Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up today folks. There was so much accidental hmtl code you would not believe, I had to go through and scrub it all out. More notes down the bottom!
MUSIC CHAPTER! That's right! This one's actually quite important as it sets up a new skill set for our hero. The music page has moved, please visit misssaigonfic. tumblr musicpost (remove spaces) to listen when you see the lyrics in italics. And let me know if you enjoyed it.
Edit note: The song in this chapter was changed in June 2015, due to the original video being removed.
Preview:
Rose stared. For a moment - a long moment - she didn't recognise him.
Raindrops on Roses
The Best Summer Ever
Part One
(summer before sixth year)
2023
~*-R-*~
~*-R-*~
Rose Weasley turned sixteen in Italy that year. She spent her days walking around Muggle Rome with her mother, who had never been but had done a lot of reading in preparation, and Wizarding Venice, well-connected as they were by a series of Floo points set up specifically for tourism - a concept quite alien to the wizarding population of Britain except for special occasions like the Quidditch World Cup. It was a bit chaotic - the two families made up nine people, after all, and there was the problem of disguising Albus' dad sufficiently to avoid being mobbed in the street. There were still a couple of incidents despite all the precautions they could legally take.
"Wishing you brought the cloak, now?" she heard her father saying to Harry after one such incident where they had been held up for half an hour on the way to dinner. "We could always Disillusion you, I suppose."
"I'm not going invisible to go to a meal with my own family," her uncle replied hotly.
"We could apply for some Polyjuice," Ron suggested, grinning. "I think Dean knows a guy at il Ministero."
"Remember when it was still legal to cook it up in a school bathroom? Good times."
"Yeah, we ruined it for everyone, breaking into high-security Ministry buildings like wanton criminals. Shame."
Her father and uncle were also not always with them. They assured everyone that they were not working, they were after all on holiday, but the Italian Ministry were also having problems with the Shadow. It seemed that he had feelers everywhere in Europe, and might even be branching out to other parts of the world. It made him incredibly hard to track down, as her father was wont to complain in private.
"The stuff's getting worse," she heard him tell her mother. "It started off your generic Dark objects, ancient curses, that sort of thing, but there's so much of it that it has to be coming from somewhere. There aren't that many old dark objects just lying around, unless they've got a secret mine of them."
"You mean they might be making them?" Hermione sounded disgusted by the suggestion. "Do we know if they're real? If it's so widespread…"
"Oh, it's real, what we've got of it, anyway," Ron said darkly. "Some of the things blew up Harry's Sneakoscope. It's only a matter of time before people start dying. Probably they already have, we just don't know it yet."
Rose was left with a paranoid feeling that lasted a few days, wary of everything she touched. Lily insisted that she was going to help catch the Shadow when she left Hogwarts and became an Auror, but Rose hoped that he would be caught long before that.
Apart from that, though, it was a very good holiday, and Rose felt they deserved it after the stress of OWLs, the results of which she awaited anxiously while trying to feign indifference. "Are you sure they'll get here, Mum?" she asked after a few weeks of nail-biting in private. "Maybe the owls won't be able to find us."
"Hogwarts owls can find people anywhere, dear," Hermione assured her. "If one could find me in Bulgaria and your father in Egypt, it'll get here."
"Maybe we should borrow one," Albus muttered. "That's the third time Emmett's come back, useless bird."
Rose thought privately that his owl's inability to deliver his letter to Scorpius had less to do with Emmett's abilities than it did his grandparents' ability to receive them. The lack of correspondence was, while not unexpected, still worrying. But as her mother pointed out, there was little she could do about it.
The OWL letters did arrive, a few days later while they were all sitting around the breakfast table in their shared villa. The adults cheered as they landed on the windowsill, but Rose was suddenly a bundle of nerves and could do nothing but take her letter silently from her mother's hand. She shared a look with Albus, who rolled his eyes and ripped his open with a 'how-bad-could-it-be' attitude. Rose swallowed and followed suit.
OWL Results
Examinations Completed in May of 2022
Rose Weasley has achieved the following:
Arithmancy - O
Astronomy - O
Care of Magical Creatures - O
Charms - O
Defence Against the Dark Arts - O
Herbology - O
History of Magic - E
Study of Ancient Runes - O
Potions - O
Transfiguration - O
Students should indicate which NEWTs they intend on completing. Please fill in the attached form and return to Hogwarts by owl by July 14th. Timetables will be finalised on the first day of term.
Rose looked up, and realised everyone was staring at her. "Well?" her mother prompted.
"Er… not too bad," she said, weakly.
"Passed everything," Albus said triumphantly. "Just an A in Astronomy, but who cares, I was half asleep that night."
"Ten OWLs!" Ginny exclaimed. "Rose? How about you?"
"Yeah." Rose stared at the paper again. She had spent the weeks since the exams trying not to get her hopes up, and it felt very odd now that she didn't have to hold it back anymore.
"Oh well done, darling!" her mother had come round to hug her warmly, before peeking nosily at her letter. "Rosie! Nine O's! I'm so proud of you."
"Which one did you miss?" Albus asked, incredulously.
"Al!" Ginny said warningly.
Rose grinned and swapped papers with her cousin. He had got seven O's, as well as the aforementioned A in Astronomy and E's in Ancient Runes and History of Magic.
"This calls for a celebration," Harry said, in his quietly approving way. James, Fred and Roxie were pulling faces. Rose remembered with amusement that James had only got seven OWLS, and the twins had scraped six each, their only O's in Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts. "Here's to the Ravenclaws." They clinked classes, and Rose saw Albus flushing slightly.
"Oh hell," he said later, after they'd spent half an hour deciding where they'd gone wrong in History of Magic - probably by interchanging some Goblin's names, they were all so similar - "you realise what this means? We're NEWT students now."
"What subjects are you doing?" she asked him cruelly.
"We are on holiday," he reminded her. "I'm not filling that form out till the last minute."
"Those classes have limited places, remember? Do you want to miss out on Charms or Transfiguration because you didn't get it in on time? You need those to get nearly any Ministry job."
"Quidditch, Rosie, Quidditch," he said firmly.
"You can play Quidditch and be good at academics," she told him. "You've managed it so far, right? Anyway what happens when you fall off your broom and get a season-ending injury?"
He had no answer to this, but he did do his form the same time she did, and sent them both with Emmett the next evening. "At least he knows how to find Hogwarts," he muttered.
"You do suppose Scorp's okay, don't you?" she sighed as they watched the owl soar off into the night.
"He's been okay every other summer." He sounded surer than he looked. "I'm sure he's fine."
~*-R-*~
~*-R-*~
Two months went by very fast, although with the help of Hermione's vigorous scheduling skills, they had seen nearly everything there was to see by the time they had to go home. The train would be leaving King's Cross in a week and a half, and they still had to go to London and do their school shopping. Fred, Roxanne, Louis and Lucy, who was starting Hogwarts that year, had already done their Diagon Alley trip. The list of books on the NEWT list was daunting.
"Hannah's asked us to have dinner at the Leaky Cauldron tomorrow," Hermione said, reading the letter over breakfast. "She says she's got a surprise for us."
"Another baby?" Rose's father suggested.
"Ron!"
Hugo snickered, and Rose heard her father high five him under the table. Boys, she thought, rolling her eyes.
"We may as well do our shopping on the same day then," Hermione continued, choosing to ignore them. "And have dinner afterwards. I hope it's not too busy," she added.
"Nothing like the last minute school rush," Ron said cheerfully. "Anyone need new robes, or is it just books this time?"
"Hugo needs new robes," Hermione said, before either of them could answer. "He's starting to grow like a weed."
"Mu-um."
"Rosie? Do you need robes? You haven't grown much since last year, have you?"
"No," Rosie said. At least not in height, she added to herself. She would be filling out her old robes a little more in the front, perhaps, but she was hardly going to say so in front of her dad and brother.
They left for Diagon Alley by Floo after lunch the next day, later than they would have usually started, the adults normally preferring to get in and out before the real crowds. Rose wore Muggle clothes, as usual, but dressed up a bit since they were going out to dinner, picking a knee-length skirt over her usual jeans, and a cream-coloured lacy singlet she had bought in Italy. She left her hair out - there was very little to be done with it, anyway.
"Guess what?" Albus said when they met the Potters at the Leaky Cauldron, and flashed her a badge on his jumper.
She grinned. "Quidditch captain?"
He looked a bit put out that she wasn't more surprised. "Well, yeah."
"Good for you."
He flushed. "I thought it would have been Reina or Benjy," he said, naming the two seventh years on the team. "They're older."
"So? You're better than them. You're a good Seeker, but you know more about the whole game, too - you'll be a great captain."
"Thanks, but - watch it!"
They were being shoved almost back into the fireplaces by the sudden rush of people coming through the pub.
"Oh, I'm so glad we don't have to do this again after Hugo leaves school," Hermione sighed, pulling Hugo towards her and holding onto his shirt despite his protests.
"Keep your head down, Dad," Albus muttered. "Wouldn't want you getting mobbed."
"Very funny," Harry said. "Come on, let's get out of here, we'll come back later."
As they walked through the pub, elbowing their way through the mass of people making their way to and from Diagon Alley as well as the many patrons at the tables and servers rushing to and from the kitchen, Rose thought she thought someone call her name. She looked over her shoulder, but there were too many people, even if she hadn't just imagined it.
They decided to do the bookshop last, as those were the heaviest things to carry. Ginny took Hugo and Lily to get fitted for new school robes, and Harry went to the bank. James split off to go to Weasley's Wizard's Wheezes, since he had all his NEWT things already. The rest of them went to the Apothocary to get Potions ingredients, and then the petshop for a year's supply of owl and cat treats.
As they walked back towards the bookshop, Rose heard her name again. "What is that?" she muttered, looking around.
"What?" said Al, confused.
"Over here!"
Someone was coming towards them from the direction of the Leaky Cauldron. He came up to them, grinning widely. "Hello," he said, cheerfully.
Rose stared. For a moment - a long moment - she didn't recognise him. He was tall, much taller, at least half a head taller than she was. Where she was used to seeing wizard's robes, he was wearing dark jeans and a black t-shirt bearing the slogan "I listen to bands that don't even exist yet". His usually pale hair gleamed golden in the sunlight, and it was slightly curly, and his skin, usually almost marble white after spending months indoors at the end of summer, flushed with a healthy colour.
Oddly enough it was the guitar case she recognised, battered as ever and slung across his back with a strap much newer than the rest of the ensemble; it had an Eagle on it in some kind of native-American motif, in Ravenclaw colours. She blinked, and realised she had forgotten to breathe.
"Scorp?" she gasped.
He grinned, and she felt her heart do a funny sort of hop-skip in her chest. "It is you!" She ran towards him and he caught her up, lifting her slightly off the ground as her momentum nearly knocked him over, but he was laughing. "What happened?" she exclaimed. "You got so tall!"
"I know right, finally!" he said, putting her down. He didn't seem to notice - or perhaps he didn't care - that her parents were there, watching. "I always refused to accept I was going to be short forever."
"Mate," Al was staring at Scorpius with a similar expression to what Rose herself must be wearing. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I live here," he replied, innocently.
Rose punched him, hard in the arm. "We've been worried about you, you ass!"
"Ow! Look, I'm in a rush, I can't really talk - but you're coming to the Leaky for dinner, right?"
"Yes, but -"
"I'll see you then. I've got a surprise for you."
"Other than that you're here and not murdered and buried in a shallow grave?" Al asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, other than that - I have to go, I need new strings - bye! Nice to see you again, Mr & Mrs Weasley." He waved to Rose's parents and hurried off, to the end of the street where it junctioned into Knockturn Alley.
"What the hell?" Albus said, with feeling. "No wonder Emmett couldn't deliver the letters, if he's been here the whole time - where is he staying?"
"The Leaky Cauldron, I suppose," Hermione said, looking thoughtful. "That must have been what Hannah meant by having a surprise for us."
Ron snorted, as if to say he could imagine better surprises.
Rose wanted to go after Scorpius and drown him in questions, and Albus was not far behind her, but her parents dragged them back. "We still have to get your books before dinner," Hermione pointed out.
"Do you think he ran away?" Rose whispered to Albus anxiously.
Albus thought about it for a moment as they went into the bookshop. "You'd think so, but Neville's a teacher, right? He can't just harbour a runaway, he'd lose his job, and probably get in trouble with the Ministry. Hannah, too. Scorp wouldn't do that to them."
"But his grandparents can't have just let him stay here." She ran her fingers along the bookshelf dedicated to Transfiguration, looking for the NEWT textbook. "He'd never be allowed."
"Well it has to be one or the other, doesn't it," Albus said grimly.
"At least he seems… happy," Rose admitted. "He always comes back after summer looking so pale and miserable. And he's done something with his hair… I hardly recognised him."
"Just what he always wanted," Albus said, frowning.
Rose shot him a look. "You're just jealous because he's taller than you, now."
"I am not. I'm just thinking… what if he's done something really dumb?"
"Well I'm sure he'll explain it all later." She felt much calmer now that she had thought about it a bit. If there were any danger, surely Scorpius wouldn't have been so cheerful. "Aha, NEWT Transfiguration." She tossed him a copy. "Now Ancient Runes."
It seemed to take ages to find all their books, pay for them, and round up everyone else. She could hear her father muttering to uncle Harry, and she thought she could guess what the conversation was about, but she didn't care. "Let's go," she prompted, tugging at her mother's sleeve impatiently like a child. She was starting to think she might have imagined the whole thing, it had been so quick. She needed to see him again to prove it had really happened, that she hadn't just made it up out of hope that he was happy and well.
Since it was so late, the Leaky Cauldron had calmed down somewhat, but there were still plenty of people sitting and eating. The smell of good food wafted up from the tables, making her tummy rumble, but she was too busy looking around to notice. She scanned the faces of all the guests, but couldn't place them. For a moment she thought he wasn't there, but then she saw a flash of blonde hair out of the corner of her eye, and turned to look. He was coming out of the kitchen door, backwards, wearing an apron over his t-shirt and carrying a large tray with plates and drinks. As she watched he made his way over to a group of young people, some of whom she recognised as former Hogwarts students, who cheered his arrival as he lowered the tray onto the table.
"There you are!" Hannah had appeared from behind the bar, wearing a bright yellow apron. Her hair was tied in a single plait down her back, and she was beaming. "Hello all of you - how was Italy? Lizzie's so looking forward to seeing you, come in, come in." She led them to a large table, thrown together out of several smaller tables, in the middle of the room. Usually when they visited, they went upstairs to eat in the apartment where Neville and Hannah lived, but Rose realised that there wouldn't be enough room, for three whole families. "Sit down, go on, put your bags under, I'll just go get everyone." She bustled off as quickly as she had come. Rose craned her neck to see over her shoulder as Scorpius picked up his empty tray and hurried off in another direction. He works here, she realised belatedly, feeling stupid. When he had said he lived here, she had imagined him crashing at the Leaky Cauldron the way she herself had done a few times when she was younger - though probably they wouldn't let him bunk in Lizzie's room, she added to herself. Again she wondered how he had managed it. Surely his father would never have allowed him to sink to what in his opinion must be a level of indignity far below those of the ancient house of Malfoy.
Everyone was sitting down and chatting, Hugo, the family's future naturalist, rattling off the creatures he wanted to study with Hagrid after peeking through his new Care of Magical Creatures book, James clearly just wishing he wasn't the only one his own age at the table, Lily re-tying her hair and complaining that it never stayed up - only Albus seemed to share her curiosity, and even he didn't seem surprised to see his friend in an apron. Rose supposed that she should have expected it too, after all he had already served at the pub for an afternoon, last Christmas. But this was different, from the look of him he'd been here for weeks if not almost the entire summer...
The Longbottom family arrived in a flurry of noise and excitement. Neville, holding Alice by the hand, happily shook hands with the men and kissed cheeks with the women while Hannah fussed over how tall Lily was getting and how much she looked just like her mum, and everyone wanted to cuddle Alice. "Rose, Albus!" Lizzie exclaimed, coming over to hug them both. "How was Italy?"
"Great," Albus told her. "How was your summer?"
"Oh you know, just normal," she said, smiling innocently, pulling out the chair next to them.
"Why didn't you tell us he was here?" Rose asked immediately.
Lizzie looked surprised. "I thought he must have. Anyway you know our owl's getting old, no way she could go all the way to Venice and back."
"When did he -" Rose began, but Neville was already waving everyone back to the table. He lifted Alice up and plonked her into a seat.
"Quietening down, finally," he observed. "I think we should close early tonight, dear."
"Who runs this pub, me or you?" Hannah said sternly, but she leaned over and kissed his cheek in recompense. "Where's Scorpius?"
Rose saw her father's head go up. The other adults, she noticed, did not look uninterested.
"Over there, Mum." Lizzie pointed to where Scorpius was now removing plates from an abandoned table.
"Oh for goodness -" Hannah shook her head. "He should have stopped an hour ago." She hurried over to him, and Rose saw her waving down another server to take over.
"We've been short-handed today," Neville offered by way of explanation. "I'd help, but I'm no hand with trays, and plates, half the time they end up on the floor. I'd levitate them if it wasn't against Hannah's strict food handling rules."
"Sorry, sorry," Scorpius was saying, pulling his apron off over his head as Hannah dragged him over, practically by the ear. "Felicity went home early, cos her grandfather's ill, and it all went pear-shaped for a while…"
"Well it's under control now, so sit down," Hannah said firmly, leading him to the empty chair at the end next to Alice. "Before you fall down."
"Yes marm," he said meekly, tickling Alice's tummy as he sat down so that she giggled and slapped at his hand with her small pudgy one.
"Scorpius, you're looking very well," Ginny said politely.
"Thanks," the boy grinned. Rose was struck yet again by how he didn't seem to mind all the adults staring at him. At the memorial breakfast last year, his first time meeting most of them, he'd been almost catatonic with shyness. "How was Italy?"
"Oh, it was beautiful. We so rarely have the opportunity to travel as a family, Harry and Ron are so busy..."
"I'll see about the food," Hannah said, bustling off.
"I'd offer to help, but she'd hex me to the chair," Scorpius sighed.
"Hex me, hex me!" Alice demanded, drumming her fists on the arms of the chair.
"I'll hex you silly in a minute, you menace," Scorpius told her, tickling the back of her neck and making her laugh even more.
"He's totally brainwashed her," Lily said, sticking her tongue out at Scorpius, who shrugged.
"We can't help it if we're best friends, right Ally-pally?" The child's answer was to stick her own tongue out at her sister in turn.
"Manners, girls," Neville said sternly, though Rose thought she saw a hint of an amused smile on his face.
"All right," Albus said, cutting through Alice's giggles to ask Scorpius directly. "Spill. How did you get here. And when? And why didn't you say anything?"
"You didn't run away, did you?" Rose asked quietly, feeling guilty for asking, especially in front of everyone.
"No, I didn't run away," Scorpius sighed. "Not that they would have noticed if I had," he added in a low murmur. "I put up with them ignoring me for a week, then I asked grandmother if I could visit friends."
"And they let you?" Rose asked incredulously.
"Well I didn't say which friends. She didn't even ask. Honestly I expected her to say no, but I wasn't going to stick around to see if it was a test. I was starting to get asthma from the dust. I hadn't even really thought about where I was going to go… this was the first place I thought of."
"We're glad to have you," Neville said, nodding encouragingly. "We'd have had him for nothing," he explained, "but he insists on earning his room and board."
"Well it's not like I've much else to do," Scorpius shrugged. "And I like it. And I've made extra, for clothes and stuff." He plucked at his 'bands' T-shirt. "Lizzie took me shopping in Muggle London!"
"We only got as far as Westfield, I thought his head was going to explode," Lizzie said.
"Oh lor', you didn't take him to an Apple store, did you?" Albus winced.
Scorpius laughed. "It was brilliant!"
"We were in there for hours," Lizzie groaned. "You can take him next time."
"No fear!"
"But, surely your grandparents didn't expect your visit to last all summer?" Hermione broke in. "Won't they be worried about you?"
Scorpius shrugged. For a second, Rose thought she saw something of the old Scorpius, the miserable cloud that had hung over him at the end of fifth year, flicker across his face. "I wrote to them after a week and told them I was staying. No answer, so I guess they're okay with it."
"What if -" Rose didn't want to press the issue, but there seemed to be so many holes in this plan. "What if they write to your father?"
Scorpius shot her a hard look, and there were a few seconds of heated silence. She half expected him to yell at her. "They won't," he said eventually, relaxing slowly as though he was willing it on himself. "Trust me."
"So Rose, Albus, how were your OWLs?" Neville asked, neatly changing the subject as Hannah came back leading three other servers with trays of food that were put down on the table for sharing.
"They both did very well," Hermione said proudly - and loudly - before either of them could reply. "Ten each! Rose got nine Os, though of course I wouldn't have expected any less."
"Mu-um," Rose protested automatically.
"Lizzie got seven," Hannah said proudly.
"Mum!" Lizzie exclaimed.
"Sweetheart, I'm just so proud of you!"
"Just so everyone knows, I was only taking nine to start with," Lizzie put in quickly. "I just failed Astronomy and History of Magic because I could barely think straight. And I don't need either of them so I'm not disappointed at all."
"Darling, you got three Os, you should be very proud, don't focus on what you failed."
"I keep telling her I only got one O," Neville said. "Kids these days expect too much of themselves, if you ask me."
"No one was, Dad," Lizzie muttered.
"Scorp?" Rose asked, speaking gently just in case. "Did you pass Herbology?"
"Hey!" Scorpius looked offended. "Did you expect me not to?"
"Of course not, I just know you were worried about it…"
"He passed," Neville interrupted. "And never has the term 'Exceeds Expectations' been more accurate, if you don't mind me saying, Scorpius."
Scorpius sighed, giving up. "No, that's fair. I failed Divination, though."
"What!"
Rose turned with surprise to hear her father's voice. She would have thought he would be the last person to add his two Knuts to a discussion on Scorpius' OWLs. "How does anyone fail Divination? It's telling the future, just make something up, no one can prove you wrong!"
Scorpius frowned. "But… isn't that cheating?"
"Yes it is - don't listen to him, Scorpius," Hermione said firmly. Ron glowered.
"But you passed everything else?" Rose prompted.
He grinned. "Yup. NEWTs in Charms, Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Muggle Studies. But if my father asks," he added. "I'm doing Potions instead."
"I didn't hear that," Neville muttered. Rose thought her mother, uncle and aunt also looked less than sanguine at this announcement, but the conversation veered off in another direction, from OWLs back to Italy, and everyone started tucking into their dinner, enjoying the classic Leaky fare which had really become something to desire since Hannah had taken over the pub. Rose was only half listening to the conversation, eating without really noticing what she was doing. It didn't make sense to her how Scorpius could suddenly be so flippant about lying to his father for two years about his subjects. She remembered how he had agonised about the decision to even take Muggle Studies in the first place, and an extra subject was much easier to hide than a completely alternative one. Not to mention where he had spent the entire summer, when there was so much risk that it could fall apart at any second. There had been something in his face when he spoke about his grandparents that told her there was something he wasn't saying.
She didn't realise she was staring at him along the table, until he looked up and met her eye. She looked away, quickly, feeling her cheeks flush.
"Right," Neville said when the dinner was mostly cleared away, although Alice had managed to get some of it on the floor. "It's about time for your set, isn't it Scorp?"
Scorpius looked up and grinned. "Be right back!"
"Set?" Rose mouthed at Albus, who shrugged in confusion as their friend left the table for the stairs. The question was more or less answered, however, when he came back down in possession of his guitar, the Ravenclaw eagle strangely luminescent in the lamp light.
"This is your surprise," he explained as he came by the table. "I wrote you a song."
Rose felt her heart do that weird hop-skip thing it had done when she first saw him. "For me?" she said, breathlessly.
"Well, for both of you," Scorpius corrected, nodding at Albus. "Hope you like it - scuse me."
There were people clapping already, Rose realised, cheering him onto the stage. "He's played nearly every night for the last month," Hannah explained, leaning over the table to speak over the applause. "People are starting to come just to hear him, it's really good for business… not that I'd make him do it if he didn't want to, of course…"
Scorpius was settling himself, perching on the edge of a stool that had been set up on a small stage Rose hadn't even noticed until now, positioning the guitar and playing a few experimental notes. Then, inexplicably, he drew his wand and fastened it to the neck of the instrument - there was a clip that seemed to have been added just for that purpose. When he strummed the guitar again, the sound that came out was unlike any she had ever heard any guitar make.
"Evening everyone," Scorpius said, calming the cheering crowd with ease, and somehow his voice travelled clearly across the crowded room. "I'm going to play something new for you tonight…" another cheer. "It's a song I wrote for my two best friends. I wouldn't even be here without them, so… this is thank you." He saluted in Rose and Albus' direction, and Rose felt her cheeks flush even redder.
He started playing, and after a few seconds Rose's mouth fell open. There could have been three instruments on that stage, not just one, but he seemed to be controlling all of them with his fingers. As she looked closer, the movements of his hands were slightly different than she was used to, and, yes, the strings were multicoloured. It hadn't been noticeable before, but as he played, they glowed slightly, illuminating his hands in green, red and blue as his fingers moved swiftly over them. She had never seen anything like it, and even the cheering crowd was silenced for the first few verses by this spectacle.
If you ever find yourself stuck in the middle of the sea
I'll sail the world to find you
If you ever find yourself lost in the dark and you can't see
I'll be the light to guide you
We find out what we're made of
When we are called to help our friends in need
You can count on me like 1, 2, 3
I'll be there
And I know when I need it
I can count on you like 4, 3, 2
And you'll be there
'Cause that's what friends are supposed to do, oh yeah
Is he singing in harmony with himself? Rose thought, incredulously. Yes, one of the strings - or part of the string, she couldn't quite work it out - had to be a recorded voice. But there was no denying, the effect was incredible. In the second chorus people got over their initial surprise and started cheering again, and Rose found herself joining in, unable to stop herself as though the music carried with it some kind of infection.
If you're tossin' and you're turnin'
And you just can't fall asleep
I'll sing a song beside you
And if you ever forget how much you really mean to me
Every day I will remind you
We find out what we're made of
When we are called to help our friends in need
You can count on me like 1, 2, 3
I'll be there
And I know when I need it
I can count on you like 4, 3, 2
And you'll be there
'Cause that's what friends are supposed to do, oh yeah
You'll always have my shoulder when you cry
I'll never let go, never say goodbye
You know...
You can count on me 'cause I can count on you.
Rose felt a rush of disappointment as he strummed the last chord, and the music died away. People were applauding, Al was whooping, even her parents were clapping, her mother wearing her interrogation face - of course she would want to know how he's doing it, Rose realised, I want to know how he's doing it! Scorpius bowed, to even louder applause. Hannah waved to him and made a sign with her hand, and he nodded. "Last orders, ladies and gentlemen," he said smoothly.
There was a rush to the bar, amid the chaos of which Scorpius climbed off the stage and started packing his guitar away. Rose left her seat and, ducking through the crowd, went over to him. "That was amazing," she said, in a rush. "How did you - I didn't know you could do that!"
He smiled at her, clearly pleased by her enthusiasm. "It's easy once you get the hang of it," he said, modestly.
"But how - I mean, is it the strings, or the wand?"
"Both," he said, swinging the guitar over his shoulder again and walking back to the table with her. "I had to get some of the strings made specially - you have no idea how hard it is to tune strings to different instruments! But that book Al got me had most of it. I had to improvise a bit," he admitted, as Neville passed him a Butterbeer, and he paused as he took a long sip. "A lot of it was pretty indecipherable because the author was a lutist - lutes and harps! Catch me playing a harp." He grinned impishly.
"Very impressive indeed," Hermione interrupted. "But I wonder, doesn't that constitute a breach of the Statute for the Prevention of Underage -"
"Muu-um!" Rose protested, almost stamping her foot in embarrassment.
"I'm registered with the French Ministry, Mrs Weasley," Scorpius explained, giving Rose a surprised look as though confused by her reaction. "I'm allowed to practice magic with supervision."
"In France, surely," Hermione said, frowning, ignoring the pained look on her daughter's face.
"Actually no," Neville assured her. "I checked - there's a neat little loophole there. Don't worry, Hermione, I'm keeping an eye on him."
She only looked half-convinced, Rose thought, but her curiosity about the technique was clearly more than equivalent to her concerns. She plied Scorpius with questions about the strings, and he explained that he had charmed some, and others had been custom made at a old run-down knick-knacks shop on Horshom Alley, the little second-hand street past Knockturn where Rose had never even been. It wasn't a big shop, he explained, but there was an old wizard there who was very skilled with music charms. "He loves to talk too, I must've learned more from him for free in the last two months than I did for my whole Charms OWL," Scorpius laughed. "He gets lonely, I suppose. The magic wears off fast, though. Apart from the clothes I've spent nearly all my money on strings. I'm going to ask Professor Flitwick if there's a way I can get it to last longer, when we get back."
"Oh he'll love that," Albus said, rolling his eyes. "Didn't he give you a bunch of pamphlets on being a Ministry stooge?"
"Al," Ginny said warningly.
"What, he did! No offence, Dad."
"Oh, none taken," Harry said flatly, emerald eyes twinkling with amusement behind his glasses. "Just don't expect me to pull you out of hot water if you ever get yourself arrested."
The last orders were made and they spend a happy hour in the bright and cosy atmosphere of the Leaky Cauldron as the evening drew on. Rose found that every time she felt Scorpius' eyes on her, she would look up to find him looking in a totally different direction. And while he joked around with Al, helped Hannah put Alice to bed and teased Lily about her hair, part of her ruminated that there was more than just a lack of parental influence that had led to the transformation from shy, introverted boy into confident, dashing, creative young man. Privately she wondered if she would ever know, if it was even her place to try and find out. She would wait, she decided. If he wanted to tell her, he would. And yet, amid plans to meet the next day and kisses and handshakes all round - except between Scorpius and her father, she noticed - she found she was already less than satisfied with that decision.
Author's Notes:
"Count on Me" by Bruno Mars. All the disclaimers for the music & lyrics are on the music page.
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