Disclaimer - Hermione can't draw and I don't own Harry Potter.

A/N - Hello everyone! Not too bad on the updating this time around, although it would have been quicker if I hadn't been distracted by A Very Potter Musical/Sequel (points to anyone who FINDS the sneaky reference in this chapter). Anyhoo, hope you enjoy this one - it's all getting a bit serious!

Harry was pacing the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. The guests of the party had mostly departed, though Ron, Hermione, Rose and Hugo were sitting around the table, looking worried. Draco Malfoy too was pacing the kitchen, pulling the occasional feather from his robes.

"I knew he was no bloody good."

"James, shut it."

"What, Al? Just 'cause you're all cosy with him, too..."

"James." Rose's hissed warning did it – the combined influences of Hermione and Molly Weasley had given her an impressive arsenal of dangerous looks. Silence descended upon the family again, the only sound was Harry's incessant footsteps on the stone flags of the kitchen floor.

"That's it." Harry said suddenly, breaking the silence and causing everyone around the table to jump. "We're just going to have to go ourselves. Hang what the Ministry say."

"Harry, you know that isn't wise – you don't even know..."

"Hermione – all three of your children are in this room. I think if one of them had just been abducted you would be thinking exactly the same."

Harry informed her pointedly. Hermione took a deep breath before replying,

"I imagine I would, and I trust that you would be there to advise me and make sure that I did nothing rash that could land myself and my child in danger." she said calmly, holding Harry's frightened green eyes with her steady brown ones. Ginny broke the silence by entering the kitchen, running a hand through her fiery hair.

"I still can't get through, and Dad's having trouble getting anywhere down at the Ministry. Whose genius idea was it to have a reduced force on a Sunday? It's not as though crazed ex-Death Eaters sit around saying 'Well, it is Sunday, I suppose we should give the evil a rest'. It's ridiculous!" she looked close to tears as she collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs, only to get up and check the living room fire again.

"If we even knew they were, that would be something." Harry sighed, dropping his head onto the kitchen table.

"And by 'we' I suppose you mean the heroes?" came a voice from the other side of the table.

Every eye turned to Draco Malfoy, in truth, they had forgotten he was there.

"Have any of you considered the fact that it isn't just The Chosen One who's lost his child? No. And I suppose none of you thought that I might even know where they were?" he continued indignantly.

"But you simply decided to keep that a secret?" Harry exploded, "We all know you like to keep us in suspense – your little trick with the Vanishing Cabinet proved that, and what happened there?"

"Harry!" Hermione and Ginny spoke at once as Malfoy blushed scarlet.

"Sometimes, Potter, being turned into a bird, combined with the shock of having your only son disappear in a crash of glass can scramble your mind."

For the first time since Lily and Scorpius had disappeared, Ron spoke.

"Harry, mate, perhaps you should just hear him out. From the looks of things the office isn't going to help us here, so the only way we're gonna get Lily... and Scorpius back is to listen to him. Plus there's four of us and one of him..."

"Nine." Came an indignant voice from across the kitchen.

Hugo was standing up, every eyes turned on him, either in shock or in awe.

"I beg your pardon, young man." Hermione said, standing up also.

"You heard me, Mum. Nine. We want to help. Lily's our family, too. We want to help." Hugo stated, and there were fervent nods from the teenagers around the table.

"Absolutely not, you are far too young to..." Hermione began, only to be cut off by the protests of her children.

"We're older than you were when you saved the Philosopher's Stone!"

"I knew this would happen." Hermione sighed, burying her head in her hands. Once again, it was down to Ron to calm the situation.

"Look, kids. I know how you must feel, and I know it seems unfair of us to forbid you from helping us when we did similar things at your age. But what you have to understand is that we didn't have much of a choice – the adults weren't concerned or were too incompetent to do anything about it. It's different now. We're here to protect you from that, from the terrible danger in which we found ourselves, because it wasn't a picnic. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the sight of Wood and Neville bringing Colin Creevy's body into the Great Hall – he was sixteen, the same age as Rose and Albus. I've seen enough children die, and I am not going to put my own children, my own nieces and nephews, in the sort of danger that means I could see more. Understood?"

Under his father's piercing stare, Hugo could do nothing more than nod before resuming his place.

"Look, I'm sorry. Harry, Hermione and I have put up similar fights in our time but now I can understand exactly why my parents were so against it. Please don't make this any more difficult than it already is."

Another silence followed this pronouncement, until suddenly Rose stood up and threw her arms around her father.

"Don't you get hurt either! We need you back in one piece, got it?"

"Absolutely, Rosie." Ron replied, trying to disguise the lump in his throat and planting a swift kiss on the top of her head.

"Not that I don't find this display of family affection extremely moving, but some of us would like to get our own offspring out of the mortal peril in which they now find themselves." Malfoy interrupted, standing up and gesturing towards the door.

"We can't go anywhere until we know where they are!" Ginny cried, tears springing suddenly to her eyes.

"I've already told you I know. Now can we get a bloody move on?"

When Scorpius awoke, he could barely tell that he had opened his eyes. The room in which he lay was not lit, the only proof he had that he was conscious was the discomfort he felt as his bruised body lay against the hard stone floor. He had caught not a glimpse of the attackers before he was knocked out as his head it the bedroom wall, but he had no doubts as to who had burst the window of Grimmauld Place. His heart gave a great leap in his chest as his hands explored the area around himself to find it empty.

"Lily?" he croaked into the darkness.

"Scorpius?" came the feeble reply, and Scorpius let out a sigh of relief. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could dimly make out Lily's form slumped on the floor. It was only when he attempted to get up to go to her that he realised he had a shard of glass embedded in his calf. He cried out as he put pressure on the wound and fell back to the floor.

"Are you all right?" Lily asked, her voice a little stronger this time.

"Yeah." He breathed, "It's just my leg – some of the glass hit it when the window smashed."

"That doesn't sound all right to me." Lily said, and Scorpius could tell she'd just rolled her eyes. "I suppose they took your wand as well?"

Scorpius patted himself down and sighed.

"Yep. Shouldn't have expected anything else, really. Wait a minute." Scorpius dug in his pocket and quickly found what he was looking for.

"Would you mind awfully if I opened your birthday present?" He said, and Lily paused.

"Why would my birthday present be of any use?"

"Funnily enough, it was meant to be a joke." Scorpius explained as he ripped the paper from the tiny bundle. "It's a shrinkable first aid kit that you can carry around in your pocket, thought it would be useful considering how much you hurt yourself!"

"Oh, you comic genius." Lily said scornfully, but Scorpius could hear the smile in her voice. "Let's get you sorted out, then."

"We're going to have to take the glass out. Do you think you could do that?"

Lily's reply was so quiet, Scorpius could barely hear her.

"Yeah."

Their eyes now fully adjusted to the darkness, Lily and Scorpius could see a large shard of glass sticking out of Scorpius's leg. Taking a large breath, Lily grasped the glass, trying not to let it cut into her own hands.

"Quickly, or slowly?" She asked, her voice shaking just a little.

"Quickly." Scorpius replied, bracing himself for the pain he knew was to come. When Lily tugged the shard from his leg, the pain was sharp, and he could feel the hot blood oozing out of the wound. Lily fumbled in the first aid bag and brought out a white cloth, which looked far too big to fit into the tiny bag. As soon as it touched Scorpius's leg, it darkened and slid off, exposing a clean cut for Lily to bind with another, longer piece of material from the bag. When it was done, se tied the material in a knot, and kissed the spot where the cut had been visible moments before.

"Is there a pain relief potion in here, too?" She asked, rummaging around in the bag and eventually finding a vial of potion.

"That should be pain relief; it's the only potion in the set." Scorpius replied as Lily unstoppered the vial and handed it to him. He threw back the potion in one gulp and felt a cooling sensation spread through his body, landing finally on his leg, where the area around his wound became numb.

"Now that's sorted, where do you think we are?" Scorpius said, sitting up against the stone walls of their makeshift cell. "I think we can both guess who we've been captured by, but where they've taken us is another matter entirely. Even if we get out of this room we need to find our way home again."

"I think we should take each step as we come to it, right now we need to get out of..." Lily was cut short by the sound of footfall beyond the room's single door. A muttered incantation and the door crept open, the light that flooded in blinding both Lily and Scorpius before their captors came into view.

The three hulking men that stood in the doorway were unfamiliar to Lily, but she knew who they were instantly. Scorpius recognised them from his childhood, those men who had made his father shout, the sound echoing through the almost empty Manor as his mother tried to distract him. The four year old Scorpius hadn't understood what was happening at the time, but he knew now and was inexplicably proud of his father for refusing them and their promises of power if he re-joined the Dark.

"Well well well, look who's up." Said the one who had opened the door, Scorpius thought it was Nott.

"Would you be so kind as to accompany us into our main hall?" he asked, an evil smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. Scorpius heaved himself onto his feet, trying not to let it show that he was hurt. He looked down at Lily, still sitting stubbornly on the floor.

"Don't make this difficult." He said quietly, holding out his hand to her. After a second of hesitation, she took it and let him pull her from the floor.

"A wise choice, Miss Potter." Nott said, stepping aside to allow them to walk ahead of him down the corridor. The two wizards in front of them were enormous; side by side they took up almost the whole corridor, twelve years in Azkaban seemed not to have affected them in the least. When they reached the main hall, there were four familiar figures standing there with identical smirks on their faces.

"Miss us?" Zabini asked as they were pushed to the floor by their older captors.

"Yes, actually. I have missed your sweet if bumbling attempts to kill me over the past couple of weeks." Lily said and Scorpius hung in head in despair. However, Zabini did nothing more than laugh softly.

"Then you'll be happy to know that this time we can't fail. No-one knows where we are here, so not even your famous father can save you now."

"What is your problem?" Lily suddenly shouted. "What the hell has my father ever done to you?"

"What's he done to me?" Zabini's cool manner disappeared instantly, "He took my father away, that's what he did. He wasn't even involved with the Dark Side's plan to seize power again, but your precious father got him banged up in Azkaban anyway, just because he was a Slytherin! He died there, Potter. That's what your father's done to me, to my whole family. Your "Light Side" is supposedly all for equality but that's a bloody lie – they might be cosy with the Mudbloods and the half-breeds but what about people like my father? Just because he's part of a pure-blood dynasty, he must support Voldemort!" His olive complexion was tinged with pink, and his eyes were bright with tears that he refused to let fall. Lily opened and closed her mouth before looking down at the floor.

"Look, Zabini I'm sorry about what happened but is this really necessary?" Scorpius tried to argue, only to be cut off by Goyle hitting him around the head, the force of the blow knocking him to the ground.

"Of course it's necessary. This will be a last blow for the Dark, just to show Potter that it's not over yet. We may be beaten, but we can still strike him at his heart." Goyle's smile was pure malice, his thin lips pulling back to show yellow-brown teeth.

"And it'll be so satisfying to finally finish off you, Scorpius. Your little hero complex has been holding us back all year." The younger Goyle added, and when he grinned Scorpius was struck by the resemblance – both men looked equally like trolls.

"So why don't you just get on with it?" Scorpius muttered bitterly.

"Because, Malfoy, it'll be so much more amusing to watch you suffer first." Flint whispered, pointing his wand at Lily and crying "Crucio."

Lily could barely hear Scorpius's shouts of protest over her own screams. Every inch of her body felt as though it was on fire, right down to the marrow of her bones. It wasn't until she was released that she realised her lungs were empty. She gulped in lungfuls of air desperately, unable to stop spasms shooting through her body.

She was totally unprepared for the second curse that was shot at her, unable to fathom how this was so much worse, sharper, the previous one. This time, it was Zabini who tortured her and her own screams seemed far away, mingled with Scorpius's cries of,
"Stop it, let her go!"

An almighty bang brought a sudden end to Lily's pain, the door flying off its hinges. For a second, Lily did not recognise the new figures through her tears. Then, miraculously, she heard her mother's voice,

"Not my daughter, you bastards!"

Scorpius took his opportunity – springing from the floor he hurled himself at Zabini, wrestling the wand from his hand.

"Stupefy!" he cried, missing Zabini by a hair's breadth as he rolled out of the way, pulling a new wand from his pocket, one Scorpius recognised as his own.

"Reducto!" Zabini yelled, ducking behind Goyle as he hurled the curse at Scorpius. From across the room he heard Lily scream, and whirled around in time to see Harry send a jet of orange light at Nott, who stumbled backward, releasing Lily from his grasp. He barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Flint point his wand at him and say "Explus…" before he was thrown backwards into the wall and slid down it again, unconscious.

"Always watch you back." Draco said, smiling at his son before hurling another curse at Goyle, standing across the room. The curse missed its mark, but singed the wall next to Goyle's ear. All round him, Scorpius could hear the sounds of battle – Harry was duelling fiercely with the older Flint by the door whilst Ron held off both Notts, Ginny trying desperately to shield Lily (who was still wandless) and fight off the younger Goyle. Scorpius was amazed at the skill of the younger Slytherins as they fired curse after deadly curse at the rescuers – their fathers must have taught them a few things while they were on the run together.

It was only briefly that Scorpius saw it, a lone wand rolling across the wooden floor, only narrowly missing people's feet as they danced to and fro to avoid the curses hurled by their enemies. What was staring at was Lily, who had darted out from behind her mother's shield to make a grab for her wand. Time seemed to slow as Scorpius saw Goyle raise his wand, not hearing the curse that formed on his lips as he yelled,

"Protego!"

The shield burst from his wand, deflecting Goyle's curse just as Scorpius felt a searing pain in his chest. Looking down, Scorpius only had a few seconds to register the blood that covered his once white shirt before everything went black.

A/N - Hopefully the next chapter will be up soon, I've got my last exam on Thursday so I'll have a bit more time on my hands after that! Reviews are always welcome!