Rose was holding his hand.
They had found a mysterious cavern, and it was filled with orichalcum, and Rose was holding his hand.
Scorpius couldn't tell which of the three it was, but something made him feel as though he had been filled with light, and he couldn't keep from smiling as he and Rose walked on through the tunnel. He had been frightened at first, and who wouldn't be, from falling down so suddenly where he thought there would only be darkness and a bit of steady ground? He hadn't even thought to grab his wand and light it, as apparently Rose had even before she followed him, and he had to admit, if only to himself, that it was an incredibly embarrassing thing to forget. It was the sort of mistake a first year would make, ad he was nearly done with his third year. It was no wonder she was beating him in every class.
But she was holding his hand, and they were walking side by side, and she didn't even seem to mind when he stepped a bit closer to her. He thought he saw her smiling a little, and that only made him smile more, though his cheeks grew even hotter than they had been earlier.
He had never felt anything quite like this, and he wondered whether it was what love was supposed to feel like. He had loved people, of course – his family and friends – but none of those had felt like this, like a candle had been lit behind his heart and the flame was reaching up to his head even as the wax dripped lower. He'd always thought he had been too busy for crushes on people, and besides, no one would even want to have a Malfoy have a crush on them. It would be like falling in love with some long-lost Riddle. He wondered what Rose would do if he were to lean down and kiss her, just once, on the cheek. She might not mind, and she was already holding hands with him.
But holding hands was very different from kissing, and he didn't want to drive her away by reaching too far. He would rather have her as a friend than lose her completely, so he pressed his lips together and did nothing. It might not even be love; it might simply be a combination of fear and excitement that would have made him want to kiss whoever he was in the tunnel with, even Ruby or Albus.
"Rose?" he said, and he glanced down at her nervously.
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you're my friend." It wasn't the confession he had wanted to make, but it was one he knew was true, and so it was the one he had to say.
"I'm glad, too," she said, and beamed at him, which made the candle in his chest flare even brighter, until he was sure it could light the way out of the cavern for them. "And don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you."
"I'm not worried," he said.
"Good," Rose said, and she pulled him along even further. The deeper they went, the more the walls shone with gold. "I'll protect you."
"I'll protect you, too," Scorpius said. He had thought Rose might thank him for that, or smile at him over her shoulder, or maybe, just maybe, turn on her toe and press her lips against his, if only for a moment. He knew it was something of a foolish thing to say, since she was the fighter out of the pair of them, but in that moment, he meant it. He would protect her, if the need ever came up.
Rose smiled at him over her shoulder, and as he smiled back, she said, "That's all right, Scorpius. I can protect myself while I'm protecting you." His heart sank at her words, but by then she had already turned her head and was pulling him further along.
Minutes passed, and Scorpius wanted to speak to fill the silence, but he didn't know what he could say. There was nothing to say about his childhood, which would probably seem cold and lonely in comparison to hers. He didn't want to talk about his parents, since he knew both her mother and her father had hated his father. She already knew how his classes were going, and he knew how hers were, and there wasn't much to say about their other friends, since he didn't have many outside their little group, and he wasn't sure how he would feel hearing her chatter about people he didn't know and who would likely hate him. So he remained silent, and apparently Rose didn't feel the need to speak, for she was silent as well.
It would have been a dreary walk except for the orichalcum and the light reflecting off of it. Whenever the silence felt too heavy on his tongue, he would look around the tunnel and marvel at the golden surroundings. With every step there was a little more, and in about an hour, there was no trace of the stone at all. Everything was orichalcum, and a shiver ran down Scorpius's spine, though he couldn't explain why.
"Maybe we should turn back," he said, slowing a little. Again Rose looked over her shoulder, but this time she looked concerned.
"Why? Did you see a turn we could have taken?"
"No," he said, but glanced behind them anyway, just in case. There was nothing at all, only a straight line.
"Then why do you want to go back?" She stopped walking and stepped closer to him. "Is something wrong?" Her smile had vanished, and he wanted to make it return, but he couldn't get rid of the dreadful feeling that there was something very wrong.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm just nervous." He looked past her, but there was nothing he could see except for more of the same.
"I'll protect you," Rose said again. "Come on. If anything tries to hurt you, I'll light it on fire." She pulled him along, holding his hand tighter than before. He didn't mind at all and gripped her hand as tightly as he could. In his other hand, he held his wand, and as they walked on, he hoped Rose didn't mind that his palm was sweating.
With every step, Scorpius's feeling of unease grew, and he stepped a bit closer to Rose. He wanted to turn back, but he couldn't say why. Rose looked nervous as well, and she bit her lower lip as they went on. "Do you think we're still under the castle?" he asked. "Have we gone too far?"
"I don't know," Rose paused and looked behind them. "I don't think we can get up the slide, though." She bit her lip again. "We can either go on or call for help."
"How would we call for help, though?" Scorpius asked. Apollo wasn't down there, and neither was Rose's owl, and even if they were, he didn't have parchment or a quill to write down a message. "I'm not sure I can shout loud enough to reach the floor we were on." Rose might be able to, but even then, it was possible that no one would hear them.
"I've got an idea, but I'm not sure if it'll work. I've never been able to do it. I only know what my mom told me about it." She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and yelled, "Expecto patronum!"
Nothing happened. Rose shouted the incantation again, even louder, but only a wisp of silver came out of her wand. It drifted for a while in front of them before vanishing. "Was that the message?" Scorpius asked when Rose opened her eyes, but as her shoulders slumped in disappointment, he realized that it couldn't have been. "What was that?"
"A Patronus Charm," she said. "You're supposed to think of your happiest memory, and it calls up a Patronus, a sort of protector. It protects you from Dementors, but it can also send messages. I just don't know how to make it work properly." She bit her lip again. "I don't know why I can't! My Uncle Harry could make a full-formed Patronus when he was my age, and I'm even better with spells than he was."
His happiest memory. Scorpius wasn't sure he could think of one, but then he looked at Rose and realized it was when she had first told him she was his friend. He didn't know which to pick, so he just thought about all the times he'd felt close to her, and he thought about Albus stealing food for him from the Great Hall when he had overslept, and about Ruby joining him in the train compartment during his first year and deciding right then that they were friends. He felt light and warm, and a smile spread over his face as he raised his wand and said, "Expecto patronum!"
Nothing happened. If he squinted, he thought he could see a bit of silver mist, but it faded even more quickly than Rose's had. His heart sank, and he sighed.
"That wasn't too bad for your first try," Rose said. "Next time, maybe you just need a happier memory."
"I haven't got anything happier," he said before he could stop himself, and Rose flung her arms around him, pressing her chin against his shoulder. He hugged her back, and they stood there for a while, staring at the golden walls.
After a while, Rose let go of him and led him down the hall again. "It looks like we'll have to get out on our own," she said.
"Are you sure we can get out?" Maybe the tunnel led on forever, or maybe it opened someplace so far from Hogwarts that they would have no chance of getting back to the school. The weather had started to warm, but it wasn't so warm yet that they could walk for miles without coats and gloves. Even with magical fires, they might freeze before they made it back to the school.
"Of course I am," Rose said. "My uncle's expecting a letter from me, and you have to tell Zahradnik about this place. We can't just leave them unsatisfied, can we?" She smiled, and he had to smile back. "Exactly. So we're going to get out. I won't let us die in here."
The unsettling feeling had faded somewhat, or perhaps it was just easier to ignore with Rose talking and with the attempted Patronuses, but now it returned in full force. He didn't want to go forward, but they couldn't go back. Even Rose looked affected by whatever it was that he felt, and she soon stood so close to him that their shoulders nearly touched.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
She nodded. "I'm just a bit nervous. This place gives me the creeps."
That was a mild way of saying it, but Scorpius had to agree. Maybe if he thought it was just creepy, then it wouldn't reach him as strongly.
He was about to tell Rose that maybe he was just too sensitive about everything when the floor dropped out from under his feet. Rose said something, and he tried to respond, but then the world twisted around him, and everything went dark.
"Scorpius? Scorpius, are you okay?"
He was lying somewhere soft and warm, and somewhere above him, Albus was shouting. His wand was still in his hand, but the other was empty, and that was what made him force his eyes open. Rose was gone.
"Scorpius!" Albus jumped back as Scorpius tried to get up, but he ran forward again as Scorpius tried to get out of bed. His legs didn't seem to be working right, and the floor pitched under his feet, nearly making him fall. Albus caught him and eased him back to the bed, asking, "What happened? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Scorpius said, though he felt dizzy and wanted to lie down again and throw a blanket over his head. "Where's Rose?"
"Rose?" Albus frowned. "Why? What's wrong?"
Scorpius shook his head. There wasn't any time to explain. "I have to find her." He lunged off the bed again, and this time Albus helped him, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling one of Scorpius's arms over his shoulders.
"Where should we start looking?" Albus asked. "Where did you last see her?"
"I don't know," Scorpius said. "There was a secret passage, and it went out, away from the castle, and then –"
"What's going on?" Franny Morgenstern, a long-nosed fifth year with several tattoos who had somehow become a Prefect stood just outside their dormitory. "I heard shouting, and Neil's not anywhere around, so I thought I'd handle it." She caught sight of Scorpius draped on Albus, and her blue eyes went wide. "Does he need to get to the Hospital Wing?"
"I'm fine," Scorpius said quickly, though he wasn't sure if he was fine at all. "Really, Morgenstern, I'll be all right." He hoped she believed him, since he didn't want to just send Albus out on his own to find Rose.
"You'd better be," Morgenstern said, setting her hands on her hips. "I've gone through this whole year with only the first years getting into trouble, and I don't want to ruin that now. Understand?"
Albus nodded and pulled Scorpius out of the common room, walking so quickly that Scorpius stumbled over his own feet several times. He looked more serious than Scorpius had ever seen him, and older as well. As soon as they were out of the common room and in the hall, where no one else could hear them, Albus turned to Scorpius and asked, "What happened to Rose? Is she in any danger?"
Scorpius shook his head but then said, "I don't know." He told Albus what he could remember of his exploration with Rose, even though the last few minutes felt fuzzy and indistinct. Albus's jaw was set throughout the story, and Scorpius stammered a bit when he realized that he looked almost exactly like a younger version of James. He reached the point where his memory failed him, just after the attempted Patronus Charms, and when Albus said nothing, he decided to go on. "It must have been a portal, but I don't think I'm in another world. I just wound up in my bed."
"Then maybe it sets you wherever you need to go," Albus said, and he pulled Scorpius along again. "In that case, Rose should be in Gryffindor Tower."
"How would you know that?" Scorpius asked.
"I don't. It's just a guess, but it's the only idea I have." Albus walked a bit faster, apparently not noticing that Scorpius was still having trouble getting his feet under him. "Can you think of anything better?"
He could barely think at all, so he just shook his head. "Gryffindor Tower, then," he said, hoping he could make it up all the stairs.
As it turned out, he didn't have to. On the stairs headed to the fourth floor, they found Rose, who practically flew down to meet them. She crashed into Scorpius in the most ferocious hug he had ever encountered, and only grabbing hold of Albus's wrist and Albus grabbing hold of the railing kept both him and Rose from tumbling down the stairs in a heap. "You're all right," she gasped, holding him tightly, and Scorpius held her just as tightly with the arm that wasn't stretched out and holding Albus. "Scorpius, I was so worried. I thought you were still in there, so I was going to find Zahradnik and get some help." She stepped back then, but just enough to look at his face. "You are all right, aren't you?"
"I think so," he said. "Are you?"
She nodded. "A bit dizzy, but I'll be fine. Where did you end up?"
"In my bed," he said.
"I was there too," she said quickly. "Well, my bed, not yours, but you probably noticed that." She released him and grabbed his other hand so both she and Albus could pull him up the stairs. "There must be a portal down there, though I don't know why it would put us in our beds instead of some other world."
"I thought it was sending you to wherever you belonged," Albus said, and Rose nodded thoughtfully as they all sat at the top of the stairs. Scorpius still held both their hands, and he leaned against Albus. Rose leaned against him, and Albus ended up leaning against the wall.
"That makes sense," Rose said, "but I'll have to investigate it to find out if that's what it really is. It could be something completely different." She sat up suddenly, and Scorpius wondered how she kept her head from spinning with the quick movement. "Scorpius, you'll have to ask Zahradnik about it."
"Why me?" Scorpius asked. "You could go to her just as easily. I told you the password to her office."
"But you're her favorite," Rose said, as though that settled everything. "You're the one who should go, and then you can tell the rest of us what she says."
"I never claimed to be her favorite," Scorpius said, though he wasn't sure why he was arguing.
"You're the one who goes there all the time," Albus said.
"And I don't think anyone else could get away with talking about Horcruxes," Rose said. She got to her feet. "That's settled, then. Let us know, all right? I'll be in the library." She took off down the stairs, and Scorpius watched her leave, feeling a strange ache in his chest.
Albus sighed. "You can't argue with her either, huh? Do you want to go see the headmistress now?"
Scorpius shook his head. "I'll go tomorrow. Right now I just want to sleep."