Chapter 28. The Witcher

It was weird to be awake this early for a different reason than Quidditch practice – usually he slept in way longer. For the little he had slept last night, he felt wide awake. He wandered back to the Great Hall after Rose left him by the kitchens and after he had a small cry of frustration and kicked a stone wall (not enough to harm himself, but enough that he cursed his ancestors for his toe hurting). What a shitty morning. What a shitty person. What was her problem?

He knew her problem, but why did she let it be a problem with him. And it wasn't even really a problem. Not these days. Of course, he didn't have a monthly transformation into an animal.

Cass was no longer at the table so Scorpius sat by himself and started opening the rather large amount of mail his owl Sebastien seemed to bring at once to distract himself.

He had letters from his mother, his grandparents, and some weird junk mail from some trash magazine requesting an interview (he didn't know how that made it through the safety filters). There was his yearly subscription magazine to Quidditch World, and then a really small letter at the end from a Japan address. That was super weird … then it hit him.

It was from his cousins.

And that, without a doubt, was the most bizarre thing Scorpius had ever seen. He held it up to the light, trying to see through it. It wasn't the typical box they normally sent with the specialty hair goop. This was a letter. As if his morning could become any more strange.

His eyes skimmed through the very short letter, which essentially had one paragraph.

"… would like to know Bryan Westlock's contact information." Scorpius exclaimed, voice getting loud. "What the hell you weirdos?"

Yet there was nobody around that he could talk about this with except for a few Hufflepuffs who looked behind them at his exclamation.

Dammit all though. His neurotic cousins wanted his best friends contact info? There was no way he was passing that along to his cousins. No way in hell.

He looked around him. There were so few Ravenclaws; how was nobody awake? Nott and Westlock didn't sleep in every weekend, did they?

Come to think of it though, it wasn't as if he had talked with Nott and Westlock recently. When was the last time? He recalled seeing them in class but he had been spending most of his time in the library or at the Quidditch pitch. He was sure they were both as busy as him: Westlock with all his choir practices in preparation for the performance and Nott with his … studies?

Before he could stew in his thoughts very long, Gold came up to him, surprisingly.

"Well look who's actually here before the sun has risen on a Saturday. What miracle is this?"

Days were much longer now that they were halfway into March, but it still had a ways to go. She looked much too cheerful for the hour.

"Couldn't sleep. It's not that weird."

She pursed her lips together. "Hmm yes it actually is. Want some company?"

"Sure."

And then he had a perfectly normal breakfast with Gold, eating more sausage and a few apples as he caught up with her. It had been awhile since he had talked with her one-on-one. In fact, he wasn't sure he had talked with her one-on-one ever. Usually there was another presence around – whether that be Jazz, or Nott, or Nadir. And as much as he gave her a hard time for being a Hufflepuff, this was the first time he realised he liked being around her. She was actually a really cool person.

Well, he was sure he had always known that, but this was the first time he didn't dismiss it.

She had some questions about a Potions essay and he quizzed her on Transfiguration. He even felt brave enough to ask how her morning dance classes were going. Then she mentioned her applications for college the next year and he could only blink in surprise.

College.

She was graduating this year. Going off into the real world. It hit him like a train full of whales.

It was March.

She, Nadir, and Jazz were all going to be graduating in a few months time.

He was going to be missing a significant portion of his friend group next year. His team. They were all going to be gone.

He let her talk about school while he stewed silently in an agonized way. She seemed to realise he was lost in his thoughts after tea was finished and left him with a wave.

The next two arrivals, Melody and Emmanuelle (who was apparently feeling much better now), sat down nearby. They were giggling and talking in low voices. He was so bored he tried to eavesdrop, though rather regretted it when all he heard was random words and phrases, none of which made sense: "this afternoon .. who do you think? … Sandal … noney … shabezeen." Well, it was getting to gibberish, they were a bit too quiet for him.

He slowly inched a bit further away down the bench, pulling his plate and mess of papers with him.

Most unfortunately, he wasn't left alone to his thoughts for long.

Sarrasin came to breakfast and sat in his sight of view at the Hufflepuff table. She was staring at him with her pointed face and proud chin, eyes boring into his.

"Gross," Scorpius muttered to himself. His morning was going to go even more terribly now. She gave a grin, as if she had heard.

"Scared about losing against Hufflepuff again?" she said loudly, a sly smile on her face. "Shall we tick all the reasons why off a list? Ravenclaw only has two wins this year. 1350 points against you so far. Can barely pull a crowd together from your own House to come to the games … You haven't won against my team in nine years and now we play you in the semi-final game next week. Are you scared yet? All your Quidditch hopes and dreams are crashing to the ground right now. Are you crying yourself to sleep at night knowing you're not good enough?"

He could see the two girls next to him suddenly turn their attention over, and the group of younger students further down the table quiet down. Though professional league scouts weren't allowed to formally recruit anyone until Seventh Years had graduated, he'd been hearing rumour that the Falmouth Falcons and Appleby Arrows were interested in her. Her ego was almost out of check these days.

Scorpius stared moodily at his plate. He really didn't want any attention this morning, but Merlin she spoke true. It was terrible how often they lost this year. Terrible that Hufflepuff had been dominant for so long. Terrible that most Ravenclaws didn't care about Quidditch or the Quidditch team. It couldn't be totally hopeless though.

Scorpius looked up at her and cocked an eyebrow. "You might be a little surprised. Don't hedge any bets yet."

The roar of laughter than came out of her was that of a coyote circling a chicken with a broken leg. "No wonder they keep you around Malfoy. You may not score many goals but you sure know how to make people crack up."

Be the bigger person, be the bigger person. Merlin how he wanted to hex her, she knew how to get under his skin. He could not afford any more detentions so close to the semi-final game. He could not afford to sink to her level. Dammit all – his team had morals, they had a standard to stick to.

Yet he was never one to back down in a fight. He had rights, goddammit. He was proud of who he was and his team.

But he couldn't say anything to her. No more detentions. He'd had an unreal amount this year already. He was an easy target, Jazz was right.

Instead of replying to Sarrasin, he stood up and left.

Good riddance.

He missed his friends and rather had a feeling he was being a shitty friend. Probably had been for quite some time.

Merlin, he wanted to talk to them.

Since it was a Saturday without Quidditch, he headed to the dorms to see if they were awake yet.

Rennings crept up on him in the hallway on his way up. As if he needed to hear anymore 'wet dog' comments. She had to know, right? Or was it coincidence?

"You're still up, surprisingly," she said with a jolly smile. "How are you doing?"

Scorpius felt like grunting but then settled on a shrug. He hadn't seen that sort of a smile from her in a long time. It was happiness. It lightened her up considerably.

"I'm okay," he said. "Just bored. No Quidditch today."

She cocked her head to the side and had a small gleam in her eye. "Oh that's odd. Don't you usually have Quidditch practices on Saturday morning?"

"Part of some new changes this year. Now it's a bit more random."

Her eyes were steady on him. "Oh I wonder why that is?"

There was some hippos in tutus in the painting next to him that he looked at for a moment. "I don't know. I was annoyed at first, but its fine. Really not a big deal."

"Mhmmm. Change annoys me too. Especially negative changes." Her hand went up to her black hair and she pushed it back behind her ear, exposing some expensive looking earrings. She had a lot of piercings surprisingly, about four along the ear line. He wasn't sure if they were new or not, but he'd never noticed before. "But sometimes you have to take your power back and force positive changes."

Scorpius suddenly felt decidedly uncomfortable. "Maybe. Say, are those all new piercings?"

She gave a giggle and her hand went to her mouth to cover it. "Like it?"

He shrugged and looked at the hippos again. Dancing hippos in pink and purple and green tutus. "It's … unique I suppose." Just like the painting, but he didn't say that out loud because that would be misconstrued as offensive.

It said something to his boredom that he was still standing here, talking to her.

"Have you ever heard of a magazine called 'The Witcher'?" She said suddenly, her eyes staring intently at him.

"No. What is it?"

"Oh you know, it has all assortments of stories. Might be worth a read this week."

"Why this week in particular?"

"There may be something big in it, a little birdie told me. Something that should have come out years ago. Something that personally affects you. You've been lied to a lot, Scorp. It's time to get your power back too."

He frowned at her. This … didn't sound good. Whatever it was. And Scorpius wanted nothing to do with it. "Thanks for the tip," he said coolly. "I'll be off now, I've got to do something."

Her hand reached out to grab his shoulder. "Bye Scorp," she said.

He couldn't get the feeling of her hand off his mind.

Turns out, both Nott and Westlock were gone from the dormitory by the time he arrived – they probably took a different route down to get breakfast than he took up. He sat down on his bed and stared at the wall. He wanted to talk to Rose. Desperately. He wanted to know if she was ok.

Turns out, he couldn't though. She was a solitary figure and didn't need friends. He wasn't the friend type anyway. Friendly with everyone and friends with no one.

Fuck, he needed to get out of his self-loathing mood.

Tiredness suddenly hit him and he leaned back on the bed, eyes shutting and falling back to sleep.

He was disoriented when he woke up. Couldn't remember the time or the day. He spent the rest of the day by himself, going flying around the school, landing on a turret on the roof of the castle and sitting there, looking out on the landscape

It was mid-March. The sun was out.

Big fluffy clouds were off to the west, rolling closer like a slow stampede; the ground was a muddy mess of snow and water and mud. There were trails of snow along the edges of walking paths and the pitch where it had been cleared off, slower to melt than the rest. Everything was a mess.

Spring was early this year. Which was surprising because Scorpius sure as hell remembered that the ground was thick with snow with freezing temperatures for a playoff game last year. But who knew? Weather could be very unpredictable. He wouldn't be surprised if there was another snow storm in the next few weeks. The whole winter had been colder than normal it seemed. He was prepared for a muddy gross spring –as long as he could be outside more.

The week was hard, and weird. He felt lethargic for a lot of it and there were two Quidditch practices cancelled which was unheard of at this time of the year. He confronted Abdul about it between classes but he gave a vague noncommittal answer and said to use that time to study – which was rather offensive since that's all Scorpius did.

Westlock was off practicing all the time for his big event in one week and Nott, well, Nott was either super pissed at him and ignoring him, or super oblivious and ignoring him.

He wondered if the black shadows under his eyes had always been there. Nights were restless. Rose didn't show up to any classes, and he didn't see her. Not in the Great Hall, not when he prowled around the library in the back wee corners, not in the dormitories, not in the kitchens. Did she even exist? Was she a figment of his imagination?

He asked Potter on Thursday if he'd seen or talked to her recently.

"No. Though I guess she hasn't been to classes hey? Shit. I don't know."

There were rumours circulating around the school, talk of big news coming. Whispers that seemed to erupt overnight within the ranks of students. At first Scorpius gave no thought to it. This school was a breeding ground for festering rumours. But then he heard some first-years as well as seventh-years talking about it in the hallway and the large age gaps and people from all sorts of social circles murmuring about the same rumour seemed suspicious.

What rumours engaged all ages in the school? This seemed ominous.

"Expected by Friday," he heard Lily Potter tell her friends with excitement.

"What do you think it's about?" asked a kid in the Gobstones Club to Sprocket.

"Big news arriving by wings is never good." Melody said to Emmanuelle and Rennings in the common room.

Even the Professors were talking about it, he overheard Perdsmith and Lavallee in the hallway bring it up. "It's got all the kids rumbling right now. Seems a bit excessive. There's a group who have a betting pool going of some sort."

Lavallee's voice lowered and Scorpius only heard the end of the sentence. "— bode well."

What was happening to the school? Maybe someone was doing an exposé on the dragon smuggling ring that apparently existed. Maybe someone knew he snuck a dragon to the Astronomy Tower. It was illegal wasn't it? He could imagine his father's and grandfather's words. They had done everything, absolutely everything to clear the family name for him. He could never live up to it.

Merlin he should go have a drink with Potter at some point so they could lament together about their legacies.

If Rennings was involved maybe she was exposing how she was subject to an illegal memory charm and had brain damage from Weasley. He got a shiver. Who knew, really, what the whole school was buzzing about? He should stop speculating and focus on Transfiguration and how to non-verbally change his eyebrows blue.

On Thursday evening Jazz came up to him. "What is wrong with everything right now? I feel so tense because of this impending doom everyone keeps whispering about."

"Why haven't we had Quidditch all week? That's making me tense as well."

"I don't know." She had a crease in her eyebrow. "Abdul wouldn't say. Doesn't even give a hint of anything. He did say we're practicing on Sunday though for sure."

What was the why in all this though? Weather was nice. They practiced in worse weather almost all winter.

Aieeee. Scorpius didn't like to be left in the dark. Not at all.

Westlock grunted at him in the dorm and immediately went to his bed and shut the curtain, enclosing himself in. The other guys in the dorm eventually all trickled up, going to bed, ignoring him because he usually ignored them.

Nott never showed and Scorpius didn't wait up.

A howl woke him up. Scorpius bolted upright. That was a dream. Could only be a dream. He was covered in a fine layer of sweat. He had a restless sleep – his dreams took him to all corners of the Earth to dredge up the darkest images.

He showered and got dressed, painfully aware of the excessive noise in the common room for a Friday morning.

It all fell silent as soon as he entered. There were no familiar faces in the room and he felt intimidated by all the younger kids. Shivers again. What did they hear? What rumours were going around now? He heard the titters start up as soon as he was closing the door behind him. His hand rested there for a moment.

He didn't want this day to start.

He clenched his fist and turned around. He had to face the day. Alone.

The hallways were quiet. No portraits were in their frames. The few students he did see were slowly slogging towards the Great Hall for breakfast. A few glanced at him, but otherwise he was another one of the masses.

He could hear the buzz from far away. Normal volume levels or not? It seemed louder than usual but maybe because he was expecting something to happen his mind was playing tricks.

He snuck into the Great Hall, sneaking along the edges. Some students did notice him and Scorpius could see a magazine flapping under their hands. The same magazine he could see at every table. The same magazine that some owls were bringing in still. The magazine that showed up in his hands when he got to the table.

Staring up at him in huge print were the words 'A dark secret, hidden for years inside Hogwarts. Rose Weasley: a werewolf."