Disclaimer: Je ne possède pas.
A/N: Soo, yes. I'm back. :D And very glad to be, I can honestly say. I've missed this story. My computer is now fixed, and I'm ready to begin writing and updating again. I can't say that things will be back onto an every-week basis like before (every 2 weeks, maybe?), but updates will always be on a Friday. Keep your eyes open and this story on Story Alert. :D
Go ahead and insert the Scorpius bit of the Prologue here, before this chapter.
Dramatic chapter :D Some things are said and done. (VAGUE FTW!)
Scorpius didn't know why he kept being so masochistic, but he couldn't stop himself from spending his every morning in Al's room before he headed to the Ministry with Harry. He used the time, the eventless time, to just give himself time to… think. About everything.
Even in the midst of the tragedy directly involving the raven-haired boy, something about his room, his everlasting scent wafting through the clean air, his unseen presence, always calmed the blond, always cleared his muddled mind of anything he didn't want to distract him.
It wasn't that Scorpius was anesthetized to the fact that Al was gone (no, it was ever-raw in his chest, reminding him of the boy's absence constantly), but something about the thought of him lifted Scorpius's spirit rather than brought him down.
As he was never an optimist, this truly confused Scorpius.
But at the same time, it wasn't as if Al being gone wasn't having any negative effect on him at all. The first few days without him were nearly unbearable, everything that reminded Scorpius of the other boy infallibly bringing him to tears. In the beginning, he often felt his breath choke in his throat, the ever-present notion of Al not being there, not being safe, driving him to a guilt, anxiety, and misery that was unparalleled.
Even after two months, he could feel it at all times as an obscure emptiness running through his veins, a frost and shallowness in the breaths he took. He had trouble sleeping without Al by his side (though not as hard a time as Teddy, whose sallow complexion boasting black circles under his eyes and ambient cup of coffee told stories that his words didn't), and he was rarely ever hungry for a full meal. As a result, he was slimming down steadily from his already-lean figure, though not nearly as dramatically as the starved boys on camera…
Don't think about that. His hand unconsciously clutched the necklace Al had claimed years prior. Thinking about what was actually happening to both Potters was something that brought moisture to his eyes without fail.
Instead, he tended to keep his mind on happier times they'd all had. His emotional state could tolerate thoughts spanning from the first day they'd met (how awkward a meeting it was) to the hour they split up in Diagon Alley… More frequently than not, his thoughts found themselves in the bookshop just before they rang up their items.
After they'd both found their necessary books (save for Advanced Potion Making, which only Scorpius needed), Scorpius had conveniently found his way to an aisle near the back, between two rather high shelves. He'd felt a sudden, indescribable craving for the smaller boy's contact back in the first shop they'd visited, and he was more than determined to indulge himself.
Undoubtedly looking for the blond in the first place, Al had discovered him in the moderately-secluded area.
Scorpius had casually beckoned him over, and when the boy had stopped nearer to him with an amused expression, Scorpius had taken the stack of books from his small hands, his own in a pile on the floor beside him, set them to the ground, and proceeded to pull Al snugly into his arms.
Though he still seemed the slightest bit confused, even startled, Al had responded with the warmth and acceptance that Scorpius so constantly desired.
He hadn't cared, still didn't care, if what they did was normal, or socially acceptable on any level beyond hasty lies about purely platonic feelings, or fundamentally wrong, only that the smaller boy was exactly what Scorpius needed to stay happy and sane.
And so, the boys had stayed there, holding each other close in the public space, blissfully uncaring of any passer-by, Scorpius's chin resting atop Al's messy head that he adored.
Just as Scorpius had been getting entirely intoxicated by Al's scent, his body heat, the feel of his slight figure pressed so willingly against his own, the feeling of falling deeper and deeper into an emotion that honestly used to scare him into near-hysteric fits of isolation, the sound of James and Teddy's voices calling for them sobered him up quickly.
They'd pulled apart, Al's melted green eyes betraying more happiness than his smile did, Scorpius feeling quite like a suffering addict that'd had his fix, but wanted more, more…
He'd gotten his Potions textbook and headed to line with the other three men in what could only be described as a daze inflicted by the feeling of fluttering in the pit of his stomach.
As hard as he tried to recall the last things he'd said to Al, the last things the boy had said to him, he just… couldn't remember. He knew that whatever words he'd said weren't enough, though.
And even as he sat on Al's bed, in Al's room that might as well have been called his own, optimism somehow raising his spirits, Scorpius wished he'd said something more, something that sufficiently expressed how he felt…
"Scorpius!" Harry's voice called from downstairs, breaking through the younger boy's thoughts.
The blond got up immediately, walking out of the room without a backward glance and making his way to the fireplace. Per usual, he went to the Ministry first, Harry following right behind him.
In a way, the teen was still surprised that he was allowed on the team of Aurors at all, being untrained and having not even graduated from Hogwarts yet. But in reality, logically, he knew more about the inner-workings of the kidnappers than anyone else on the team.
It had been sixty-one days since the brothers had been taken, and even though Scorpius felt like they weren't being very productive as a group, he knew that there wasn't much they could do.
Never hesitant to spew names of his father's "friends", the group had a solid list of ex-Death Eaters, suspects, to research. And even though he hadn't been present for the sweep of Malfoy Manor, he'd tried to give insight to anywhere the boys could possibly be hidden, from Draco's bedroom closet to the cupboard tucked away in the corner of a hallway.
Still, after the two months, they had nothing; it was starting to make Scorpius anxious for action.
Straight from the Ministry, after a hasty check for any memos for Harry, they left their wands with the official holder, Ron Weasley, and went to Number Four Privet Drive.
It was strange to be without a wand. His father always having encouraged what he called "independent learning" (but was actually an excuse to keep Scorpius always at an arm's length, never having to deal with him), he'd been given a wand at age five. Ten years without ever being apart from something made him feel pointedly lost without it.
It somewhat mirrored his feelings for Al.
Teddy, as always, had the television propped up against the wall across from the sofas that were already worn when they'd started using them, only becoming more so over the time. The older man sat cross-legged in the middle of a couch straight in front of the television, eyes startlingly bloodshot, hair un-brushed and lacking sheen, as if it being caramel-colored and lightly streaked with premature grays instead of vibrant blue wasn't odd enough, a mug of black coffee in his right hand.
"Anything?" Harry asked. They were the first two to arrive.
Teddy shook his head, swaying as he did so. "They've just been sleeping."
"Which you haven't," Scorpius pointed out, taking his favorite spot against an armrest of the adjacent sofa.
Teddy chuckled humorlessly, raising his mug in a mock-toast before taking a sip and pulling a pained expression as if it burned him.
"How many hours did you get last night?" Harry asked, looking at him sternly.
The brunet blinked twice. "Hours?"
"Of sleep," The Head Auror pressed.
He shrugged. "Two, maybe three."
Scorpius felt a pang of pity.
"Ted, why don't you go back upstairs and get some rest? You're off on Wednesdays anyway." Harry said concernedly.
The man shook his head. "There's work to be done, isn't there?"
Harry opened his mouth to respond (rather pointlessly, in Scorpius's opinion—if there was one thing he'd learned the past two months, it was that once Ted's mind was set, there was no changing it), when he was interrupted by the fireplace roaring to life three times in quick succession, the rest of the team arriving right on time.
Savage took the space on the opposite end of the couch from Scorpius; Shacklebolt sat next to Teddy, rubbing an affectionate, apologetic circle on his shoulder blades as he slouched forward; Williamson didn't sit as soon as he arrived.
"Are you ever going back to school, boy?" The oldest man asked, looking at Scorpius with transparently disapproving eyes, sitting on the other side of Ted.
The blond smiled sadly. "Not until they're back," He replied strongly.
"What are you going to do about missing a Year?" Shacklebolt asked, still moving her dark-skinned hand across Ted's back.
The teen shrugged. "Make it up. Headmistress McGonagall knows why I haven't been there all year, so it's not a problem, really." He knew that Williamson only brought it up because he was looking for an excuse to get him off the team. Of the six people he saw nearly every day, Williamson was the only one who refused to see him past his surname. As a result, he showed the most distaste and mistrust of the boy.
Williamson snorted; Shacklebolt nodded in understanding, offering him a reassuringly rueful smile.
"Anything new, Teddy?" Savage asked.
The man shook his head. "Just sleeping."
"And what about the search in Knockturn Alley?" Harry asked.
"Nothing much. A few people were talking about the job openings in the Ministry, but everyone has been talking about those recently." Ted shrugged.
"Job openings?" Harry's brow furrowed.
"You haven't heard about them?" Savage asked.
"I've been here." Harry gestured to the house.
"Well, a lot of higher-ups are retiring within days or weeks of each other," The quiet, middle-aged man explained, "It's leaving the Offices pretty strained and desperate, giving older workers a chance to get some really drastic promotions."
"Is anyone looking into it?" Teddy asked, taking a final gulp of his coffee and making to walk back to the kitchen for more.
Shacklebolt nodded as she removed her hand from his body. "A few from our Office have tried to find out about it. There's nothing suspicious about it that they've seen."
Both men nodded in acceptance, Teddy disappearing through the kitchen door.
Scorpius was hardly paying attention, his eyes on Al's figure on the screen. He looked so small, so unhealthy, so tortured, his skin chalky white underneath all of the bruising and dirt and dried blood.
His heart felt heavy, stomach sick, mind thinking to the future when Al came back home, safe, and Scorpius could wash the filth off his skin, nurse the bruises all over his body. The blond could scoop him up into an almost-suffocating embrace, promising to never let him go again, their skin pressing together and their body heat mixing after much too long…
He just had to find Al first.
Hours passed uneventfully, Scorpius sitting and reading one of his textbooks that he kept in the Muggle house in an attempt to keep up with his classes. The others were catching up on long-overdue paperwork that the teen was quite glad he didn't have to worry about doing. More than once, there was a disturbance in the silence as Teddy jerked awake from one of many micro-sleeps.
Finally, after about eight straight hours of this, Harry moved to sit down beside Ted, telling him in a strict voice just loud enough for Scorpius to hear, "Either go upstairs and sleep, or go home for good. This job is not twenty-four/seven, and this isn't healthy. You make your own choice here."
Immediately, Teddy rose from the seat on the couch, slamming his eleventh cup of coffee down on the table, and proceeded to stomp up the stairs.
All relieved that Teddy was finally getting some rest, being concerned that their own team member was being so self-destructive, the next few hours passed peacefully.
Scorpius really hated sitting around, but he knew fully well that the group couldn't do anything at that point. They were stuck.
So, they waited. And as if on cue at eight sharp, some three hours later, the sound of a door opening from the speakers caused all head up snap up and six pairs of eyes to snap to the television screen.
The now-awake Al began to move back into the corner of his cell; James didn't move at all.
"Good evening, Aurors," A now-familiar voice said, ever oily, approaching the camera and picking the device up from its stand.
The team exchanged looks that showed obvious dread. As many times as the voice and the person inflicting the torture had switched out, they recognized this man as being one of the worst.
From the feed, the door rattled again, and the group suddenly got to view an angle of the prison that they'd never seen: the door.
All leaned forward in their seats, scrutinizing; Scorpius's brows knitted together.
The door opened, revealing just a sliver of the world past it.
"Don't point the camera over here, you idiot!" The man entering yelled.
The view promptly went back to the brothers.
Scorpius ignored everyone's voices suddenly in a buzz, racking his mind.
Why did that view seem familiar?
There was a symbol carved into the door, almost indistinguishable in the dim light. It was… a snake, from his best guess.
A snake he'd seen before…
And the outside of the room… the deep, metal-gray of the walls…
Ice settled in Scorpius's stomach.
It was Malfoy Manor.
Unable to stop himself, for a reason he couldn't place, the blond teen flew up the stairs and nearly sprinted down the hall into the bathroom. He slammed the door shut and clutched the edges of the white porcelain sink, hands trembling so violently that it shook him all the way up his shoulders. His mind was playing one memory from his childhood on repeat, a time just before he left for King's Cross for the first time with his father…
He stood dressed and ready, his clothes fitting a bit strangely, despite his parents' attempts at sizing them correctly, due to his long, thin frame. The sitting room of Malfoy Manor was confusing to him in a lot of ways, as he never really understood why someone would want gray walls. But to be fair, he didn't understand a lot of things about his family…
He was getting quite antsy having to wait for so long for his father… he didn't even know where the man went when he'd told his son to wait for him.
Movement from his left caught his eye. The panel of the wall was suddenly swinging open. Scorpius never knew it could do that!
"Ready, Dad?" He asked eagerly, not even registering the oddity of the hidden passageway.
Draco looked rather shocked that his son was right there. He hastily closed the door, but not before Scorpius could catch sight of a menacing snake design on the inside.
"Where's Mum?" Scorpius had asked, his premature self not realizing what was slowly happening to his mother.
"She's still at the Healers', Son. She'll meet us there. We need to go now," He replied emotionlessly.
Scorpius nodded, though his heart fell a bit when he learned that his mother was still sick enough to have to be at the Healers'. "All right,"
Such an insignificant memory… If anything, it was far overshadowed by the actual train ride, when he'd met Al so awkwardly for the first time…
If Scorpius had only recalled it earlier, like when the Aurors had conducted the first search, Al and James could have been back the entire time.
He felt like he needed to tell someone, but his throat was such a tight passage that not even air was fighting its way through. He was hardly able to swallow, much less speak. His internal temperature suddenly felt twenty degrees lower than absolute zero.
Scorpius didn't know where his irrational feelings of betrayal were coming from… He'd always known that it was his biological father who was behind the entire operation… Still, for his father to be keeping two of his very best friends in the same family that the Malfoys had once lived in as a family when his mother was still alive…
He felt sick.
Still, the blond wouldn't hesitate to tell the Aurors exactly where the Potters were being held as soon as he regained feeling in his limbs. No matter what relation he and Draco had, whatever father-son relationship they might have had at one time, none of it mattered. Al was more important than anything now.
The young Malfoy wiped hot tears from the corners of his eyes. He straightened up and ran a hand through his hair just in time for the bathroom door to swing open.
"Shouldn't you be asleep?" He asked after a startled beat to Teddy, who stood in the doorway with an altogether unreadable expression.
"Shouldn't you be watching Al get tortured?" He countered, the first spark of something flashing in his eyes. He shut the door behind him; thankfully, there was enough room for both of them to be comfortably spaced in the bathroom.
"Teddy," He began, his voice shaking, "It's Malfoy Manor. Al and James… they're in Malfoy Manor."
"Had a change of heart and decided to tell us, have you?" The older man's slightly-bleary eyes burned.
Scorpius's brow furrowed in confusion, his brain trying to process Ted's meaning behind his words. "What? No, I just recognized it when the camera showed the door. It's a secret passageway behind one of the panels in the—"
"And you couldn't tell us about it when we searched the house?" The amount of venom in Ted's voice made Scorpius feel like shrinking back a bit.
The words hit him hard. "I only just remembered!"
"Conveniently forgot until now, did you?" He accused.
"No, Teddy, I—"
"It's your fault they're still there."
Scorpius's mouth snapped shut, his body going completely numb at the pure hatred in the Auror's voice. He felt like he shut down for just a moment, unable to recognize anything with his senses at the same time they were all working simultaneously on overdrive.
"You should be as badly hurt as you caused James and Al to be," Teddy growled. Without warning, his fist swung at the younger boy.
Reflexively, Scorpius stepped back to dodge the blow; he consequently tripped over the edge of the tub and fell back into it.
His vision went black for a second after his head slammed against the wall with an incredibly audible thud. When the stars in his fearful eyes cleared, he saw the older man standing over top of him, fist poised again.
"Teddy, stop!" He yelled from his awkward, defenseless position in the tub, his legs hanging over the edge and his pounding head still on the tile wall.
The livid man hesitated. "Why?"
"Fighting isn't going to get us anywhere," He desperately tried to reason, "I didn't mean to forget. I didn't mean for any of this to happen!"
Teddy still looked doubtful though his fist lowered a bit.
Taking a deep breath, the blond prepared to admit something he'd never said aloud, the only thing he knew would convince Teddy of his solid dedication to the rescue effort. "Teddy, I'm in love with Al."
Something flashed across the man's face, almost like a replaying memory.
Scorpius's heart was pounding. Even as there were more important things to be worried about (Al was being tortured as they spoke…), this confession did something strange in the pit of his stomach. He was actually, finally, putting the fact out in the open to someone (though he was quite sure it was suspected among quite a few already). He exhaled and continued, "With everything I have, with everything in me, I love him."
The anger in Ted's eyes softened.
"I—I know that I've said it before, but I would never do anything on purpose to hurt him or James."
Teddy nodded, eyes no longer burning in any way. Looking rather weary, he held out his hand to help Scorpius out of the tub.
The boy gladly took it, all fear of being hit disappearing. He wiped away the tears that he didn't know were falling.
"I'm sorry," Ted's voice was rough, but honest.
Scorpius nodded as an acceptance. "Listen," He said, his mind abruptly accelerating to a mile a minute, "I have an idea."
Teddy moved to sit on the edge of the bathtub, listening.
"Winter Break is coming up at school. My dad thinks I'm at school still, so what if I went back to Malfoy Manor for the break and became a part of the Death Eater group?" He was feeling excited in a way for some action. He understood that the plan in his mind was much more articulate than he was making it seem, but the hastiness of it all was preventing him from sounding too intelligent. In actuality, the plan was completely panning out from beginning to end in his head, all of it making logical sense and seeming like it would actually work.
The man didn't look convinced.
"At the very least, I can confirm that they're keeping Al and James, and I might be able to find out their plan and tell all of you," He said quickly.
Teddy still seemed unsure. "They may make you do the things they're doing now."
Scorpius stiffened. Though every bit of his moral fiber was against it, he nodded. "I know," If he was working toward a greater good, then everything would be worth it in the end.
"No one is going to pity you for being a martyr," Ted said a bit harshly.
Scorpius sighed indignantly. "I don't want pity, Ted, I just want Al back."
The man nodded, now looking sold on the idea. He stood, brushing past Scorpius to the door. "Let's go tell Harry,"
The blond smiled. They were actually going to move forward on the case, if only just a few steps.
Though he was torn in between dread of what he would have to do to with the Death Eaters over and his loyalty of the Aurors, he was willing to sacrifice literally anything for Al and James's sake.
And if saving the boy he cared for most meant feigning support for his father, Draco, he was going to do it.
A/N: Violent Teddy = :3
Anyway, that's about all there is to say about this chapter. Do you think Harry will let Scorpius go back to Malfoy Manor? Hmm… :D
You know, I just realized that I haven't updated since before the first part of the seventh movie came out… any thoughts you feel like sharing about that? I'm personally disappointed that they took out the entire Lupin/Tonks thing, as much as I dislike that union, but not mentioning that means that there won't be a Teddy in the next movie. :( And I love me some Teddy Remus Lupin. Anyway.
Oh, and since I've gotten really really into Korean Pop as of late, I'm thinking of changing my penname to something that reflects that. Just future notice. XD
Please Review and Story Alert!
See you next time :D
KitKat Pyrophobia
