorm mates are still downstairs."

"They are," I agreed. "I think I'll go join them if-"

She was off the bed and hanging onto my arm before I could finish the sentence. "No, stay," she begged, dragging me back towards my bed. "Also, have sex with me."

I nearly swallowed my tongue in surprise, but before I could get much farther than the train of thought that went, 'did she really just say that?' she kissed me. She ran her hands through my hair and shoved her tongue in my mouth while she dragged me onto my bed.

She pulled me down so I landed on top of her. I noticed that she was surprisingly strong for someone of her size.

"Erm…why?" I asked when she kissed my neck and started unbuttoning my shirt, giving me use of my mouth again.

"Because I fancy you," she replied, sounding mildly breathless.

"No you don't," I said, completely confident I was right. She snogged me again and shoved my shirt off.

"I fancy you more than I fancied Ioan and I shagged him," she pointed out, commandeering one of my hands and pressing it against her breast.

"True," I agreed, kissing her. She unzipped her dress and slipped it off. I could taste the Firewhiskey on her breath, which made me pause.

"But Rose," I said, doing my best to not stare at her tits. "You're really drunk."

"So?" she asked, sounding mildly exasperated while she ran one of her bare legs along mine. I struggled to focus on the highly logical and generally decent-human argument I was trying to make.

"You're drunk enough that I'm not sure you're going to remember this tomorrow," I replied.

"It's not like I'm a virgin, Scorpius," she pointed out, running her hands down my chest and playing with my belt buckle. "Now would you please have sex with me?"

I stared down at her and remembered she was painfully attractive.

On the one hand, I could be a good person, be a good friend, and not have sex with her even while she asked me to.

On the other hand, I could shag Rose and get Al, Will, and Dylan to stop mocking me for being a virgin.

Before I could make my decision, however, Rose fell sound asleep, effectively deciding for me.

I nodded to myself, deciding it was for the best and climbed off the bed, looking for my shirt. I found it and pulled it on before I tucked Rose under the duvet so none of my dorm mates would walk in on her in her underwear and edged out of the dormitory.

"Goodnight, Rosie," I mumbled, and then I closed the door behind me.

OOooOOooOOooOO

"My, don't we look hung over?" Will asked in a chipper tone when we found each other on the Hogwarts Express the next morning.

"Sod off," Rose groaned, resting her head against the cool glass of the window.

"The hangover's nothing compared to the sheer confusion of waking up in Scorpius's bed entirely alone and untouched, methinks," Al added with a malicious grin.

True to my prediction, Rose had remembered exactly nothing from our conversation when she woke up.

"I wasn't entirely untouched," Rose replied grumpily. "My dress was gone."

"You took it off yourself," I informed her.

She grumbled and closed her eyes, leaning forward and resting her head against the table.

"So…" Dylan said while the train rolled through the Scottish countryside. "We've all finished Hogwarts now-"

"Hey," Em interjected. She was sitting in Will's lap to conserve space, which meant that Sam actually got his own seat instead of being forced into sitting on the pile of trunks in the centre of the floor.

"Almost all of us have finished Hogwarts," Dylan corrected.

"So what?" Al asked.

"We're being added to the latest addition of Hogwarts: A History and the board of directors gang pressed McGonagall into giving us awards for special services to the school," Dylan continued. "Scorpius was top of our year, Rose and Will were second and third."

"So?" I asked, trying to figure out what he was getting at.

Dylan looked off into the middle distance like he was trying to figure something out and then looked around at all of us. "So now what do we do?"

Review!

In other news, I got completely fed up with my life and scoured the internet, whereupon I bought a purple pygmy puff.