To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.
- Isaac Asimov

Chapter 25

In Which Final Exams Bring Out One's Competitive Spirit

~ Scorpius ~

Between struggling to execute Alohomora flawlessly fifteen times in a row and memorizing the full list of properties of salamander tails and petrified goblin eyes, Scorpius had no time to engage himself in any extracurricular projects. By that, he meant of course their plan to retrieve fresh leaves from live mandrakes. Albus and Rose often formed study groups with first years of other Houses to revise for the exams. Scorpius had only been present a few times and even then he steered clear of most interaction with them. There were halfblood students amongst them, as well as what his grandfather, Lucius, called blood traitors.

Not that Scorpius cared particularly for Lucius's opinions anymore. He had taken it as a great offense that he had demanded they fire Penny last Christmas. He would have disowned him as his grandfather, but he was afraid this could only be done the other way around. Still, the issue remained. Socializing with such personalities was a sensitive matter for him. He did not want to cause any trouble for Father. Besides, he had his own reputation to maintain; the reputation of a successful son of a rich and proud family, one of the Sacred Twenty-Seven.

On top of matters of purity and acquaintances, he was also anxious about the exams, especially the practical parts. The spells were the worst of it. He was feeling confident enough about brewing potions and whatnot.

And what about the level of difficulty? Would there be trick questions? Would they ask things that only older students would know to test one's devotion to the subject? Would such a thing even be fair if the professors did it?

But no… the exams are planned so that even dimwits like Goyle can move to the next year. That thought always comforted Scorpius.

Rose did not seem in the very least anxious about it all. In fact, she acted quite teacherly when any of the other first-years had any questions. If it weren't for her height, she could easily pass on as a third-year.

One morning before the examination of the first subject, Transfigurations, Scorpius found Albus sitting alone in the breakfast table. He had noticed his empty bed when he woke up, but had assumed he would have gone to bury his nose in a book for some last minute cramming. Apparently not. His appetite looked healthy enough, as he had three of his favourite lemon tarts in his plate and the remains of a fourth hanging from his mouth.

"Don't you ever feel overwhelmed by all of it?" Scorpius asked, his gaze lingering on James Potter, who was quite unlike his Slytherin brother in all aspects.

"By what?" Albus asked calmly.

Scorpius hesitated a little. He added cereal to a bowl and poured milk on top. "I mean…"

"You mean Rose, don't you?"

He nodded eagerly. "She gives the impression she's fearless. That she knows everything and is capable of anything."

Albus chuckled and sipped his orange juice. "I'm surprised she got to you."

"Surprised? How can she not?"

"Are you insane? You're just the same. Untouchable and know-it-all. You're two sides of the same coin."

"Do I seem to you that way?"

"Of course. Scorpius… well, other than your worry about spellwork? You do know everything. And that also goes for Astronomy, which isn't Rose's strongest point. So you're scarier." Albus turned his full attention to the next tart. It disappeared before Scorpius could say Hogsmeade.

Only then did Scorpius realise how anxious Albus must have been. That was why he had four lemon tarts. Normally he'd eat only a couple of them. "You're very good at Transfigurations. And Bedelin knows that." Scorpius did his best to cheer Albus up. Cheering up wasn't something he had practiced enough in his life though.

"That's the thing. You two have the luxury of worrying about one class at a time. In the meantime, I'm freaking out about every single subject, all at once."

"That must be stressful."

"Boy, tell me about it," Albus said, finishing up a glass of pumpkin juice. "James says that the exams aren't much of a big deal. He said we've probably had worse exams during the year. Unless Cemola decides to unleash any curses at us to deflect in her practicals."

"Would she do that? We're only in our first year after all…" There was a tinge of terror surfacing on Scorpius's voice. He was doing his best to contain it with less success than normal.

Albus shrugged. "Maybe she can. She chooses the syllabus she'll teach and examine after all. But you shouldn't worry much about it. There's a good chance it's simply pure nonsense. You can never be too certain with James."

"Huh. He's an odd one, your brother."

"I'm giving him away, if you want him. Free of charge. Think about it."

"No thanks. I think I enjoy being an only child." There was not a person in the world that could convince him to live under the same roof as James Potter.

Albus pushed his plate away, leaving the last lemon tart half-eaten. "If I eat any more I'm gonna be sick."

"Then don't." Scorpius bit into a slice of bread with marmelade.

"First we have Bedelin's practical part right?"

He nodded. "In her office. And then we come back here for the theoretical."

Albus let out a long breath, as if he had been holding it in his chest for a long while. "Alright, I'm ready. I can ace this class, I can feel it."

"You can. But please, stop squeezing my hand so hard. I think you're cutting off my circulation. I can't cast spells, if my good wand hand falls off."

Albus released Scorpius's wrist as soon as he figured out what his friend was hinting at. "Sorry. It's just… that's not us casting spells at each other in the Squid's Den, you know?"

He shrugged. "Maybe it's not… but it's definitely easier. At least whatever you may be asked to do from Bedelin will be proper for our age and skills."

"You're right… I'll be okay. Thanks." Albus stood up. "I… I'm going to find Rose. She will keep on cramming her head until she explodes. Someone needs to stop her or they might immediately graduate her as a third year. And… uh. I have a situation," he added, tapping the air before his eyes.

Scorpius noticed that indeed the faintest outline of the green frames had began to show. "Sure. I'll meet you outside Bedelin's office." And once Albus left, Scorpius began to feel a pang of jealousy.

First of all, if Rose could be graduated as a third year, so could he! But that was probably only a figure of speech so I shouldn't take that too personally, he tried to reason with himself. The other reason was that Albus hadn't offered him to come along. It was still just them; Al and Rose, Rose and Al. Sure, the three of them were… friends, that was the proper word for it, but they weren't a thing. They weren't inseparable, joined to the hip. Unless that was exactly the issue... It should be more difficult to join three people to the hip that it is to join two?

His ridiculous thoughts dissipated like smoke, when Matilda greeted him and strolled with Evannina to the breakfast table. The three of them had a kind, pleasant conversation until it was time for the exam. Every student of the first year was gathered around Bedelin's office. It felt like those torturous minutes before the Sorting Ceremony all over again.

He spotted Rose's bushy, ginger head nodding. Curls were bouncing along as she did and a red feather had sprouted between her maze of a hair, unnoticed by the other students so far. Her back as well as Albus's were turned to him while they spoke with students from the other Houses.

Scorpius lingered by the office's door quietly, waiting for Bedelin to begin calling names. Anxiety came to him then; an involuntary shiver, half worry and half excitement that could not be contained. He did his best to hide that he was shaking.

The doorknob turned and Lenobia Bedelin peeked out, smiling at the crowd of little humans before her. She thought at that moment that she'd never grow tired of that sight. "Hello, everyone. I hope you've prepared. Don't worry about the examination, it'll be very simple." Once she paused, she pulled out of the pocket of her cloak a miniature chalkboard and hung it from a nail on her door. "One of you comes in and once you are done the board will inform the rest of you so the next one comes in. Is everything clear?"

Everyone nodded, some quickly and nervously, while others in a slower, more collected manner. "Come on in then, who's first? No need to do this in an alphabetical order."

"I am," Ben Rafingstone said bravely and stepped ahead. The young Gryffindor was only slightly shorter than the professor, a fact that was blatantly obvious as he followed her inside.

Scorpius's facade of calm broke down to a jittery yarn of nerves then, the insides of his palms sweating and an inexplicable itch creeping up his neck. What if my wand slips from my grasp? He whipped his hand on his cloak discreetly.

The board made a sound as if a piece of invisible chalk wrote on top of it and the word "Next" appeared with Bedelin's calligraphic letters. Scorpius took a deep breath and hurried in before anyone else had the time to move.

Bedelin's office was oddly styled. There was a relaxed, bohemian air about it, combined with a slightly creepy collection of skeletons of mice and cats. Bedelin led him in, noting the same surprise on Scorpius's face that appeared in the faces of most of her students. "Try to relax. I'm not intending to request something absurd of you, Mr. Malfoy."

Scorpius nodded, but the feeling didn't leave him until he learned what he was up against. Nothing could have been easier in fact. It was the spell, which, curiously enough, he had revised last. All that he needed to do, was to transfigure a sleepy bat into a pincushion. Scorpius cast the spell with ease and the bat hanging from the bar, dropped with a light plop on the desk.

"That's a very elaborate cushion!" Bedelin said happily. She picked it up and examined it closely, looking for patches of hair or bat toenails.

"I thought it would match with your office," he blurted out. He had no intention to offer words of flattery in favour of better grades, realizing only too late that it sounded like that. "I m-mean… that… if you have use of a pincushion of course."

Professor Bedelin nodded, not looking in the least offended. "Thank you, dear. That's very sweet of you." she said. "You may leave from the passage behind the tapestry now."

Scorpius lifted a corner of the indicated tapestry with unicorns printed on it and followed a well-lit hallway that stretched on behind it. As he walked, he came to the conclusion that the students would use different exit than entrance, in order not to reveal the test to the ones still waiting. With a weight lifted off his chest, Scorpius sat on the base of the stairs of the ground floor, waiting for more first years to gather and someone to call them in the Great Hall for the theoretical examination of the Transfigurations.

It took less than he expected for all of them to finish despite their large number and they soon were seated inside. The Great Hall's ceiling was a little moody that day, the clouds in the sky casting shadows over the desks as they swiftly traveled across the room. The papers with the questions were magically passed out to each of them and Scorpius was pleased to see he would have no trouble answering the questions. Judging by the smug look on Rose's face and the relief written all over Albus's, they also thought the questions were rather easy.

Quincy, on the other hand, put on his blankest of gazes; it was the utter terror of having no clue what to write. He tried peeking left and right a few times and even whispered a question at Ryan once.

"Mr. Goyle, if this keeps up, I'll be forced to remove you from the room." Bedelin had to warn him only once to stop.

Scorpius turned his full attention to his own paper and picked up his quill to begin writing. He scribbled on and on, being as thorough as one could be. He caught Rose watching him a couple of times, before focusing back to what she was writing. A disturbing scratching sound echoed through the hallway, coming from the quill of a certain redhead girl, because she was writing too fast. He glared at Rose and tried picking up the pace himself. In the process, the squealing of his own quill covered the noise of hers.

Rose tried writing even faster and Scorpius responded in kind. Tic for tac, he thought proudly. This went on and on for as long as an eternity and before he knew it, Scorpius was nearly out of information to write down and strength to move his wrist. His hand was cramping horribly.

"I swear before Professor Bedelin, if the two of you don't cut this out, I'll come and snap your quills in half!" That came from Filtch, who was grumpily acting as a supervisor along with the professor.

Rose smirked and tried writing equally quickly, but without pressing the tip of her quill against the paper so hard. Scorpius sunk his quill in ink to add a few last words and began rereading his answers, making sure he hadn't missed anything. A smug, little smirk formed on his face, knowing Rose was still writing things and so, he would hand over his paper first.

He wasn't done yet, when someone pushed back his chair and shuffling his feet, handed over his paper. "Thank you, Albus," Bedelin said and collected it.

Scorpius was quite shocked that Albus was the first to finish. He should have seen it coming, but he didn't, being so caught up in writing faster than Rose Weasley. He rolled his eyes and rolled the paper into a tube, as he walked to the professor. He could hear Rose's shoes clicking on the floor behind him, following his lead.

The exams weren't at all as ghastly as he expected. They weren't grilled with impossible questions and the professors didn't force them to try all the spells they had learned through the year one by one to see which one they were deficient at. They had to cast an unlocking charm for Professor Flitwick, an easy disarming charm for Professor Cemola and answer orally a question about how they'd deal with a dark-wizard kind of situation and lastly they had to brew an antidote for viper poison for Professor Erb.

If asked, Scorpius would say how easy the written portion of the exams also was; but many would disagree. Quincy Goyle would go first and there were more, who felt the same way, especially about History of Magic. When Albus had come out of the Great Hall, he had announced that "To hell with this bloody History, I am done and even if I fail I am a free man!" Nonetheless, Rose had whispered a couple of questions to him, so he had chances to have passed.

"There's only three days left until we leave! We must do it now!" Rose insisted as the three of them hid in the Squid's Lair, scheming. They had stopped taking Sirius's journals down there, since they would be little to no help without sunlight. Scorpius had decided to find a spell that would produce sun-like light, to trick the journal. He wasn't intending to tell that to Rose yet though, for fear she would beat him to it.

"I'm trying to find the right moment! The place needs to be deserted for that," Scorpius said.

"I agree. Let's not take more students to the grave with us." Albus nodded solemnly.

"We're not going to die!" Scorpius and Rose snarled at him simultaneously.

"Do you have no faith in my plan?" Scorpius demanded with a pout. If he had to be frank, he wasn't sure anyone should have any faith in that plan, but those kinds of conversations made him feel more and more that it was about time they aborted the whole ordeal.

"Do you two have no sense of humour? I was trying to be funny."

"In a very morbid way," Rose murmured.

Albus shook his head. "Anyway, shall we go over the plan one more time?" And so they did. Scorpius repeated all of it, step by step, and they clarified any odd parts of it. Once they were certain of how foolproof it was, they snuck out, stepping onto the shore of the Black Lake, which looked even darker at this late stage of dusk.

They traced back the route Professor Longbottom had shown them on the field trip so long ago and kept descrying the flora on their left side, looking for the wild mandrakes that grew someplace nearby. Scorpius did worry a bit about their age; half a year was a length of time that would have let them mature even more. And the wild ones were dangerous even when they were immature, as the Professor had warned them.

From a distance, not too far from where they were standing, music reached them.

It wasn't like any kind of music Scorpius had heard before. It was neither a classical melody, like those that Astoria Malfoy had taught him how to play, nor one of those popular songs the Slytherin girls liked, from bands such as the Joyless Hags. It was a kind of music rather difficult to describe. Inhuman and translucent, melodic but intimidating. Scorpius knew what it was.

Albus came to a halt. "Maybe we shouldn't go that way. It sounds like someone's throwing a party. Do you think it could be older students, who have snuck out of the castle to celebrate?"

Scorpius struggled to sniffle a chuckling fit. Rose looked at Scorpius and giggled a bit herself. "They're not very old after all, are they?" she told Scorpius, ignoring her cousin.

Albus glared at both of them, irked at the fact that he was the only one who didn't understand what was going on.

"No, apparently they're not," agreed Scorpius.

"Will you ever tell me?" Albus demanded.

Scorpius felt that Albus might try transfiguring him into something, if he didn't do so soon. He composed himself, wearing that unreadable expression he had learned from Father. "Yes. Sorry. It's… well, that is probably the mandrakes."

"Our mandrakes? The ones we're looking for?" Albus asked in surprise. "Aren't they a bit too old for to be throwing a party?"

Rose shrugged.

"Apparently not. Perhaps Professor Longbottom made a mistake about their age."

"Or there's another bunch of younger ones growing nearby," offered Rose.

"Let's not waste any more time. We need to go. And it might better for us that they're younger. That means they're easier to handle."

They reached the source of the music. Sprouts of dark green leaves, whose nerves were purple, swayed left and right, as if to the music. "Tread lightly from this point on, we don't want to disturb them," Rose warned.

Albus shuffled through his bag, fishing out three pairs of mufflers and handing one to Scorpius and one to Rose. They all put them on, looking rather ridiculous. Albus kept his hand inside the outer pocket of his bag, clutching what Scorpius knew that was a pair of gardening shears.

The children approached a mandrake that was somewhat isolated from the bunch and lightfootedly circled around it as it moved to the music. Scorpius clutched the mufflers a little tighter over his ears. He trusted Rose's enchantment to enhance the mufflers' silencing effect, but it wasn't like they had tested it on a mandrake; only on Rose's and Albus's combined shriek.

Rose squated down to the ground, towards the mandrake. It sensed her and stopped. It had slightly uprooted itself from the ground from the dancing of sorts that it had been occupied with and a pair of red, unreadable eyes blinking at the young witch. "Hello, little mandrake," she cooed calmly and slowly. Scorpius had warned her not to startle it. He was taken aback by how softly Rose was capable of speaking, as if she actually were… well, a girl. "We don't mean to hurt you…" she continued.

The mandrake blinked a little harder at Rose. Its mouth was still buried in the soil.

"We brought you a nice fertilizer, to help you grow large and bloom beautifully in the fall." With slow movements Rose opened a sack of Dragon Dung Fertilizer #3 and spread some around the base of the mandrake with a gloved hand. The mandrake shut its eyes pleased, as Rose spread the fertilizer around.

"It looks flattered. Well done," Scorpius whispered.

"Now, would you consider giving us a little thing we need?" Rose said it so softly, that it hardly felt like a request. The mandrake's eyes flickered at her through the darkness. "We only need three of your leaves. They can be the smallest or the oldest ones you've got, whatever you need least."

Once the mandrake started shifting in the soil, Scorpius's survival instinct began kicking in, preparing to bolt at the first sign of the mandrake's intention to scream. It burrowed a little deeper, only the top half of its eyes being visible anymore.

"Did it nod? Was that a nod?" whispered Rose, uncertain.

"It felt a little like a nod to me," Albus said hesitantly.

Rose added some more fertilizer around the mandrake. "May we…?" she asked again. The mandrake blinked and Rose motioned at her cousin. Albus had the shears ready, when, without a warning, three of the mandrake's younger leaves fell by themselves on the soil. He hid away the shears and collected the leaves with deft movements.

"Thank you. That is so kind of you," Rose said, daring a pat on the fleshy part of the mandrake, before the three of them retreated.

The children said nothing until had put a fair distance between them and the party of mandrakes, so happy that they did it that they were at a loss of words.

"Are you sure this is going to preserve the leaves?" Albus asked, holding his leaf over a small jar of steaming liquid.

"Yes," Rose said heatedly, at the same time that Scorpius said, "Hopefully." She smirked and dipped her leaf in the jar, let it sink and screwed the metal lid to keep it sealed. Scorpius wondered if the lid would pop from the shifting pressure since she screwed it too soon. But the potion's instructions dictated it to be done so. "It will, Al, but only if you put it while it's still hot. It'll be useless once it cools down."

"Maybe I should… you know…" he started hesitantly.

"What? Start chewing it now? And you'll spit it out in a month, if all goes well, and start brewing the potion at home?" Rose asked. "How are you going to move it once you need to get back to Hogwarts after the summer?"

Albus frowned, debating whether he should believe in the supposed preserving solution enough to entrust his precious mandrake leaf in it. "I suppose that wouldn't work," he admitted, seeing reason to Rose's logic. That had been the reason they had opted for a preserving solution in the first place.

"Exactly! So now just put your leaf in, or I'll do it for you!" she threatened.

"You can't really start the chewing now… There's no full moon after all," Scorpius pointed out.

Convinced, Albus finally did it. Rose clapped, albeit somewhat mockingly, and left to stash away her jar inside her trunk, away from the prying eyes of the rest of her dormmates. The boys did the same with theirs as this was a perfect opportunity, with none of the other boys in their bedroom.

"I am expecting it to taste more horribly than a fresh mandrake leaf when we have to start chewing it," Scorpius murmured as they left the bedroom. Rapax followed them, so close to Scorpius's feet that it was a miracle how he hadn't stepped on Rapax's tail a million times by the time he reached the large windows facing the Black Lake's waters.

"I hope not. But I'm prepared for it anyway. My biggest problem is how to keep chewing on a leaf for a month without my siblings noticing it. And worse… my mother."

"My parents won't be a problem. And Penny can keep a secret, so it's fine if she finds out."

Albus exhaled audibly. "It will sound strange, but although this summer break hasn't even started yet, I can't wait until it's over."

"I never looked forward to it anyway," Scorpius agreed. It was true. His time in Hogwarts was more interesting and constructive than it was at home. He had tasks to keep him occupied and people to spend his time with, if he wished to. It was an odd thing, how loneliness creeped through the Manor, even when there were people in the rooms. He thought of two months with nearly no interaction with nobody except his family and Penny… and perhaps Quincy and his mother. He dreaded it terribly.

"Are you two ready?" Rose asked, popping out of nowhere.

The boys nodded and the three of them left for the school grounds, where Professor Bazel would host the final match of Firsties Quidditch before his first year students left for the summer. They would never be firsties after that; it was some sort of tiny graduation, after which they would have to train by themselves and join their House's team if they wished to practice more.

"How about we all try to join next year?" Albus suggested, once the Quidditch pitch came into view.

Rose nodded and Scorpius smiled. "Let's try. Although we'll need some wicked luck, for all three of us to find spaces in the team."

"Don't be such a whining, little nudger, Malfoy," Rose snapped. "We can and we will. Don't make me buy you a good luck charm so you can make it past the tryouts!" she threatened and disappeared into the girls' changing rooms.

"Would she really get me a charm for the tryouts?" Scorpius wondered out loud.

Albus raised his hands in the air. "Don't get me involved. I'm saying nothing, thus I can be blamed for nothing!" He grinned and vanished in the boys' changing rooms. "But I do hope we get some of this wicked luck."