"I got it!" James exclaimed walking into the conference room he and Albus had taken over. It had taken James a month to track drown the missing caterer, and another two weeks to convince him to hand over the memory. Having managed to escape Malfoy Manner that night, he had been living in fear for eighteen years about speaking up.

Albus reached for the pensive that they had been holding onto as they waited to get this memory. James poured the wispy memory into the vessel and let himself fall into it, Albus on his tail.

The scene swirled around them as they followed the wizard from whom they retrieved the memory. Dark wizards from their history books walked around them, conversing and laughing, all wearing black.

"Oi," the waiter wizard asked one of the other servers. "How much are we getting for this gig?" the former glancing around carefully.

"There," Albus said pulling James away from the memory of the conversation. He looked to see that Albus was pointing at Draco and Astoria and baby Scorpius.

"Blimey," was all James could say looking at Draco, Scorpius was the spitting image of him. They approached the couple and saw the nervousness on Astoria's face.

"He'll get cranky if he doesn't eat, I don't want him crying.-," Astoria was saying when Lucius Malfoy apparated into vision. James and Albus watched closely as the scene unfolded around them. Scorpius being ripped from his mother's arms, Astoria being blasted aside. It was so shocking to see this played out in front of them as if they were.

"Now, father," they watched Draco say. Lucius tapped his cane on the ground three times.

"My fellow friends," Draco spoke. "Today I present to you, our savior, a prince of darkness."

James and Albus exchanged looks.

"The dark lords defeat has made a mockery of all of us, has ruined our way of life, but yet our dreams did not die with him. Bestowed with the gifts you shall present to him, my son will lead us into a brighter future where our dreams are a reality. He will come to be the true dark lord."

"Merlin," Albus say running his hair through his hand. They knew it would be bad, but they never thought it would be this bad.

"True dark lord?" James said, more frightened for his sister than ever.

"Now hush, hush child. This will only hurt for a second," they heard Lucius say, and watched him point a wand at the child. A red light burst forth from it and the baby started crying. Draco passed Scorpious to a tall man with black hair. Pointing his wand at the baby he said;

"I present the gift of deceit." He passed the baby to the man next to him.

"I give the gift of intelligence." Again, Scorpious was passed.

"Attraction." And passed again. They watch him go person to person, the Malfoy's inner circle cursing him into a dark lord.

"Avarice."

"Pride."

"Manipulation."

James and Albus held their breath as the baby made it's way back to Draco.

"And last, I give him the greatest gift of all," Draco spoke loudly so everyone could hear him. "I give my son, the gift of wraith."

In an instant that they were pulled from the memory and back in the conference room at the ministry, they knew what happened from there.

James and Albus stood in silence, processing what they had just witnessed, where they were going to go from here.

"How can she defend him?" Albus said slamming his hand down on the table. He was furious; furious at Lily for being so dumb, furious at Scorpius for taking advantage of her. They had all the proof that they needed, he was pure evil.

"We need to show this to dad," James said racing for the door.

A few moments later Harry had viewed the memory and came out of the Pensive rubbing his hand on the back of his neck, knots in his stomach.

"How did you never see this before?" Albus asked his father. "How did no one else have this memory?"

"Albus you know very well that you can't forcibly take memories from people, and the few who did provide weren't in the ball room." The boys watch their father pace back and forth, thinking deeply.

"Well what are we waiting for?" James said after a few moments, frustrated with his father. "Let's go get him!"

"On what charges, James?" Harry said coolly. He appreciated his son's eagerness, but he was letting emotion cloud his judgment.

"Umm, he's the new Dark Lord?" James replied shocked at his father's reaction.

Harry shook his head. He was grateful his children never had to grow up in a time where Voldemort purveyed, but if only they knew what it was like to really grow up in the time with a dark wizard.

"Scorpius was the victim that night," Harry began and both boys threw their hands up.

"Victim or not, he's lived up to his name. Several of his neighbors in France refused to talk to us, students at Hogwarts are terrified of him and he nearly killed Connor Wood," Albus was listing off his known offenses. "Now it makes sense. Now we know why."

"Albus, please-,"

"Dad, you do realize that he's bedding your daughter," James said, assuming. His father shot him a look. "He's infecting her, maybe even controlling her?"

"Yeah, what would be better than to convert the only daughter of Harry Potter, the chosen one, to become his 'dark queen'. Can you imagine what that would do?" Albus said seriously considering it.

"Lily is not being controlled, and she's not being converted," Harry said, he knew his daughter was acting out of her own free will, which made the situation worse. "The evidence you have now is circumstantial at best. But there may be something with Connor. Albus, you continue to investigate that lead. James, I need you to reopen the case, and found out more about what happened that night. What was the spell they used on him, what does it mean? In the mean time I have a trip up to Hogwarts planned, I'll speak with Headmaster Bloom and see if there's any red flags."

The boys looked at each other, pleased that their dad was on their side.

April rolled into Hogwarts with a force. Torrential rainstorms pounded down outside the castle, and the students were more cooped up and ornery that usual. This had made it more difficult for Lily, with Hugo and other family members snapping at her more often.

Instead of fighting back Lily let them lash out. She knew it was pointless to fight, but the real reason was that she was too tired. While she hadn't had any more episodes as bad as the day after Valentine's Day, she was constantly tired. She slept for over twelve hours of the day, and had started taking a pepper-up potion to make it through the waking hours.

Scorpius had asked her about her fatigue, but she played it off on studying for her NEWTs. While he half believed her, it was when she starting eating less that he truly became worried.

"Look what I got for you," Scorpius said meeting Lily in the library one night. She had several books laid out around her as she worked on an essay for their Charms class.

Scorpious handed her a chocolate frog container.

"Thank you," she said leaning over and kissing him, but she left it on the table, untouched.

"You didn't have anything for dinner," Scorpius said pushing it towards her and she just shrugged. "And, I want to see if it's the one wizard card I'm missing."

"Scorp, I'm not hungry. If you want it, eat it," she said. It wasn't in a mean way, but she was tired. He smiled at her and batted his eyelashes, pushing the frog towards her once more. She couldn't help but smile at him while rolling her eyes. She ripped the package open and grabbed the frog before it could hop away, taking a bite out of it.

"This the wizard you're looking for?" She asked picking up the card, it was a picture of her father. They both chuckled and Scorpius took the card.

"No, got about twenty of him," he said and watched Harry walk out of frame. "Speaking of him," Scorpius said placing the card face down on the table. "How come you didn't tell me your father was coming to speak at the end of the week?"

"He is? It's the 2nd already?" Lily said in surprise. She knew Harry came on the 2nd of every May, the anniversary of his triumph over Voldemort. She hadn't begun to steel herself for his visit quite yet.

"Would it be easier for you if I excused myself on that day?" he asked, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. She was definitely losing weight.

"No!" she replied quickly. She didn't want to be alone on that day. It was enough dealing with her cousins, adding her father into the mix was something she wanted all the support on. "If anything, I should be excused from the speech, I live with the man."

"Well, maybe it will be good," Scorpius suggested, hoping that a good outcome would come from of this. Merlin knew that he needed something good to happen for Lily. With just a few weeks left of school, Scorpius knew that life after Hogwarts would be better for her, but he hated that she had to live a second longer stuck in the castle that he felt he made into a prison for her.

"You're good," she said almost sensing his thoughts. He leaned over and kissed her gently. "What do you say we get out of here and take a stroll up to the astronomy tower?"

Scorpious gathered her books into a pile and put out his hand.

"What a gentleman!" Lily said accepting it and they began their stroll.