Inheritance
XxMookinexX
Based on the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling.
X. Scorpius, 11, will win eventually.
He understood that people would talk. People always talked, and unless you were Albus Potter, you couldn't control that on a whim.
They used to talk about his family, about his father in particular because his grandmother was too good in the end and saved them (his grandfather was old news). He knew well before Hogwarts about the war, and his dad's place in it. He also knew, because he had asked, that his dad would never have killed Albus Dumbledore. He understood, forgave him, and then he made a promise to himself. He was going to become a Slytherin, and he was going to become a brilliant wizard. He was going to be the type of Slytherin you rarely heard about, even though there were lots of them. He was going to be studious, and never cheat. He would be known as ambitious rather than malicious. He was going to work his way up to the top, and because he was doing it the hard way, he knew he was more likely to stay there. People would love him, and it would break the stigma. Fix everything, because even as a child he could see the world needed to be fixed.
It helped, he supposed, that he snagged influential friends. Especially Albus Potter. Scorpius liked to pretend that he didn't need anyone else, but even he knew that he'd have gone out of his way to make friends with Al if Al had not been in Slytherin. There was something particularly likeable about him. Maybe it was the quiet way he'd suddenly summarise a person's entire being halfway through a conversation, cutting them short. The way he was so good at reading people that they'd believe him when he told them what they really thought. Or maybe it was the way people flocked to him. Loved him, when all he did was point out when a person was out of line.
Scorpius would always remember Al's expression when he learnt Occlumency from Scorpius' father, and in being successful had been submitted to his worst memories. He remembered the way Harry Potter had turned up at their door fuming about how Al had seen him use a dark curse ("What the hell were you trying to prove, Malfoy?"), which of course his father hadn't been able to help. Maybe it was the only time he'd really seen Al be shocked by anything. Al had always thought his dad could do no wrong, even though everyone had tried to tell him that wasn't the case. That everyone made mistakes. Even him.
Scorpius' biggest mistake must have happened somewhere along the line with Rose Weasley, but he was damned if he could identify where it all went wrong. She was a mental patient. She hadn't always been (or maybe she had, and he'd never noticed). He'd thought she was just a bit weird, right from the first moment he'd met her. When she'd come barging into their compartment dragging Al behind her to demand he explain who he was and why her dad didn't like him. Rosie had read the dictionary, he knew, so he often wondered why she'd skipped the word "tact".
She used to attack them with random facts. He'd thought it was because she wanted to prove she knew something Al didn't. But Al said it was her way of trying to get his attention. ("Did you know there have been seventy-two wizards called Scorpius in the history of Hogwarts? So it's really not such an odd name. It's traditional.") He'd never thought about whether his name was odd or not, to be honest. It had never bothered him before she brought it up.
She'd never really interested him like Lily (his rival seeker in Gryffindor after Monique left) or Lucy (who was devious and rather cool) but once he realised her personal vendetta against him was unrelated to their parents, he didn't mind her tagging along with them as much. In fact, he developed a lot of sympathy for her. It couldn't be easy competing with Al when being a bossy know-it-all was all you had for a personality.
It was a surprise when she kissed him (he really should have made her look up "tact" again. No one could miss the way Lily's face fell), and he'd never kissed a girl before (apart from Celia Zabini, but they both pretended that had never happened). It really messed up his brain. He couldn't concentrate on his studies because she was suddenly everywhere, competing with him (and Al pointed out she'd been there competing with him all along, he'd just been too focused on the goal to realise). It was hormones. It had to be. So he'd dated her in the end because she wasn't ugly, and she was intelligent. Although it was mostly to get her out of his system.
He hadn't expected her to announce that she loved him. He hadn't known true terror until that moment. It wasn't because he was scared of commitment. It wasn't even that she'd announced it at the annual Christmas gathering at Grandma Weasley's house (after insisting he come along), which included her father and meant he was about to be killed. It was scary because it came out of the blue, even though he'd known Rosie was the type to try and control everything.
Rosie lived by a set of rules she'd drawn up when she was still too young to understand the world. She'd never understood that her inability to fly didn't make her less of a Weasley. She didn't need to be her mother. There were other choices. She could be whoever she wanted to be. He tried to explain that to Rosie's dad when Ron Weasley tracked him down. Not because he was worried he'd be murdered, but because he was worried about her. They had a proper talk about it, but it backfired massively. Ron had given him his blessing (because it was his duty to worry about her, and Scorpius was doing a fine attempt at rivaling that), even though he thought he'd been clear that he didn't want to marry her. He never planned to marry her. He didn't know how to help Rosie. Being with her was difficult because of that, and it was so much easier to focus on helping Lily because Lily wanted to be helped. It didn't surprise anyone that they broke up. Ron liked Scorpius a hell of a lot more after that, which was odd because according to Vic and Monique he'd broken Rosie's heart (Al and most of the others knew better. Rosie had broken her own heart a long time ago).
She never really healed. It was a mystery to him why, when she was getting married the next day, she turned up on his doorstep (and thank Merlin it had been one of the nights where Lily hadn't beaten him to the door. Awkwardness aside, it meant she was free to go and get help, specifically Al) and told him she still loved him because he knew she didn't really. She was just saying that because she'd realised her plan was in tatters and she wanted to cling onto the remains. If Lily hadn't been there to help him sort his head out that night, after an endlessly patient Al had escorted Rosie home, maybe he'd have lost his drive.
He'd wanted to fix the world. He'd always thought that no matter what he came up against, he'd find a way to win. On the whole, he had. Except when it came to Rose Weasley.
Author Notes – I have this complete faith in my mind that Scorpius has known from a young age exactly where he wants to be heading, and so makes his way with a no-holds-barred approach. No prisoners. I like to agree that even if my Albus wasn't a Slytherin, the two of them would be friends. They should be friends. I think being friends with Albus softens Scorpius somewhat. I think Scorpius always has a watchful eye on Lily, and I think... I think because Scorpius and Albus are so... what they are, I really fucked up Rose. Not that I wrote her wrong. She would always end up this way. But I made those two so unbelivably driven (although Al's is in an understated way) that she can't help crashing and burning, and I wish it weren't like that. I really do. I love Rose. More on this later. On Scorpius, I reckon there's a lot of turbulence in his house, but I think his parents, and his grandparents truly love him. I think family's all they have left now. All they have left that they truly rely on explicitly at any rate. I've always seen that as Scorpius' spring board. His drive to make the most of himself works because they're there to support him, and I think they really wish him the best. They want him to succeed.
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