Chapter 31. Library talks
Everything started changing little by little.
Brawns received a few detentions from Perdsmith when he left the Hospital Wing, revived by Healer Somsak with no lasting injuries or bruises. Hearing Sarrasin ream him out was one of the happiest moments of Scorpius's life.
Rose showed up to the Great Hall once with Jazz and Nadir for a meal, which made the school go slightly insane. Jazz yelled at everyone who got too close, and Nadir did his best intimidating face (which wasn't hard for a 17 year old with a thick beard). It sort of worked out, as long as they didn't mind hundreds of eyes staring at them while they ate.
Whereas Scorpius used to complain about his family in the paper, he now complained about all the new werewolf stories that were in there. There were still no official statements from the family or her, so most of it was speculation and gossip from the original story or students being interviewed.
Rose had a sort of immunity now: when she encased Beyries' head in a pumpkin for howling, Professor Longbottom ignored it. When she tripped Fezz in the hallway with a jelly-legs jinx for calling her a dog, Professor Lavallee looked the other way. It seemed all the professors were told to not talk about it, not answer any questions, and to continue on normally.
Things slowly settled down.
After a week had passed, Rose was on the second page of the paper – no longer headlining it. The paper was almost back to normal with the inclusion of the weirder stories like chopsticks fighting in a pawn shop, and a pho soup inspired by nargles.
Pretty soon the whole school was abuzz about Quidditch again. The first semi-final game was promising to be exciting and everyone was counting down the days until Gryffindor and Slytherin faced off.
The day of the match arrived. Not surprisingly, Scorpius has his detention in the morning instead of the evening. Perdsmith didn't say much about it, but Scorpius could see he was wearing rather more green than normal.
Scorpius' task was a mundane one. He had to refill the empty bottles in the supply room in the classroom with the larger Potions storage down the hall and then brew a cheer-up potion. It was the weakest detention, and he could feel that Perdsmith wasn't quite into it like some of the other ones.
Perdsmith was pacing, inquiring if Scorpius was done yet when he was five minutes into his potion.
"I'll be done in fifteen minutes Professor," he said.
"Fifteen minutes. Well keep at it. Time is ticking." For what though, Scorpius couldn't tell.
It was a very easy potion and his mind was wandering as he robotically did the steps.
A thought suddenly came to him and he looked up, startled. "Professor ... do you make the Wolfsbane Potion for Rose?"
He seemed to shift uneasily back and forth. "That's not important Scorpius. Get back to work."
"Oh. I'm curious ... I've never thought about it before but there's a lot of potion to make hey? Like seven days' worth every month? Is it hard to do? What's the recipe like?"
"Do not concern yourself with Wolfsbane. It's a restricted potion and beyond your skill level."
Well if there was one thing he could have said to make him even more interested, that was it.
He immediately went to the library after his detention and started wandering around the advanced Potions section. He couldn't find one sniff of it. He visited the restricted section as well and the most he found was a reference in a book, but no recipe. He asked Rose about that later.
"Oh they removed that book when I became a werewolf. I snuck in the library in third-year and someone caught me reading it. I think they were worried I'd try and brew it myself or something. If you ask the librarian he might know where it is." She gave a shrug and went back to her essay.
Scorpius was curious enough that he went to the front desk to ask the next day.
"You're the fifteenth person to ask me this week," the librarian said rather callously. "This isn't a show and tell, sneak a peek type of thing. This is a dangerous potion, with rare ingredients that have the potential to be highly dangerous if brewed incorrectly. No Mr. Malfoy, this book is no longer available period."
Okay. Dead end. Nothing he could do about that.
He eyed Potter in the corner and made his way over.
"Last minute homework before the big match tonight?" he asked.
"As always, as always. So I heard that you and Rose beat each other up?"
Scorpius shrugged. "I guess. We reconciled our differences the most feasible way."
"Sure. Anyway I'm glad you two are cool now."
He nodded in reply and went digging in his bag for the note he picked up a few weeks ago. Eeeeh, it was a bit smudged and illegible being at the bottom of his bag for so long. Scorpius unfolded it and set it on the table. "Found some evidence for you. Sounds like Rennings was deliberately holding Rose up to get her kicked off the team. Forgot I had it … might be hard to read in some sections. Too bad it's not for the freezing spell someone shot at her during the game though. I'm sure that was Rennings as well, even though there's no evidence."
"What does it … oh. Well, bollocks." He shook his head and flipped the page over. "This side I can use ... Well, most I can do is ban Rennings from all Quidditch games for the rest of the year for interfering." He pointed to the other side. "This side shows she's a shallow and inconsiderate person. She made a pretty penny off the story it sounds like."
"Hmm … I think both sides show how vile she is. I don't understand her utter disdain for your cousin. She's treated so horribly."
"Rose knows. Ask her – she's headed this way with a look on her face as if she knows what we're talking about."
Potter folded the paper back up and put it in his robes. Rose looked suspicious at where he placed it.
"What was that?"
"Oh some evidence in something I'm working on."
"Evidence?"
Potter gave a feeble smile. "Something from earlier this year. Anyway I have to get ready for the Quidditch game. Bye."
He cleared the table with one large swoop of his arm and pushed everything in a jumbled mess in his bag. Scorpius winced. All his papers were going to get crushed by the books and that sounded like a quill snapping.
He gave a smile, stood up and then floated out of the library.
Rose sighed and sat down.
"That was weird," Scorpius said.
"He's scared of me."
"No he's not."
She rolled her eyes. "Okay I know. He's not. He dislikes being questioned intensely though and knows he can't keep a secret. Escape is his only defence against me."
"Makes more sense."
She nodded. "So since we're embarking on this whole friends thing right now –"
"– way to make it sound like a forced contract –"
She gave him a look. "– I want to make sure you understand that I'm not lying when I say I don't like people. And there will be times that I need and want to be alone. I don't mean to offend you or anything by it. Just wanted to say that."
Scorpius gave a small smile. "Okay. That's fine. Also know that I understand as well – everyone needs the time that they need. I'll be around when you need company again."
"Cool."
"Cool."
She looked behind her. A few members of the Hufflepuff team were tutoring near the front. Sarrasin, as if sensing people looking at her brought her head up and gave a very evil looking grin.
"She has some redeemable qualities, at least," Rose said.
Scorpius thought of the way she had yelled at Brawns after the liver throwing incident. "Annoyingly so. Still doesn't make her any less of an ass."
"So beyond the whole Quidditch rival thing, why don't you get along? I've seen you talking with Higgs and my brother no problem."
Scorpius tapped his seven fingers on the table. Here he was wanting to ask her all the questions and she beat him to the questions.
"Largely her ego. Which is probably not that much of a surprise. But I also … see myself in her. A lot. And it scares me to know that I probably would have turned out like her if circumstances in my life were different." He raised his left hand and twiddled his two fingers. "Such as not blowing off three fingers when I was young. Getting sorted into a different House. Not having Nadir as a Captain. Those sorts of things. I could have definitely been her … or been a minion on her team, not thinking, not challenging the dominant belief, and being super arrogant. Oh man … Or being friends with Brawns. Can you imagine that? That's so gross."
"Hard to imagine you as someone different than you are already."
"Thankfully I have all my friends. You know. Keep me on my toes – let me know when I'm being ridiculous."
Her face fell slightly at that. If Scorpius hadn't made her facial features a study all year he would have missed it. She was a very expressive person, contrary to popular belief. One only had to pay attention to the subtleties of the minute movements. "It's good to have people that care about you. I do have family, and even then sometimes they can be overbearing."
She seemed open and Scorpius jumped on his chance. "So, what's between you and Rennings then? Not friends?"
She shook her head. "We were best friends at one point. She was actually camping with my family when I was bitten and that's why she knew in the first place … And I mean, she was so supportive those first few years. She'd cover for me when I was missing class, share all her notes and homework, and make excuses to everone asking questions … I was scared someone would realise I was sick near the full moon so I was skipping class all the time."
"Well," Scorpius said, "skipping class worked. We thought about the werewolf thing once – Nott, West, and I. Then dismissed it because the timing was too erratic."
The right side of her mouth slightly lifted. "I'm sure you could have thought of it sooner had I not deliberately tried to throw off people … but the truth is, I really couldn't have survived Hogwarts without her. Since Perdsmith is her uncle it wasn't weird that she went there to pick up my potion every day before a full moon. She would bring my potion to wherever I was in the castle or forest … and I think – I really abused her friendship those first few years. She did everything I asked and supported me in every way. It was wearing her down as much as the stress and werewolf bits were wearing me down. And then the secret got to be too much for her or she finally saw how unhealthy our system was." Rose drummed her fingers on the table, looking behind Scorpius at the wall.
"About halfway through fourth-year she wanted me to tell the school and get it over with so life could go back to a somewhat normal schedule. She said I was a different person now than before, and I shouldn't let being a werewolf define me as I was letting it."
"Wow. Rennings being somewhat sane? Really hard to believe," said Scorpius.
"I know. But I was headstrong and miserable. It was a really low moment in my life, to be honest. She was really pressuring me to not let this werewolf thing take over my life like I was letting it and I … I snapped. I tried to do her a favour and remove the memory of me being a werewolf so she wasn't a part of it anymore ... I researched in the Restricted Section for a memory charm and practiced only a few times before I snuck up on her in the Forest one day." Rose put her head in her hands. "I spelled her with her back turned. It was disgusting. It was cowardly."
It was one thing to hear it from Rennings, who Scorpius had doubted. He felt a lump in his throat. What a situation to be in, for the both of them.
Rose continued. "That's probably the most tragic part of this whole thing. She was in intensive care at Mungo's for a few weeks with brain damage. I was almost expelled. She came back – different. I still don't know if it's because of my spell or the betrayal … I almost ruined both of our lives because I was scared of people knowing I was a werewolf. It's most selfish thing I've ever done."
"Well, I don't think it's selfish to protect yourself when you're scared. You were young and didn't think you had anywhere else to turn. You can't beat yourself up about it."
She shrugged and pulled her hands away from her face. "I absolutely knew better though … Dakota will never forgive me and I really don't want her too. After we were back in Hogwarts we were both changed people. I had created my worst enemy. She was stuck as the only one knowing and in the routine we had developed over the years. Professors still paired us together without thought. They still expected her to share notes. She also knew I was terrified of people knowing, so she used that to control me because she didn't care anymore."
"That's not an excuse to mistreat someone though … neither of you were innocent. And of course, I'm saying that from an outside perspective, mind you. Regardless of what you did, she was abusive and manipulative and used you and she knew better as well."
Rose looked out the window, resting her head on her hand. The sun was shining and the world was slowly turning green. Seemed like an early spring for sure. "I think she was so manipulative as well because she wanted me to stand up and do something about it. And then I didn't, so she tried worse and worse things. Yet I remained passive …" She gave a large sigh. "Endless cycle of abuse. We were toxic for eachother and stuck with eachother. Plus there's the fact that I made the Quidditch team, which really strained things this year. In the end, I was really the worst person to be bitten. I wanted to keep it all hidden. Do everything myself, fend for myself and went about it the wrong way … I had the maturity level of a goat."
"Ha! I don't believe that. I have the maturity level of a goat, not you."
"Hmm. Maybe … but only if I'm the mountain goat. You're more the farm goat."
His mouth dropped and he tilted his head to the side. "I … think I'm offended."
She gave a toothly, sly left-sided grin. "Don't overthink it."
"It really is an invasion of privacy for her to sell the story. It's your story. Not hers. It's good to open up and share with people you're close to, but the whole world didn't need to know."
"I know. And I'm not trying to make excuses for her … but I think she felt it was the last straw. She'd tried so many other things. Appealed over and over. And I wasn't budging, wasn't caring. So she gave up and went for the solution that she would at least benefit from. No fucks given."
"So are you glad she shared then? How are things working out?"
"Scorpius. Ask me that question when I'm ninety and maybe I'll have an answer for you."
He grinned. "Oh I will, Rose Weasley. Just you wait."
"You wonder how different your life would have been if circumstances were different. I also wonder the same."
It was weird to think along that path – all the 'if's' and 'why's' that made a person who they were. One different choice could have lead to a very different path and life. Were they even where they were supposed to be right now?
They sat in silence. Scorpius let that sink in for a few minutes.
Then he clapped his hands together after his brain started hurting and she jumped in her seat (along with nearly half the library). "Merlin that was loud," she muttered.
"Ha! I scared you. I think I'm going to have to cherish these rare moments. So we have a few hours before Slytherin and Gryffindor play. What do you want to do?"
"Eat."
"Oh. Okay. I was thinking something more exciting along the lines of flying the brooms onto the roof of the school to play chess or something. I found a cool spot not too long ago. Buuuuut we can go to the kitchens instead."
"I'm hungry all the time, you'll get used to it. I do like your idea. First though, I'm going to make a stop at the kitchens to load up."
They left the library, talking about werewolf diets and the unfair advantage of choosing to have a food eating contest the day after a full moon.
Almost the whole team was sitting at the back of the stands already when Scorpius and Rose flew from the finished chess game on the school roof to the pitch.
Gryffindor and Slytherin were doing a warm up and the stands were rather quiet still. It was about half an hour until game time. He took a seat next to Nadir and Rose went next to Jazz.
"Hey Scorp, I bet you Gryffindor will win the game," Junior said from Nadir's other side.
"What are you talking about, of course Gryffindor is going to win the game. Slytherin has been lagging all year. The few wins they had were extremely lucky."
"Okay, fine! I'll bet you that Slytherin wins the game."
"What? Why are you trying to bet so badly?"
"If you win, I'll let you do my potions essay. If I win, you have to do my potions essay."
"Let me? Pshaaa." Scorpius leaned back in his seat. "Make bets with people less intelligent than me. Hell no I won't do your homework for you."
Junior scowled and Bitz punched him in the shoulder. "Ha. Told you."
Astrid arrived carrying a large basket that she dropped on the laps of Jazz and Rose.
"We are having a picnic today inspired by Lebanese cuisine. I'm starved –"
"– me too," piped in Rose.
"– and we might as well feast before the game."
Scorpius made a face. What the hell. They had returned from the kitchens not even thirty minutes ago. She even had more food stashed in her bag.
The stands slowly started filling up and he could eventually hear Tiff on the loudspeaker welcoming everyone to the pitch and announcing ten minutes until game time. That was the cue for the teams to return to the locker rooms for the official introduction to the pitch.
To kill the last ten minutes, they all had a race to fold an origami horse the quickest from memory with Bitz keeping time. Even though they had learned earlier that year, Scorpius couldn't remember and folded a frog looking head with an abstract body. Jazz won and proudly held up a horse semblance – though the head looked too small and one leg was backwards.
This semi-final game brought out more Ravenclaw students than any other game (which was a bit of a piss off for today considering Ravenclaw's weren't even playing right now). The stands were almost full when Tiff started the welcoming introductions and called the teams back on the pitch. They could see the Hufflepuff team on the other side of the pitch all together as well. The winner of this game went to the finals in May, one month away.
It was very sunny and Scorpius forgot his sunglasses. It would mean a death sentence if they were playing, but only a minor inconvenience right now.
"How are the tasks going?" Nadir asked pleasantly, as he was wont to do whenever asking Scorpius about it.
"Well we've done eight of them, I think. They've gone well."
"There was supposed to be nine tasks, right?"
"We're friends now – we still have to do the last task? Why?"
"Because you made a promise and you need to complete it. As friends now, it shouldn't be hard to do."
"I mean, it's not like you're going to kick me off the team at this point. We're in the semi-finals next week."
"Don't tempt me."
Rose leaned behind Jazz to jump in. "Don't worry, we'll complete the last task soon."
Nadir nodded and Scorpius tried to get his heart to calm down.
Potter flew over to the Ravenclaw stands, aiming for Rennings who was down lower. He was easy to overhear. "Dakota. I told you an hour ago that you were banned from all Quidditch games."
"This is nepotism. Favouritism."
"No. You deliberately tried to prevent a player from playing. If you're not gone in five minutes, Professor Longbottom will be here."
She sniffed and folded her arms, looking away. As soon as Potter left, they could hear her say loudly, "Well clearly there is some favouritism shown around here to protect the werewolf." She shot a glare at Rose.
Rose made no comment.
Scorpius gave a strained smile at her, though he kept his mouth shut. Rose ignored him.
Rennings was the only one who Rose had not stood up to yet, the only one who got away with making rude comments. Regardless of the history between them, it was still frustrating and unacceptable.
Rennings left without looking back.
The game started out strong for the Gryffindors with an early lead of 40-0. The game was fast and Tiff was barely saying the players' names as the Quaffle was passed.
"Did she just call Higgs a Pig and Picasso a Hicasso?" Astrid said.
"Volunteer position. What are you going to do?" said Jazz. "Oh, she's reduced the Slytherin Beater twins to Beater 1 and Beater 2."
Hugo had the Quaffle at the bottom of a vertical stack with the Chasers. Nadir was watching intently. "This is a new play," he muttered. "Interesting."
Hugo passed to Park straight upwards and then she passed upwards again to Tyler. It seemed to work, throwing the Slytherin Beaters off. Tyler had a shot that was blocked by Diaz. He passed it back to his Chasers.
"They always have something new," Nadir said. "That's something to look out for."
"It doesn't always work though," replied Scorpius.
"True. But they are willing to take those risks. More often than not they can fumble something together."
The three Quidditch refs were working overtime, flying back and forth across the pitch at top speeds. Scorpius saw two fouls they didn't catch – but there was no such thing as an all-seeing ref. As it was, they did manage to catch most of the other fouls.
And then it was the end. Azur flew by Diaz, fitting through the right ring of the hoops and caught the Snitch on the other side.
Gryffindor was going to the finals.
The Gryffindor stands went mad, some crazy decorations of lion heads were roaring all around, mouths opening and closing. Scorpius couldn't discern the crowd's cheers from the roaring of the lions.
Nadir nodded. "Well, it was a good game. No surprises … Gryffindor to the finals." He seemed pensive, fingers rubbing through his beard as he looked out at the pitch.
"We can beat Hufflepuff," Scorpius said. "We've been so close a few times this year. We're all getting along better than ever. We all want so badly to win. We can do it."
"We can and we will," Junior said.
Nadir nodded. "The game is one week away. We'll have three practices – Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Friday we'll meet and discuss strategy and take it easy. I want everyone to be as relaxed as you can all week. Let's not get hyped up about it, let's not let Hufflepuff antagonise us. They are going to take every opportunity to destabilise us before the game even starts next week. It starts now for us. This game is going to be as much mental as anything. We can't let them get into our heads."
They were the last ones in the stands, still sitting together. Gryffindors had long cleared, the roaring lion heads already back in the castle.
"What's everyone doing tonight?" Jazz said suddenly. Everyone seemed to shrug and not say anything specific. Astrid slathered hummus onto the last pita and took a giant bite. "I think we should go back to the Shrieking Shack tonight. A team bonding before the mayhem of this week. We could bring games again, make pizza, and avoid the crazy Gryffindor shenanigans that are probably already happening."
They all looked at Nadir. He narrowed his eyes slightly and then looked around at the group. "That might be exactly what we need."
They snuck out of the castle early with a bag loaded with food (that Astrid picked out), lots of different games (with paper for origami from Bitz and a radio from Junior), sleeping bags, books, puzzles, and smiles all around.
It was going to be a long week before their game with Hufflepuff, but they could enjoy what they could while they could.
