9
Everything hurt. That was what first brought him back to consciousness.
Or whatever this was.
There was no light, but it took him an eternity of wandering around in the blackness for him to realize that was because his eyes weren't open. It was a dream. A very awful, very agonizing, very real dream, and even as he realized that he was becoming awake he clawed desperately for the light of day. For any light. Any relief from the aching, slamming, pounding, grinding that seemed to come from everywhere.
He fought it. It hurt worse with struggling but he struggled anyway. He couldn't remember who he was, where he was, or how he'd gotten there. Remaining in the dark, however, in this state of decay and gnashing agony, wasn't helping him to get anywhere, so he fought with everything he had, slamming at the invisible, shapeless black wall around him for any weakness, any opening that could let him seize onto something real.
He never felt himself hit it, but there was certainly a change. It hurt no less, but something happened. There was sense again, a very different sense. Like a suspicion that he could sense something that he wasn't really aware of, that he couldn't quite distinguish from the cacophony of fury and pain but knew to be there, nonetheless. He fought more, and then it was there. A feeling. A feeling of something, something physical. It must have been a body. His body. He fought harder.
It was the most difficult thing he'd ever done. He became aware of sounds filtering through still ears as his mind awoke, still trapped in the useless husk of unconsciousness that was his body. There were no voices or noises, or the faint whispers that came with any location. It would have been easier if there had been something concrete to seize to; instead, he was grasping at vapor, neither there nor not there, trying to grab a handhold on clouds to wrench himself back from oblivion. It hurt worse as he fought, every inch bringing him closer feeling like a thousand needles stabbing into his head. He could feel his lips now and his throat, and in blessed relief they finally permitted him to groan out a fraction of his incomprehensible misery.
His own voice was like a beacon. He seized a hold of it and surged towards it with all of his might, even though he didn't know where it was exactly, and just like that he woke up in his own body. That was not to say he opened his eyes, however, for that hurt to even contemplate. With a sigh that immediately followed the groan, the pain that was pounding at the inside of his skull receded a great deal as soon as he stepped over the barrier of consciousness, but agony still rooted him to the spot. A first attempt to open his eyes failed in another moan, and suddenly there was a scuffle of noise that sounded like someone rearing to their feet.
That sound was what finally let him hold to material feeling, his breath, his pain, and let him force his eyelids open.
It was bright. He moaned again, the light sending throbbing aches and waves through his head, but blinked only briefly and forced himself to hold his eyes open. The room was white and he was staring at a ceiling. A brief attempt to move his head to either side was futile, and he could do nothing but groan in pain through dried lips again as pain cascaded over his entire body this time. Feeling was slowly filtering into the rest of his body—he could feel the tips of his fingers—but it was a slow process. Even as he thought this, however, he felt something grab hold of his hand and a very large, blobbish thing blocked out the light that was burning him.
Several seconds passed before he was able to identify the blob as a face. James' face.
"Al, Al," his brother croaked, with wide eyes. "Al, you with me? Stay with me, stay awake!"
Albus groaned again, blinking, his voice cracking in half twice over. "Ah... ah... wh... what..."
"Just stay there, Al," James said, looking surprisingly close to tears. Albus was almost touched, beyond the furious agony and immobility. "Stay right here, don't move. I'll be right back, I swear. Stay awake."
His brother vanished just that quickly, leaving Albus to moan once again at the light and try to close his eyes against it. The action made him sleepy, but James' words were rebounding inside of his head quite painfully and they stuck, and he refused to descend back into the blackness from which he'd fought so hard to escape. His head was no more movable now than it had been first, so he could see no more, either, but he was able to make out now that the light came from a single lightbulb placed in the ceiling of the... room, it seemed, though he could see no walls. Some light thrown against the ceiling intermixed with the bulb's shine seemed natural, but no window was visible. The sight of the muggle light contraption was unhelpful in deducing where he was; many Wizarding locations had adopted the use of them in recent years, especially after discovering how easily it was into charming them into a permanently lit state.
Thinking almost killed him, but he tried to remember how he had come to be... there. He quickly discovered that he couldn't remember much. In fact, the first thing that came to mind was a party... Slughorn's party, and a head of silvery-blonde hair in his arms... That memory seemed to stab at him especially excruciatingly, and flooded him almost immediately with quidditch. It was a fuzzy mess, but he could remember soaring over the crowd, charging at the goalposts, lobbing quaffles with Scorpius... All in all, though, he couldn't make head nor tail of it all, jammed together as it was, and the pain made it worthless to even try. Instead he collapsed against something so soft it must have been pillows and wallowed in agony until the sound of feet squeaking against floor met his ears once again.
Voices charged into the room, talking so fast Albus couldn't make them out in his state. He held still—though he had little choice—and used his full power of mind to restrain himself from hissing aloud at the noise. Something grabbed hold of his hand again as the voices approached, and another face was suddenly looming above him.
"Dad..."
"Hush, son," Harry Potter soothed, shaking his head. "Don't talk. The healers are coming down the hall now. You're going to be fine. Just sit tight until they're here. I'm right here, Al, I'm not going anywhere."
Though they hurt physically to hear, they offered Albus a meager amount of comfort the same. He tried to grip his father's hand back, but his fingers weren't strong enough yet. Instead, he hissed until his lips were able to approximate words. "Dad... where... where..."
"St. Mungo's," his father told him. With a loving grimace, Harry reached up and brushed the side of Albus' face tenderly. "It's all right, son. We're at St. Mungo's, but you're going to be fine. Just fine."
The muscles in his neck screamed in protest as they came back to life. Nevertheless, Albus was able to shake his head. "No... where... you..."
"What?" His father leaned closer, his face turning concerned. "Don't strain yourself, Al."
Albus tried anyway. "My... game... where... were... you?"
It seemed to take his father a long moment to comprehend what he had said, but almost as soon as Harry had his face contorted in an unmatchable mask of grief. The sight turned Albus' stomach, not only because of seeing it on the face of the bravest, strongest man he'd ever known, and for a second he thought he'd said something terribly wrong, but before he got the chance to croak out an apology a grey-haired healer marched into the room.
A fantastic improvement meant that he was able to turn his head away from his father, if only marginally, to watch the older woman walk into what was clearly a small, individual hospital room. James was standing nervously by the door, his hands in the pockets of his jeans and a worried expression on his face. Albus had just enough time to uncomfortably wonder what in Merlin's name his older brother was doing there in the middle of the professional season before the healer reached him and his father let go of his hand.
"There, Mr. Potter," the healer murmured. Her hands went to his head, and he grunted softly as she touched his skull and set several points on fire at once. She paused and waited for him to recover before continuing her ministrations, but the look on her face was unmistakably relieved. "You've given us quite a scare. I'd say it's about time you woke up and gave us something to be cheery about, for a change."
Albus sighed as she released him, finding himself able to move his head side to side without setting off more than a considerably awful but relatively minor headache. "What... what happened?"
"You took two bludgers to the head," the witch told him with a frown while he experimentally twitched his fingers and slugged a flinch into his elbows. "And fell off your broom, to boot. Quidditch, I say." She scoffed, turning to eye James as if he were the root of all evil. "Multiple breaks to your head. I'd venture to say you're lucky to be alive."
With her assistance, and a moment of struggle on dead arms, Albus was able to push himself into a sitting position against the multitude of pillows on his bed, enough so to gain sight of the bedside table that was literally overflowed with what looked like well-wishing cards and baskets. Turning himself back to where his father had retreated next to his brother with the same horrified expression, Albus mumbled, "My... head hurts. I can't move my legs."
"Can you feel them?" the healer asked. When he nodded, she continued, "Your body is not yet awake. The motion will return with time. You've been unconscious almost a week. It's a miracle you still have legs, they probably deserve a little rest. Let them have a little rest while you fully wake up."
She patted him rather roughly on the arm and turned away. Addressing Albus' father, she said, "I'm going to run along and fetch Healer Wigsbin to have a look. He'll know better how to proceed than I. We should only be a few minutes, then." Harry nodded solemnly and thanked the woman deeply before she left, and then he and James both moved forward, each taking one side of Albus' bed.
"Blimey, Al," James breathed, giving off a mirthless guffaw as he shook his head. "I've been scared to death. What are you playing at, taking shots like that? I heard you were tied, too!"
"I don't remember," Albus replied honestly. "Two bludgers?"
"To the head," his brother confirmed. "Mum said you fell into the goalpost. That's when you hurt your back. That was in a state, too. That's probably why you can't feel anything, you weren't in good shape for a while, there."
Albus grimaced, trying to squeeze both the hand held by his brother and by his father. "Thanks. I'm certainly feeling that."
"I patronused your mother as soon as James came for me," his father mumbled. "I expect her to be along any minute. I had to force her to go home last night, and take Lily with her. Neither of them have slept in days."
The man's eyes were downcast, reserved. Only taking one glance at it, Albus was horrified; he had seen his father strong, he had seen his father humble... but he had quite possibly never seen his father so... hopeless.
His stomach clenched at the look, but he couldn't bring himself to ask what it meant. "How long was out? The healer said..."
"Six days," James told him. "It's Friday morning. You've had a time freezing the world for a week. McGonagall was in for a visit."
The made him blink in surprise, but he was in too much pain to give the rarity a deal of thought, so he shelved it for later. "My head hurts like hell," he hissed instead.
"The healers mended the fractures," Harry Potter said, studiously avoiding his son's gaze, "but you also had a pair of concussions. They did what they could for those, but it wasn't something they wanted to mess around with, not with your spine already in the state that it was. Even with... even with the cautious treatment, though, you were out for much longer than they thought you would be."
Feeling was coming into his back fully now, and Albus had no doubt they weren't exaggerating about his injuries at all. It felt as though he'd been thrown to a herd of angry hippogriffs and then speared by a Hungarian Horntail. An effort was needed not to gasp as a new, very physical, very hard lock of pain seized hold of him now, but he managed not to as he looked over his brother and father and asked the only question that mattered.
"How long until I'm back on the pitch?"
It was like night fell. In that one moment. There was no change in the lighting, no alteration to the temperature, but, as Albus watched, James and Harry froze completely. The two men, each holding one of Albus' hands, exchanged a look and then turned their eyes straight downwards, a picture of mortification seizing James at the same time as it took hold of their father's face, as well. Albus glanced between the two of them, his head snapping despite the weight and groan it induced. Neither of them would meet his eyes. Neither of them moved. Neither of them said a word. It couldn't have been more dead with a dementor in the room.
He gulped. His voice was louder. "Dad... how long until I'm back on the pitch?"
When his father finally met his eye, Albus knew it was bad. His heart sank, dreading months. That would be devastating—Gryffindor's season would be half over by the time he returned; scouts may have moved along past his injury. Half a year or more would be even worse. If the professional hunters didn't think he had enough to turn out a solid game even after recovery, he might not get more than a tryout for a reserve team, at best. He didn't even want to think about what would happen if his comeback would take the upwards of a year.
All of his fear vanished, however, when his father finally summoned the courage to speak. Albus forgot how to think. He forgot how to feel. Everything was numb. Everything.
"Son... they thought you'd gone braindead for a while. Like a man kissed by a dementor. They weren't sure you were going to survive the head trauma, and they spent so much time over your spine that they couldn't focus on your head until they were too afraid so much had already gone wrong for them to try to fix everything. Now, they're worried that anything similar might kill you on the spot if something that violent happens to you again... it's... they say that the risk is just too great..."
A tear slid from his father's eye and burned a track down his cheek. "I'm so sorry, Albus. Your days of playing Quidditch are over."
A series of potions made the return of all feeling and motion laughably easy as soon as Albus was awake to take them, but he didn't feel like laughing. It took his mother a half day of begging to convince it was worth trying to get out of the hospital bed to take a walk. Nothing the healers gave him took away an ounce of the headaches, and they only worsened, but now, Albus welcomed them. He welcomed any pain, to fill a suddenly endless void of nothing.
Walking seemed simple, but a sudden flare of furious shame at the thought of what he was subjected to led him to overexerting himself, and with several gasps of pain late in the day he was forcibly shoved back into his bed. Then his mother threatened to hex him still, through a humiliating film of tears, if he didn't stay down long enough to rest. The bed suddenly felt like a prison, a symbol of his weakness, but the hurt in his mother's face and his father's face combined were too much for him to bear alongside the churning loathing and pity inside of himself, so he obeyed for their sake.
Scorpius and Rose burst into his room late, and practically strangled him with embraces each. He succeeded partially in summoning some enthusiasm for them as his parents and siblings finally ducked out of the room to let him have some privacy with his friends. The best he could manage was a weak grimace of a smile.
"I was so worried!" Rose squeaked, trembling so hard that she fell backwards into one of the chairs by his bedside. "I've never seen something Madam Pomfrey couldn't fix before."
"I was in tears, myself, thinking your pretty face was going to be all marred forever," Scorpius joked, his relief over Albus' wakefulness bleeding over into his jubilant expression. When Albus didn't laugh, he sobered, however. "Does it hurt, mate?"
"Some," Albus said. He hated the dryness of his voice, and tried again with more feeling. With any feeling. "They gave me a potion. Was supposed to make me a little sleepy. I'm still waiting on it to kick in. It's not bad if I don't move."
Scorpius grimaced sympathetically. "Have you been up?"
"I did some walking. Overdid it, nearly gave myself a seizure. Apparently my vertebrae were fused, and the length of my spine stiffens up if I move too much. They said it'll get better over time, but..." He trailed off, not knowing what he was going to say. There wasn't really anything to say.
"That sounds dreadful," Rose said with a frown.
"It's not the best," Albus mumbled.
"How long until you're back up and at 'em?" Scorpius questioned. "I let the team off practice this week because we were all too worried about you to do it anyway, but it'll be great to get going again. Ravenclaw's up in December, and they'll be rough this year. But the scouts must've been really impressed the other day! You were on fire! I don't know if you've ever played as good, and I've seen you through the whole way. if we keep doing that, you'll get a starter's contract right away out of school. When they gonna let you back on a broom?"
Albus stared at him for a moment, blinking, knowing full well his best mate would never play such a cruel joke. "They didn't tell you?"
"Tell us what?"
He watched his best mate and cousin exchange a confused look, and he swallowed through his sigh. "I'm done, Scorp. They're not going to let me back."
Scorpius narrowed his eyes, the corners of his lips lifting as if he thought Albus was having him for a laugh. "What do you mean? Of course I'll have you back, Potter. You could chop both your arms and still be a better chaser than anyone in the school—"
"The healers aren't letting me back, Scorp," Albus whispered. The words were soft, but even though he was the one saying them he felt each of them slam into him as fresh as the first time they'd come. "My head's too fucked up. Another hit, any hit, from a bludger or whatever, they say I'm dead. I'm done. It's over. I can't play quidditch ever again."
The room was absolutely still again, infinitely worse the next time. Then Rose's exclamation of "Oh, Albus..." and Scorpius' roaring curse turned it into a scene of fury and sorrow. Albus watched his friend take a step back from the bed and stare at him as if he'd just announced his desire to bed with the both of them. Rose climbed from the chair immediately and took his hand, a look of profound misery on her expression as Scorpius stumbled and leaned against his own chair for obvious support.
"What the fuck do you mean you can't play?" Scorpius repeated between more colorful curses. "The hell... no, that's some mistake. That can't be. They've got to be bloody joking that they can't fix it. You not playing Quidditch again... you are having a joke!"
"I'm not, Scorp. Don't you think I wish that I was?"
Scorpius dug one hand into his pale blonde hair, shaking his head in utter disbelief. "That's ludicrous! They're saying they can't cure your fucking head? They can cure your fucking head, get them back in here. They're fucking healers, for Merlin's sake, they can right a bloody concussion."
"Even magic has its limits, Scorpius," Albus mumbled.
"No, that can't bloody be," Scorpius hissed, lurching away from the chair and bracing himself against Albus' bedside. The blonde Gryffindor stared into his friend's eye with an almost pleading air. "That's can't be, Albus. It can't. The scouts were there for you, the managers were there for you. Don't tell me you can't get back on the pitch, you're bloody going pro."
Albus swallowed. There was a lump in his throat the action couldn't get past, and there were tears that were humiliatingly springing to his eyes. "Not anymore, mate." He shook his head, as Rose's eyes watered and she squeezed his hand. He was touched that they were there with him, that their faces were shocked, that they felt his pain... but it was an unexpected awfulness to hear himself take the side against him. What choice did he have?
"You can try to yell," he told his best mate solemnly. "I tried. I yelled for an hour. I screamed. They had none of it. It gave me a headache so bad that I had to rest for two hours just for it to go away just from yelling. They almost spelled me to sleep because I was so loud. I was out of control, and I yelled until it hurt too much to yell anymore, and that's when I ran out of things to say."
His mother had sat on his bed with him after that, while he had moaned and groaned and sobbed. He could see her tears falling, too; his father had left the room, unable to stay, with watery eyes of his own. Ginny Potter had brushed the hair from her son's anguished face and whispered that she couldn't begin to imagine how awful it was to lose something so special so fast, but that the most important thing was that he was alive and that he would be well again.
Only, he wouldn't be well. He was well on a broomstick, in the air. That was where he belonged. That was what he'd never have again.
"But they can't just... they..." Scorpius stumbled and collapsed back into the chair, staring at Albus in disbelief. Shaking his head, he muttered, "But you were the best. You were the natural. You were the good one. You were the humble one. You were the one who was going to be world famous. This... no, Al, it can't happen like this! It's not fair!"
Albus blinked at his best mate. He held himself hard, refusing to let the tears that were resurging to the surface to show themselves before these two, the two people he was closest to in the world. It's gone, it's gone. It was your life, and now it's gone...
With a rush of self-loathing, he gritted his teeth and clenched his jaw and slapped himself mentally for the stupid, selfish thought. You could be dead. You could have lost somebody. No. Uncle Fred died in the war, Teddy's dad and mum both died in the war. Your parents gave everything for that, and your grandparents, all of them. You're still alive, Potter. You're still breathing.
"I'm fine, Scorp," he muttered. His head pounded as if to contradict his words, almost making him wince. Instead, he steeled his features and maintained his brave face. I will not wallow in self-pity. I will not. "I'm still alive. I'm not dying."
"Al," Rose whispered. "You don't have to put on a brave face because of us—"
"I said I'm fine," Albus snapped before he could help himself. He instantly regretted it when Rose flinched, but he didn't apologize. "Don't act like I died, I'm bloody fine."
"But... but..." His cousin faltered and paused to wipe her tears, glancing at Scorpius' ashen face as she did so. "But, Al, you love quidditch."
Albus' chest constricted, his lungs seizing up. "It's only a game."
And with only the words he never thought he would ever bring himself to say, it was irrevocably final.
His own weakness kept him in St. Mungo's longer. He pushed himself too hard, at first: the day after he woke up, against the stern warnings of the attending healers, he tried to work himself to a run and fell into a seizure. The healers were startled, as they had not anticipated such a response to exercise however strenuous, but it quickly became apparent that even with caution the damage to his head may have been more disruptive than they had hoped for. The mistake on his part sentenced him to bed for two whole days of rest. If his father hadn't have been there to keep from descending into a pit of despair and grief again, no matter what he had promised himself, Albus didn't know how he would have gotten through it.
Scorpius didn't come back as the week progressed, but that fit Albus fine. His friend couldn't be expected to take himself away from school just for his sake, and Albus didn't want to be looked down upon, lazing away in his bed when he could be gaining back his strength. Lily was sent back to school the Monday after he woke up, as well; she was almost as shaken as he was by the result, and had already expressed worry about her own ability to continue competing on the quidditch team when she knew that he couldn't. He had told her not to think about him, that she was good and she enjoyed it and he wanted her to keep enjoying it for the both of them. It was only a half-hearted attempt; she didn't seem to notice.
Midweek, the healers finally let him work himself up to three walks around the hospital per day, which was too slow for his liking but was probably his only recipe to get out of the prison. Headaches were constant, going from dull throbs to blinding aches, but the potions he ingested only did so much. He never admitted how bad they were, though, for fear that they'd keep him even longer. He just wanted out, but where he would go after that, he didn't know.
They gave him his wand back when he was able to walk through two laps of St. Mungo's without straining himself, and he quickly discovered that even rudimentary spellcasting turning his head from agonizing to mind-blanking. His frustration made the aches worse, and the combination set back his physical progress. Not until the following Monday was he able to cast a summoning charm to the end of his bed, and even that cost him a great deal of strength. He lied about it, though; he said he was fine, and the healers seemed to believe him. In that area, the general lack of experience in any case such as his saved him, and he was able to pass off his meager progress as productive, even though, for the very large part, he felt inexplicably worse.
Then there was sleeping.
The restlessness began immediately, but the black dreams started a few days into his hospital stay. At first, he couldn't remember much of them except that waking was a relief, even if it was to mind-splitting headaches. As days passed, however, flinches or glimpses of real world things would painfully summon to memory a lingering echo of the nightmares. A flicker of a candle would leave him with the stamp of a blazing fire against his throbbing head. His father's humbled chuckle at something his mother said in the effort to induce a laugh from him would turn into a vindictive cackle halfway through his mind.
They became more vivid as time passed, both the dreams themselves and the memories of them after he awoke. Some nights he jerked awake in a cold sweat and cradled his head until the sun rose. Other times he actually awoke with tears in his eyes, and had to hastily wipe them away before he could even admit to himself they'd been present at all. He spent the days walking the halls with an irrational fear that something would suddenly explode in a shower of chaos and catastrophe and he would discover it was really an awful dream in itself. Sometimes the headaches helped ward off dwelling on them. Other times they didn't.
It was over two weeks into his stay, a full week after the Halloween festivities would have concluded at Hogwarts, when the healers grudgingly gave consent that Albus could return to school. His father argued against it, which earned Albus' wrath—his father also had yet to explain why he had been absent from the fateful match, or even hint as to the reason—but eventually the healers concluded that they were pleased with his apparent progress and that if he no longer wanted to stay they saw no reason to keep him.
His mother explained to him how she and his father had arranged for the train to take him specially back to Hogwarts on account of his head, but the thought of a seven-hour train ride all by himself, alone with his thoughts, terrified him so much that he insisted on apparating, the consequences be damned. Another lengthy argument with his parents ensued, before he was finally able to convince them he was able to do it. With great reservation, his stone-faced father consented to a side-along after Albus was discharged.
As it turned out, he was not prepared for the adventure. His father and he landed in Hogsmeade, and he promptly collapsed to the ground and unloaded the majority of the previous weeks' meager meals. It took a great deal of angry coughing and growling to convince Harry Potter not to whisk his son back to St. Mungo's right away and resulted in Albus, while hardly able to stand enough to put one foot in front of the other, beginning to stalk towards the castle on his own, forcing his father to follow. Normally, Harry Potter wouldn't have allowed such disobedience, would have stunned him and dragged him back regardless, whether or not he was of age.
But the Harry Potter of before wasn't the Harry Potter of after, Albus had noticed early into the hospital stay. It was all his fault. And he hated himself for it.
He hated the way people stared at him. Rose and Lily both swore they hadn't told a soul, and Scorpius never would have betrayed his secrecy, but by the time he came down to the Great Hall for the first time on Monday morning, everyone seemed to know that Albus Potter had been rocked to the moon and back and wouldn't be able to play quidditch again for the rest of his life.
His dishevelment was obvious, even to himself. It embarrassed him, but if he had let Evan dress him as his friend had offered, the humiliation would have been worse. His tie was uneven and his shirt crinkled; his robe was too hot and made his head pound. He'd slept little since returning and woken up gasping each time he had. It was only a stark effort of pitiful self-determination that kept him from limping to the hospital wing and calling it quit once again.
Rose had the same idea. "You look terrible, Albus," she whined as he stumbled into a seat at the Gryffindor table. Scorpius slid in next to him and said nothing. "You should go see Madam Pomfrey, I know she'll have something to help with your headaches..."
"I'm fine, Rose," he replied. He reached for porridge and blinked when it seemed to shift position before his eyes. It took two tries and a sigh of patience for him to get some onto his plate, and after only one bite he felt too queasy to take another.
"You sure as hell don't look fine," Dominique quipped, shaking her head at him from Rose's other side across the table. "You shouldn't even be here, Al. I'm not even saying that because I'm a firm supporter of skipping class. You look bloody awful, like a vampire conceived with a banshee and had you instead."
If it was an effort to make him laugh, it failed. "I'm fine," he repeated, and forced himself to take another mouthful of porridge to prove them all wrong. It very nearly reemerged.
The worst part, beyond the headaches, beyond the nausea and the inability to focus, was how understanding and consoling everyone was. He barely got to Ancient Runes on time because he had to stop to shake the hands and listen to the condolences of what must have been two dozen people. If he'd had the clear head to do it, he would have snapped at them, but gritting his teeth and enduring their sympathy was less painful, and for the moment he conceded defeat.
He should have known better than to expect it to be easier as the day progressed. When he finally reached the Ancient Runes classroom, filled with only six other people, the two Seventh year Ravenclaws looked as though he were a hero returning from across the sea. Rhystara Malfoy pointedly stared at the chalk board and away from him, but both Greg and Rose were trying too hard to be casual to hide how concerned they were.
Even worse, when he stumbled to Professor Hastings to achingly ask for the mountain of homework he would have to make up, the man spent a very gay moment staring straight into his eyes and murmuring, "I can't tell you how sorry I am, Albus. I don't know what words could take away your pain, but I'm here, for anything, if you need me."
"Uh... thanks, sir," Albus mumbled in response. "I... I just want the homework I missed... I'll try to get it all done and get back on track as soon as I can. The last thing I want is to hold you or the class back. Especially now that I'll have so much time, though..."
He trailed off, not even realizing the self-pitying remark before it was past his lips. Professor Hastings grimaced understandingly and nodded, pulling a piece of paper on which were written the assignments from the text that he had missed. It barely took up four lines of the parchment, and Albus was absolutely sure the man had shortened it for him. He had never felt guiltier, or more hate-filled towards himself, as long as he had lived as he walked back to his seat next to Greg and resisted cradling his dying head in his hands.
Other professors were equally as sympathetic but not nearly so generous. Professor Donovan expressed his sincere regrets while handing over the guidelines for a five-foot essay he expected by the following Monday. Slughorn explained exactly why it was such a great tragedy—exactly how fantastic Albus' professional career would have been—before listing a series of no fewer than eight concoctions he expected Albus to complete and deliver on his own time. By the time Albus dragged himself into the Great Hall, almost literally leaning on Scorpius, he had been forced to relegate how the stack to Evan, in shame, because he was too weak to handle it all himself.
"How was your day, Albus?" Rose asked, too chirpily, as soon as Albus had sat down.
"I'm a fucking burden."
"No, you're not," Evan snapped back immediately.
"You just carried half my things in here," Albus hissed, leaning against the table and fighting the sensation to be sick. "I can't walk up a staircase without having to pause and clear my head. I couldn't follow a word Professor Hastings was saying in class today, Rose, and I can't even remember what I'm supposed to write that Transfiguration essay on, anymore."
"The inverse relationship between the nature of the transfiguration formula and the fundamental law of cross-nature conjuration," Rose quipped quietly. Just hearing it made his brain give a great blast of agony. "It really wasn't that difficult. I can help you, it won't take us more than a few hours."
Albus grunted and dared to pick a dinner roll off a plate. He hadn't eaten at lunch and didn't feel like anything now, but he bit into it anyway. "Well, I'll have to hold off on that for a while. There's a ton of Ancient Runes to do first, though not as much as there could be. I have potions and tables from Slughorn that he wants by Monday, though. That's going to be the worst of it."
"I'll pitch in for those," Scorpius told him immediately. "I did 'em without you the first time, so they couldn't have been awful to begin with, but together we'll knock them off in no time."
Chewing carefully, Albus closed his eyes and suppressed another beat of shame, too grateful in his moment of weakness for his friends to put the feeling into words. "That'd be great. Any way we can possibly hit that tonight? My head's an anvil and I think the fumes would actually help me feel better."
"Uh..." Scorpius' face went blank so quickly that Albus thought he had offended his best mate for a very tense moment. "Al... I can't, tonight. We've got..."
"Oh. Right." It was Monday night. Gryffindor practiced on Monday night, from the end of dinner till an hour after sundown. Albus was unprepared for the sensation of pain that followed the realization. It wasn't physical, and it wasn't mental. It was something entirely more basic and horrible, and he set the roll down on his plate with a completely eradicated appetite. "Sorry."
"No, mate, I'm sorry—"
"You've got no bloody reason to be," Albus hissed, gripping the edge of the table with white knuckles and trying to will the ache in his temples away. "Have you found a new chaser yet?"
"Eh... no. Tryouts are tonight..."
He gripped the table harder, closing his eyes. "Gale Haymitch has a good arm, just inaccurate. Dana McGregor might be a better bet, she's great on her broom for what she lacks in size. Beth Spring may be small, but she's got some feistiness to her. Or Tyler—"
"I know, Al," Scorpius interrupted, forcefully but not rudely. Albus had to suppress another painful jolt. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure they'll all tryout. If... if you want, you can come down to the pitch with me..." Scorpius adjusted his tie, something he only ever did when he was nervous. "You've got a better eye than me when it comes to players. You could come watch and tell me what you think about who tries out..."
The simple thought of doing so made Albus' stomach twist into knots and his head pound with hatred. Of what, he didn't know. "Thanks, mate, but I'd better just go to the library and start at all this rubbish. The sooner I start, the sooner it'll be over. Maybe we can talk later."
"Yeah. Sure." They both seemed relieved when the conversation ended, and Rose and Dominique exchanged frightful glances before engaging Evan in a supposedly humorous story about Astronomy woes. Albus wasn't listening; the sudden thought of a rift between him and Scorpius, his brother in all but blood—and especially over something they both loved—was worse than his most deadly headache.
The Great Hall gradually emptied. Scorpius stole off to the quidditch pitch, a guilty-looking Lily shooting tentative glances at Albus as she followed. Dominique and Evan stole off back to the common room while Rose lingered with Albus. She offered to go to the library with him, especially since she had finished all of the Ancient Runes herself, but admitted to having to complete a long Arithmancy assignment when he pressed her worried expression. Finally, though he tried to prolong it as long as possible and she looked guilty to go, Rose headed back to the seventh floor and Albus hoisted all of his homework and plodded his way to the library.
Ancient Runes had long been his favorite class. He didn't know what it was about them, like a giant puzzle, but in a way they reminded him of the strategy of sport. It must have been a fault of his, only loving things that took work, discipline, and intelligence to control. Or a challenge. If it was delivered with a solvable complexity, there was nothing he loved more than a challenge.
It almost seemed like another thing that he'd lost. With an attempted upbeat attitude, Albus picked a table in a quiet corner and set out determined to complete all of the Ancient Runes and perhaps get a start on his Transfiguration essay, as well, before the night was out. He pulled his textbook and ignored his headache as he dove into the cryptic symbols of ancient magical civilizations. Everything was all right for the first two or three minutes. Then, without warning, the effort of staring at the strange blocks and slashes induced an awful throbbing behind his eyes and he had to set down his quill for several moments until it abated. Gritting his teeth after he'd calmed, he tried to set back into it and found his vision swimming, the runes dancing back and forth on his paper.
So it was that Albus spent his Monday evening straining through problem after problem, struggling to focus on what he was doing without inducing a shattering migraine and then, even if he managed to shut out the pain, running into a problem he couldn't deduce the solution to with his inability to focus. With every pause and grimace his frustration grew, and it seemed as if he made no headway at all. On top of the struggle to comprehend his work, he began to imagine Scorpius outside, testing his replacements. The thought made him all the more intent to dive into the runes, but the result of that was only a steeper stab behind his eyes.
The result was that when he glanced up at a clock he found that it was past nine, and that the library had closed. He had accomplished less than half of the Ancient Runes, and he had no confidence in the validity or accuracy of his work with the strain it had taken to complete. He hadn't touched Transfigurations.
Meanwhile, Madam Johnstone, the elderly librarian, was sitting behind her desk and eyeing him with concern. On at least a dozen other occasions, she had mercilessly chased him and Scorpius from the very same library well before closing hours, and here she was watching him with compassion well after the doors were locked. A lump formed in his throat, of shame and pain and self-loathing. How pitiful he must have been, when the most ruthless, bitter woman in the school was putting herself through more work for his account.
Quietly, staring at the ground, he gathered his books into his bag and shakily left the library, avoiding the gaze of the librarian the entire way. Practice was long over for Gryffindor. Scorpius was probably wondering where he was. Or still showering. Or having a blast with Rose and Evan and Dom without him.
Albus shook his head angrily as he stole up a side stair and picked a less-vertically challenging route back to Gryffindor tower. Even ascending the one level was making his vision swim. The sideway was doubly convenient for avoiding people. Avoiding their presence, avoiding their stare, avoiding their pity, avoiding the way they looked at him as if was broken. Used. Done. As if he was a victim. As if he had suddenly become nothing because of what he had lost.
He wasn't sure what felt worse: that they thought all that he was, was in quidditch... or that he was terrified be right.
Distractedly, he angrily kicked open the door to the next passage, earning a throbbing foot that was eclipsed immediately by a blast of pain in his head, in the process startling a couple locked in a passionate embrace on the other side. Rhystara Malfoy and Sidney Acres jumped and jerked to glare at him as he stepped through and froze, quickly averting his eyes away from the embarrassing scene.
"Oh. Fuck. Sorry," he mumbled, keeping his eyes away from them. Without saying another word, or waiting to hear their own pitying opinions of why he was suddenly the world's greatest sob story, Albus turned and started to stalk up the hallway, leaving them to each other and whatever the hell else wanted to happen to make him feel more insignificant and forgotten. He almost choked a laugh aloud; his luck to have it that he would stumble upon the only person not feeling sorry for him in an incredibly pleasurable situ—
Something wasn't right.
He stopped, dead in his tracks, the fractured state of his mind declaring with great alarm that he had missed something absolutely integral. He could feel his pulse in his temple, slamming away a wave of agony with every beat, but for the importance of the moment, he ignored it. Tasting wrongness on the air, he slowly turned back around.
Both Rhystara and Sidney were still staring after him, not having moved a muscle from the moment he banged through the door. Rhystara's back was against the stone wall, not altogether surprising, her hands raised above her head. What Albus only noticed on the second glance, however, was that Acres' hands had her wrists pinned in an unbreakable trap, and that his lower body was pressed against hers in a way that wasn't erotic as much as restrictive. Then he glanced at their faces. Sidney's was wide and shocked, as if he'd been tossed sleeping into the lake. Rhystara's, however, was morphed in fear. Glistening tracks ran from both eyes; as he turned back, a tear dripped from her chin to the still, dusty floor far below.
The three of them glared at one another in mixed states of horror for a terribly long moment. Then Acres' hand was flying for his pocket. Albus was faster. Racking headaches or no headaches, he had never lost a draw. Not to James. Not to Lily. Not to Fred, Rose, Dominique, or Scorpius. Not even to Rhystara.
"That's far enough," he droned coldly, so coldly that Acres' hand froze without ever having entered the folds of his robes. Albus aimed his wand for the Head Boy's throat, fully aware of what he was doing, fully aware of how messed up it was, fully aware of how serious the situation appeared to be.
Once again, all three of them were frozen. Acres was staring at him with a face as pale as the moon. Rhystara was glancing between them in horror, as if she couldn't decided who she was more terrified of. The look of fear in her eyes was foreign, and bothered Albus in a peculiar way.
It only struck him after a moment of throbbing stillness for him to realize that it was his move, but he had no idea what to do. What he had just walked in on... what would have happened if he had chosen a different route back to the Gryffindor Tower... fury rose in him just to contemplate it, and he realized very explicitly that he was staring at his best mate's little sister in a position completely out of her control. A level of anger beyond his own self-loathing and agony rose in his head, so high that it blocked out the throbbing completely and narrowed his stare onto the Head Boy, standing with Rhystara Malfoy pinned against a wall, clearly against her will, in the middle of a corridor that would have been deserted at this time of night on any other night.
His grip on his wand tightened with the feeling, but he struggled to maintain calmness as he thought of what to do. Part of him wanted to hex Acres into the next century and part of him was completely unsure of himself. Not only because he wasn't sure he could actually do it, but that was certainly something; whether his head was momentarily prominent, any defensive spell would be long past the point of recovery he had attained. It was a good thing Acres didn't know that. However, Albus was quite ready to snap out a curse anyway, regardless of its toll on him, the second the boy's hand went for his pocket again.
In the end, the silence grew too long and the inaction too pregnant for him to wait any longer in indecision without violent consequences. He swallowed, making a decision. "Rhystara. Come here."
She did as told. Acres let her go, his jaw tense and his eyes fixated on Albus the entire time. Albus didn't watch Scorpius' sister as she approached him with her head down and a sniffling nose, but even with his hammering vision he could see her trembling peripherally. She stopped when she was next to him, acting as if she fully expected him to hex her, too, while Albus and Acres kept glaring at one another. Anything of the calm, collected, confident Slytherin he thought her as was completely gone.
Albus wasn't sure what he had intended to do with her once she was next to him, but the trembling wiped away whatever it had been. "Go," he muttered, his wand aligned perfectly with Acres' Adam's apple.
The girl didn't need to be told twice. She took off at a run; Albus didn't watch her go, but her footsteps resounded blaringly throughout the corridor as she sprinted down it. He was sure he heard a sob or two intermixed, and then there was a distant slamming of another door at some end somewhere else. Then all was still.
The two boys stood alone. Albus' wand hand began to tire, but he stiffened his elbow and held it aloft, letting lingering fury empower his body. Acres stared back, his hand still halfway to his own wand, ready at a moment's lapse to retaliate. Albus was surprised to realize that he was thinking, at the moment, not of losing a duel, but that if he did, he had to at least give Rhystara enough time to get help.
But she wouldn't get help. He knew that instantly. Help would be admitting it had happened and she would never survive that. He knew it in the same moment he knew he couldn't blame her for it. At the same moment he knew he couldn't do this without admitting that it had happened, which would have the same effect on her. And she had no right to be put through that against her will. No one did.
He cleared his throat, his head pounding. "I don't know what happened here," he told Acres loudly. Maintaining eye contact, he shook his head and added, "And I don't want to know. I'm going to walk away now, and you're going to do the same. Do we understand one another?"
Very carefully, Acres nodded. His arm didn't flinch. Albus watched very closely, and then he began to back away. The effort cost him with his condition, but his steps fell against the ground without staggering. He backed off for a very long several moments, brandishing his wand at Acres the entire way while the Head Boy remained still. Only when he was very confident he was at least as far as it would take Acres to lob an accurate curse at his back did Albus turn and hurry along the corridor. He prayed he had given Rhystara enough of a head start back to the dungeons, and then took the first door out of the passage that he could.
The common room was already empty by the time he finally got there, his headaches returning in full force. Scorpius was passed out in their room, which was just as well. Albus didn't know what he would have said to his best mate had he been awake.
As he undressed and climbed into bed, he wondered grimly what the scene was in the sixth year Slytherin girls' dormitory eight floors below. He glanced over at Scorpius once more as he laid down with a throb-induced groan of effort and realized that he would have to steel himself against blurting out what he had just witnessed to his mate the moment they were both awake in the morning. It was fortunate, therefore, that he lied in his bed long into the early morning, staring at the ceiling of his four-poster and remembering terrified tear tracks. He found that he almost preferred the nightmares.