SCORPIUS

"I need to go to the Owlery," she said as we made our way to the Great Hall. I pretended not to hear her.

"Scorpius," she stressed again, "stop. I need to go to the Owlery." Instead of acknowledging her request, I waved heartily to Al who was merrily attacking a piece of bacon. Victoria sat beside him, laughing.

Rose halted. "Malfoy, I'm not going any farther until you go to the Owlery with me."

I whirled around, annoyed. "Why on earth do you want to go to the freaking Owlery? It's eight in the morning, you dolt."

"Because I want to," she said, crossing her arms. Despite her matter-of-factness, I could tell she was inwardly cherishing my frustration.

"That's not a reason!" I exclaimed.

"Sure it is. Why do you want to stay in the Great Hall so bad?"

"Because I'm hungry, why do you think?"

"That's not a reason."

"YES. YES IT IS."

Despite our ongoing row, the other students in the Great Hall paid no heed to it. By now it was as common an occurrence for Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley to argue as it was for the sun to rise. It was simply a part of life.

After a good five minutes of nonsensical, back-and-forth bickering, I put my foot down and glared at her. "You know what?" I said in a defiant tone, "I don't care what you do. If you decide to walk away, we both know you won't get very far."

Al's father had hexed the both of us about a week ago. When it first happened, we both thought we could get away with going more than five feet away from each other. We were gravely wrong. Initially, we had even periodically forgotten about the hex and stormed away from each other after the expected squabbling. As a consequence, we would both come crashing into each other at blinding speeds. Needless to say, I was still getting over my sore back and bruised limbs.

Rose tossed her curls of red hair with a defeated sigh. "Alright," she said with a huff, the words clearly hurting her to say, "why don't you get something to eat quickly and then we can go to the Owlery, 'kay?"

I nodded my agreement as we went to sit at our separate tables, backs to each other.

The compromises were slowly becoming quicker for us to make. Initially, it had been nearly impossible for us to get the simplest things done. The first couple days I could barely make it to the water closet without wetting myself because of Rose's stubbornness. She would often walk to the men's room with me, stop, pretend to reconsider something in her mind, and then promptly sit on the ground, twiddling her thumbs. Any attempt I made to get to the toilet was thwarted by the hex, and I would sail quickly back to Rose's smug grin. Despite the pain she endured by my crashing backwards into her again and again, she remained cross-legged on the floor until I begged her repeatedly to allow me to go. Sometimes it even took having to promise her money.

Her little game stopped after I took to doing the same thing to her.

Regardless of our compromises, life remained steadfastly difficult with her constantly mooning over my shoulder. While it was a relief that the hex didn't apply while I was in my Common Room (or in separate classes), if I wanted to get out at all, Rose had to come with me. I began to dread leaving Common Room so intensely that I practically had nightmares about it. It's a wonder I didn't break all my bones, with the way we slammed into each other as soon as we were both in the hallway.

It was also a relief that we didn't have every class together… at least at first. By some horrible stroke of fate, the schedules suddenly and mysteriously changed so that Gryffindor and Slytherin First Years shared all their core classes together. I somehow doubted that it was any kind of coincidence.

I ate as slowly as I could get away with.

Al, who was currently making an action figure out of an apple and pretzel sticks, looked up from his creation and lifted an eyebrow. "So what was that all about?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Oh, your cousin is just being her annoying self again. Can't expect her to be any different." I knew full well that she could hear me.

Al regarded me with a curious expression before he changed the subject. "So, you're going to the Owlery then, huh?"

I shrugged again. "I guess I have to. Kitty isn't giving me much of a choice, is she?"

I felt a sharp jab of pain in my back as Rose, hearing the cruel nickname, kneed me. I cursed at her under my breath.

Al, not looking up from his apple action figure, sighed. "You know," he said, "I think you're making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be."

I regarded him with contempt. "What on earth are you babbling about?"

"I mean that… if Rose wants to go to the Owlery, why don't you just go? It's not like you're making it easier for yourself by arguing and calling her names."

I snorted with disdain for his treachery. "Whose side are you on anyway, Al? That snake tried to murder me!"

From behind me, Rose laughed scornfully. "You're still convinced at that, are you? Even when Vertisserum proved me right? You sure are sure of yourself, Malfoy. How do you go through life with such divine certainty?"

"Oh shut up," I spat, without bothering to turn around, "Go talk to your stupid Gryffindor friends… oh that's right! You don't have any!"

A fork promptly flew my direction. "You stupid pureblood asshole! Shut up! You don't know anything!"

I turned in mock revelation to Vicky. "Wow, looks like I've hit a soft spot."

I heard Rose simply grumble incoherent curses behind me before turning around to nibble on a stick of celery.

While Vicky snickered at my joke, Al looked at me with a sad expression on his face.

"I really think you should let this go, Scor," he said, "If anything, at least until my dad releases the hex from you. You're just going to stay like that until you start to get along."

"You know, that's all sweet and dandy, Al," I said cuttingly, "and it might even work, but that's something you should tell your bloodthirsty cousin, not me."

My friend just sighed as he got up from the table.

"You should get going," he said, "Class starts in about thirty minutes."

"So why did you want to come up here, anyway?" I asked finally, after enduring a long trip up to the Owlery in silence.

Rose looked at me as if I had just asked her to spill her most guarded secrets.

"You're sending a letter?" I mused, figuring I could make a game of it.

Rose shook her head.

"You're waiting for a letter?"

"No."

"You're waiting for a gift?"

"No."

"You fancy the aroma of a filthy bird cage?"

"You know how owls have been disappearing?" she said finally, as if she couldn't contain herself any longer.

I nodded.

"Well mine disappeared too. I just want to get to the bottom of it."

"And you plan to do that fifteen minutes before class starts? Come on, it'll take us at least ten to get there. We should probably leave now."

"Aww, is ickle baby Malfoy afwaid to miss some cwass?" she teased.

I crossed my arms with an irritated harrumph. "So you're telling me, that despite being a bossy know-it-all—fussing with extra credit projects and answering every question in class and whatnot—you-you of all people—would want to skip class? Over a silly owl? Merlin's pants, I must be dreaming."

Rose stared at me with her nose wrinkled, as if she wanted to slap me.

"I finished today's lesson in advance," she barked, "Have you?"

Her mocking question was meant as a challenge.

I shrugged in pretend disinterest. "I suppose I have, too. I was bored last night."

Rose looked as if she didn't believe me, but chose not to say so.

"Besides," she continued, changing the subject, "there's nobody around this time of day. Everyone's in class."

"No kidding," I mumbled cynically under my breath, wanting to get back to Charms.

"Didn't your owl go missing about a month ago?" she asked, ignoring my last comment.

My ears perked up. "Dragonbreath? Yeah, yeah I guess he did. Call me cruel, but I sort of forgot about it."

Rose lifted an eyebrow. "You mean you didn't even bother to get a new one?"

"No," I said slowly, just realizing this bit of information myself, "No I guess I didn't."

Rose said nothing for a while, studying me as if she were trying to find the answers to her unspoken questions on my face.

Finally, she said, "And has Al's owl gone missing?"

"No."

"Victoria's?"

"No…" I furrowed my brow in suspicion, "Look, if you think that Al or Vic had something to do with this—"

"That's not what I was getting at, stupid. I'm just trying to find a connection with whose owl has gone missing and whose hasn't."

I crossed my arms, bored. "And we had to come to the Owlery to figure this out…why?"

A mischievous smile bloomed on her lips. "Why, for some adventure, of course!"

I could only gape at her dumbly.

"Now, come on," she continued, cherishing my annoyance and horror, "let's see if we can find a clue or something."

I could contain myself no longer. "Do you think this is some kind of game? Blimey, Rose, it's not like this is a giant game of Cluedo."

She whirled back at me with a quizzical look on her brow. "How do you know about that game? It's a Muggle board game, not anything you purebloods would take interest in."

She acted as though my blood-status proved that I had no right to meddle with Muggle matters. I frowned. "Alright, so there's a Muggle family that lives a few blocks away from us," I explained heatedly, "They were having a yard sale and I just looked through their things. I didn't have any Muggle money but they told me I could just have the game, so I took it. Even though it's not magical, it's still interesting to look at."

Rose was now the one who was gaping at me.

"What?" I fumed, "Look, just… just don't tell my dad okay? He'd likely slap me cold if he found out I was messing around with Muggle stuff."

"No, no," she said quietly, as though she was sorry for being cross with me, "it's just that I had thought…" She trailed off, not knowing what to say or how to say it. She gazed at me with a curious, sad expression on her face, and for a fleeting, tiny moment, a flicker of regret flashed behind her eyes. There was an instant where I thought she might even break down and cry, but instead she shook her head and said in a more determined voice, "We should look around and see what we can find."

I remained unconditionally baffled at why a board game would affect her that way.

"Hm," Rose pondered as she went through the bird cages, "that's interesting."

I looked up from the cage I was snooping in, wondering how on earth we would figure if the bird was missing or just out. "What's that?"

"Porsha Plane's owl is missing."

I gave her a condescending look. "Now, Weasley, really. How would you know that?"

"The food in its cage is rotten."

"So?" I contested, "Her bird could be out delivering a letter. Besides, owls know how to hunt and wouldn't need to keep food in the cage."

"Exactly," she answered cryptically, her eyes not leaving the cage.

I frowned, confused. "I'm failing to understand your logic here."

"An owl catches its own food," she said, pointing to the decomposing rodent in the corner of the cage, "so why wouldn't it eat it right away? If it were going on a journey, it would first eat its food, then leave. Animals aren't known to waste like people do."

For once in my life, I could say that Rose Weasley actually made some kind of sense. But I wasn't about to let her know.

"Okay, so what? We won't be able to do that to every single cage. Not every missing bird will have left a dead rat there."

"We won't have to," she said quietly, as if she were just realizing what her own words meant.

I frowned at her.

"Think about it," she continued in answer to my suspicion, "Think about whose owls have gone missing."

"Um…mine?" I began slowly, trying to remember who else's have disappeared, "yours, Porsha's…" My eyes went wide. I could almost feel the light bulb appear above my head. I knew.

"What are you kids doing up here?"

Rose and I whirled around with a scream. I was so shocked by who I saw I nearly fainted.

"M…Mother?"

"Easy, easy, kids," she laughed nervously, "I, uh… I thought you were supposed to be in class."

"Well, uh…yeah…" I choked out, frantically searching for an excuse, "We… Well we finished our lesson early so we don't have to be in Charms today."

I glanced over at Rose so she could confirm the story, but she was instead staring at my mother with an odd look on her face.

"Oh, hello," Mother said in response to Rose's ogling, ignoring my answer, "I don't believe we've met."

"Oh, Rose," she said, offering her hand, her strange look still etched in her face, "Rose Weasley."

My mother shook it with a forced grin, "Astoria Malfoy. Nice to meet you."

"Mum, what are you doing up here?" I asked. It sounded almost accusatory.

She seemed taken aback with my forwardness. "Well, I was…sending a letter. Why else would I be up here?"

I couldn't put my finger on it, but my mother seemed shaken by something. Her eyes were flitting about the room as if she were expecting something terrible to happen. I frowned.

"Mum, are you alright?"

"Yes, yes of course," she answered halfheartedly, as if she barely heard me. "Well, I suppose I'd better get going. Nice to meet you, Rose."

She walked off without another word.

Rose and I watched her leave in silence, leaving each other to our baffled thoughts.

Finally, I said, "Well, that was weird."

"No kidding," answered Rose, who oddly enough still harbored that strange look in her eyes.

I raised an eyebrow at her, "Hey, are you alright?"

"Malfoy," she said, ignoring me, "I think I've met that woman before."

"No, you haven't," I insisted, "Even she didn't remember you."

"I know, but…I can't place my finger on it. I know I've met that woman before, but I have no idea where."

"Well, great. Can we move on, please? It seems like we have bigger problems here."

Weasley didn't need an explanation to know what I was talking about. We had both figured out how the missing owls were connected: they all belonged to targeted people.

I had nearly been suffocated to death.

Porsha's father had been murdered, and now she is getting death threats too.

Ama Lovebody and the other purebloods have been receiving strange messages in their bedrooms.

And Rose? Well Rose hadn't been getting death threats, but everyone assumed she was part of something she shouldn't be. And we were now both fairly certain that she was.

Hello, Marshmallow Moo, here. If you happen to enjoy my story here, I would appreciate it if I had some feedback! Reviews are a good way any writer can figure out what her audience is thinking, and it's also a nice confidence booster. :) Even if you don't have an account here, please feel free to give me your opinion. Any comments at all are greatly appreciated. Thank you!