Chapter 4
AN: Hey all! Sorry I haven't updated for a few days, but seriously, writing an average of 3,000-4,000 words per chapter is really tough! I hope you enjoy this chapter, I certainly enjoyed writing it. And people, please please please please please review! I love hearing from you all, and it helps me figure out where I want to go with the story when you guys give me feedback! We're back to the next generation,
A part of them is gone...
Ara, Rose, and Scorpius clung to each other outside of the Great Hall, none of them willing to let go and face the rest of Hogwarts. The Headmistress paused in front of the large doors, and sadly looked at the three huddled youngsters.
"I am very sorry, Mr. Malfoy and Ms. Weasley. If you ever need someone to talk to... well, you now know where my office is. Feel free to come by, so long as it's before curfew. Please do come by if you ever feel the need to talk to someone."
"Thank you, Professor McGonagall," Rose replied.
"Thank you, as well," Scorpius mumbled when Ara nudged his shoulder.
The Headmistress nodded. "It's the very least I can do," she replied solemnly. "Now, let's go finish our dinner, then," she added, opening the large wooden doors. The whole hall quieted, and the three youngsters fidgeted under the scrutiny of the entire hall, who was trying to discern exactly what had happened by the expressions of the intruders. The Headmistress paid them no heed and strode back to her seat; Rose, Ara, and Scorpius returned to theirs.
"Ara! Scorp!" called Emelda Nott, one of their family friends. "Are you guys okay? What happened? You didn't get into trouble already, Scorpius, did you?" she bombarded the two with questions as they approached the Slytherin table.
"We're fine," drawled Scorpius. "I didn't do anything problematic... yet."
However, on the other side of the room, when both Rose and Scorpius sat down simultaneously, the entire hall exploded in fireworks, spelling out "The Class of 2019 is THE BEST CLASS EVER!"
The entire second year class erupted in cheers, and the hall descended into absolute chaos. Lysander nudged Ara, who had sat down next to him.
"Hey Ara, what do you think would happen, if we started a food fight?"
Ara grinned. "Know any good spells to just make the food explode at the other tables, so we don't have to throw anything?"
Lysander smirked back. "I like the way you think, Zabini." He paused. "Which table should we attack first?"
Ara pondered this amongst the screams that McGonagall was trying to quiet down. She chuckled evilly. "The professors!"
Lysander guffawed, grinning from ear to ear. "Zabini, I kind of love you!"
"Let's do this individually. You send a piece of food exploding in Slughorn's face that says 'Go Gryffindor,' and then explode one in McGonagall's with 'Super Slytherin,'" Ara suggested. "Maybe we can pit the professors on each other. Then we move onto the Gryffindors."
"Sounds like a good plan. Expulso Flagrate!" shouted Lysander, exploding Slughorn's hearty turkey and smattering a burnt 'GO GRYFFINDOR' turkey skin all over the table. Slughorn's shocked expression was priceless as it was. Lysander keeled over, laughing hard.
"Ara!" he panted, in between laughs. "Your... turn! So... funny!... Slughorn's... face!"
Ara looked at him. "Seriously? I'm a first year!"
"And I'm a second year! Just copy the spell and think of the words! Do it!" he commanded, still laughing and gasping for breath.
"Here goes nothing," she muttered. "Expulso Flagrate!" she shouted, concentrating on the words 'Slughorn's Slytherin is Supreme.' Sure enough, McGonagall's Yorkshire pudding exploded into a smoking Slytherin sentence, and everyone in the Hall quieted. For two seconds, Lysander's laughs echoed throughout the hallway, and Lorcan's cheer stood out as the only sound in the entire room.
"You did... a WHOLE... sentence!" Lysander wheezed at Ara, who sat stock still, trying to stop her smile. "And it's... a... freaking... ALLITERATION!" McGonagall, instead of being infuriated as would be expected, simply levitated a pile of gravy, and overturned it on Slughorn's head.
"FOOD FIGHT!" exclaimed Professor Natasha Pucey, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, animating an entire roast turkey and turning it against Professor Neville Longbottom, who in turn commanded a plate of radishes to attack her.
And the chaos began, food flying and exploding all across the Hall. Lysander and Ara continuously exploded the other houses' food, who retaliated with their own spells. A few spells destroyed a couple of green apples, much to Scorpius's dismay. Green apples were, in fact, any Malfoy's favorite fruit.
"WAIT TILL MY FATHER HEARS ABOUT THIS!" he screamed, launching pumpkin juice at a fourth year Hufflepuff, the one who had exploded the apples. The surrounding Slytherins laughed harder, understanding the reference to the famous Malfoy line.
Ara narrowly dodged a flying baguette, but was splattered with several tablespoons of spaghetti sauce. She looked up to see a cheeky Scorpius Malfoy, holding a bowl of spaghetti sauce in one hand, and a pile of noodles in the other, just in time to see him dump it all over her head.
"SCORPIUS CEPHEUS MALFOY!" she screeched, tackling him. He attempted to step out of the way, but ended up slipping on a banana peel, which brought both Slytherins down into a messy pile of discarded food items.
"Ooof! ARALUEN PHAEDRA ZABINI!" Scorpius mocked, receiving a punch on the arm.
"YOU ARE DEAD! DEAD I SWEAR!" Ara yelled, attacking the blonde with her spaghetti sauce-covered hands, smearing red tomato juice all over his uniform. Scorpius just continued to laugh, only infuriating Ara more.
"Is that the best you can do Ara? I thought I taught you better than this. Girls, they can never get a tackle right," he teased.
"You, Scorpius Cepheus Malfoy, leave me no choice," she cried dramatically.
His eyes widened. "You... wouldn't... dare."
She grinned and cackled evilly, tickling the backs of his knees.
"STOP!... STOP!... PLEASE!... I HATE... YOU... ARALUEN!... STOP!" he panted, in between his laughs. "PLEASE!" he begged, gasping for breath. "ARA!"
"Hmm, let me think. Have you paid yet for your disrespectful comments about my gender? Or insulting my tackling skills?" she paused, pretending to ponder it. "Nooooope. Not yet. Not even close!" she giggled, continuing to torture him.
"ARA! I'll do ANYTHING!" he gasped. "P... Please!... I'm sorry! Okay? I'm sorry!"
"Swear on your father's Granny Smith apples?" she teased.
"WHATEVER! JUST STOP!" he panted. Grinning, she got off of him and ended her merciless tickling. He laid on the floor, attempting to catch his breath.
"I'm going to hold you to that, Scorp," she laughed.
"Oh no..." he moaned. "What have I done?"
On the other side of the room...
"JAMES SIRIUS POTTER! YOU DID NOT JUST DUMP A BOWL OF YORKSHIRE PUDDING ON MY NEW ROBES!" Rose screeched.
"No, Rosie dearest, I did not," he grinned, dodging a chicken leg that was thrown at him.
"JAMES!" Rose yelled. In response, she grabbed a bowl of mashed potatoes and flung several handfuls at the offending second year boy. He laughed as he dodged all of her throws.
"Is that the best you can do, Rose?" he taunted. "I'm ashamed to call you my cousin! You're just a little bookworm who couldn't ever aim even if her life depended on- Oof!" James's speech was cut short by a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Rose, surprisingly strong for her age, picked James up and dumped him on the ground, where a puddle of mashed fish fingers and custard intermingled to create a rather nasty consistency.
"I'm going to get you for that one, Rose Lavender Weasley!" he shouted, as she trotted away to high-five Alden, who was laughing his head off at James's rather undignified predicament. Being a boy, part Weasley, and surrounded by food, James decided to try the mashed up mess he was sitting in. His face lit up as he tasted the mush from the ground.
"You're kidding me, right?" groaned Rose.
"Fish fingers and custard really isn't half bad!" he exclaimed. "Hey Lorcan, man!" he called. "Try some fish fingers and custard! It's actually pretty good."
Lorcan halted his stream of hexes aimed at his brother, Lysander, across the room. "James Sirius Potter, are you Sirius?" he grinned. James rolled his eyes.
"That was getting old the fiftieth time you used that, Mr. Orca. At least I don't have a fat whale in my name. Just try it bro, it's actually really good."
"I'm perfectly content with having a massively manly killer whale in my name, instead of a measly little otter, Potter!" Lorcan teased, diving to the ground as Lysander launched a particularly insulting shepherd's pie that narrowly missed Lorcan's head. No seriously, it was actually yelling insults all the way up until it hit the wall and exploded just behind Lorcan. While Lorcan was down, however, James shoved a few fish fingers coated in creamy custard into Lorcan's gaping mouth. Lorcan, practically choking to death, gagged on the intruding fish. Swallowing quickly, Lorcan glared at his friend.
"You could have killed me, James! You are one sick, twisted, evil little boy!"
"Oh, just like you, you mean?" James retorted, rolling his eyes. "Don't be such a drama queen Lorcan, it doesn't suit you by any means. Enjoy the fish at least?"
Lorcan hadn't thought that the odd combination was particularly bad, and in fact, he rather enjoyed it. He, of course, did not want to admit this to James, however.
"You are completely, utterly, and abso-bloody-lutely mental, Potter the Otter. You almost killed me, and I could have died solely because of the ridiculous taste!" he cried, fake retching. "I think, Potter, that you meant to poison me all along! You foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach!" Lorcan threw his hands up in the air and mock fainted.
Seeing his dramatics, Rose giggled, to which Lorcan sat straight up from the ground. "How... How DARE you laugh?! I am wounded, you wound me Weasley. How dare you cause me so much pain?" he cried.
"Oh please, Scamander, if I wanted to cause you pain, I wouldn't have left you to James," she chortled.
After the food fight, McGonagall demanded that all of the prefects take their respective houses to their dormitories, while trying to hide the ghost of a smiled that threatened to appear on her face. After going through the rules, a few hundred scourgify's, boundaries, etcetera, the first years were sent up to their rooms to unpack and settle in.
"McGonagall seems to be a lot less uptight," Rose commented, sitting on her bed, which was one of three in her room. The two other girls in her room, Amelia Cauldwell and Clara Boot, paused and looked at the red-head.
"I was kind of surprised, too, with the whole food fight thing! My mum and dad always went on about how McGonagall was so strict, but she basically initiated the whole thing by retaliating after Slughorn's trick," Amelia agreed.
"I don't really believe that Slughorn, of all people, would really make something explode in the Headmistress's face," noted Clara, who was desperately trying, unsuccessfully, to separate her hair and several spaghetti noodles.
"Scourgify!" Rose yelled, pointing her wand at Clara's hair. The spaghetti noodles vanished, and Clara smiled.
"Thanks, Rose."
"No problem. I do agree with your statement, Clara," Rose continued. "He just doesn't seem like the type, although McGonagall's behavior seems a bit out of character as well. These teachers have thrown me for a loop."
"Maybe she's just YOLO'ing," suggested Amelia, sitting on her own bed facing Rose. "I mean, think about it. THe war's over, and most of the Death Eaters reformed, captured, or executed. There's just not much to worry about. Maybe being near death so much has changed her perspective on things, and she'd rather have fun while life lasts."
"I guess that makes sense, " agreed Rose. "I still don't think it was Slughorn, though."
"I bet you it was that Scorpius Malfoy boy," giggled Clara. "He's got both the name and the looks of a troublemaker. He's bloody gorgeous, too. I bet him and Jayce are going to be best friends."
"God, that's right. Jayce is your twin brother, am I right?" sighed Amelia. Clara nodded. "Those two will probably be like, the Slytherin bad boy princes. But maybe we'll be the Gryffindor goody-two shoes girls that they'll fall for, eh?" Amelia grinned.
"As if," Rose snorted.
"Oh lighten up, flower," teased Clara. "You're just in denial because you like the big bad Malfoy."
"That's really funny," she quipped sarcastically in reply, "because I already claimed the maid of honor at his and Araluen Zabini's wedding."
"Darn! That's right!" moaned Clara. "He's got that Zabini girl already. I totally forgot about her. There's no way he'll go for anyone else. I mean, come on, have you seen that Zabini girl?"
"She's totally got him wrapped around her finger. She's like... 'heel, boy,' and he pants after her, ready to do her every wish and desire," complained Amelia.
Rose just rolled her eyes. "Why do you care so much about him anyways?"
"Because we are predicting and testing our prediction about him being the Slytherin bad boy, " Clara replied simply. "Rose, you live with far too many boys. Clearly you just don't get this girl stuff."
"I'll leave you two to your 'girl stuff that I don't understand,' then," she laughed, trudging down to the common room to find her cousin and his friends. Clara and Amelia giggled, and continued to swoon about the insufferable blonde git. Rose plodded down the stairs, where Lorcan, Alden, James, and three other boys that Rose did not know (probably first years) were seated in a circle.
"Rose my flower, come to snuggle wi' us?" grinned Alden. "That comment about 'gold' was actually a reference to our house color, wasn't it?"
She snorted. "Please, I just went where the Sorting Hat sorted me."
Lorcan laughed. "Oh, so you mean you didn't have a choice, like you were going on about during the entire train ride? Just admit it, your heart lies with us lions."
James shook his head. "Regardless, Rosie, would you like to join our truth or dare tradition?"
"Tradition? You guys are only second years!"
"And you're only a first year," James retorted. "We're creating a tradition, you can be in on it or not, so either join, or die a painful death after missing two years of truth and dare games at the beginning of term," he ended dramatically.
"Come 'ere Rose, it'll be fun," coaxed Alden. She sighed and sat down, finally giving in.
"All right. All right, I'm in. Did you want me to bring Amelia and Clara down?"
"Yeah!" said Abraham, or Abe, Field, a little too eagerly. Xavier Anthony and Peyton Thomas, the other two first years, looked at him curiously. "What?" he defended himself. "The more the merrier, right?"
"Whatever you say, Field," Peyton replied. Rose got up and dragged Amelia and Clara out of their girl talk and down to the common room.
"Truth or dare is one of my favorite games ever!" squealed Amelia.
"Why hello there," laughed Clara, nudging Xavier. "You a first year?"
"Yes, I am," he smirked.
"Okay guys. Who goes first?" asked James.
"I will!" yelled Lorcan excitedly, who was sitting on James's left.
"Truth or dare?" asked James.
"Dare! Obviously," he replied.
"I dare you to lick the bottom of your cauldron," Amelia piped up.
The boys gave her a look.
"What?"
"Really, that's all you got. Girls, so wimpy," goaded Lorcan.
"Okay, you just lost yourself a free easy dare. Fine. I dare you to kiss James on the lips," Amelia amended.
"Hot," sniggered Alden, laughing as the two boys quickly kissed and drew away, grimacing.
"Next!" called James, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
"Xavier, truth or dare?" asked Lorcan, continuing the dares around the circle.
"Dare."
"I dare you to follow Clara around for a week, pretending that you are abso-bloody-lutely in love with her," Rose stated.
"That was a good one, Rosie dear," Alden smiled. She blushed.
"Thanks," she replied.
"All right then, Clara, it's Clara-ly your turn," James stated. Clara ignored the horrible name-pun. "Truth, or do you dare?"
"Truth," she said evenly, although Lorcan and Peyton groaned.
"Girrrrrrls suck at truth or dare. It's an unspoken rule that it's just dare, or dare," Peyton tried to explain.
"And because its unspoken, I don't care one bit," she quipped. "Now, just make it a good truth."
"Don't mess with my Clare-bear!" shouted Xavier, grinning as he tackled her in a hug.
"I think he plays his dare far too easily," Abe commented.
"How about..." james pondered a truth. Rose opened her mouth to suggest something, but Abe put his hand over her mouth.
"Mmmph!" Rose attempted to yell through Abe's hand. He looked at Rose with a cheeky grin on his face.
"Hush, little flower. Let someone else have a turn."
Rose bristled at the 'little flower' endearment, and Alden and James looked at each other worriedly.
"Mate, uh, you might want to just let her say what she wants to say," James suggested, trailing off.
"Plus, Rose had a really good dare last time, even though it looks like Xavier's enjoying it," Alden commented, looking at Xavier, who was still cuddling Clara. "She'll probably 'ave an equally good truth suggestion," Alden finished with an undertone of caution.
"Fine, fine fine," Abe let go of her, and Rose started to hyperventilate. "I was just trying to be fair to everyone else!"
"Fair? FAIR?!" Rose began ranting, using her famous red-headed Weasley temper at maximum power. "Little flower? LITTLE FLOWER?!" she spluttered. "Don't you EVER call me a little flower again, or I will hex your balls off into the next century. You will never, I repeat, NEVER, call me that or you will never see the light of day ever AGAIN! Would you like to get married and have children? Because by the time I'm done with you, no woman in her right mind will ever look at you and the closest you could ever get to having a child and continuing your idiotic DNA's existence is by adopt- oof!" Rose was cut off and smothered by a pillow.
"Done yet?" asked James. "I'd like to move on with the game, if you please."
Eyes still blazing, Rose nodded her head. "Don't say I didn't warn you," she threatened Abe, who visibly gulped and raised his hands in surrender.
"Whoa there! Okay, okay! I'm sorry, okay?" he cried, anguished. She merely sniffed in response.
"Anyways," Alden tried to restore the atmosphere to its former light-hearted glory. "Rosie, ya had something ta say, right?"
"I was going to ask Clara who she would have an affair with if she had to choose from our parents' generation."
Lorcan and Xavier both gave a low whistle.
"Now that is a brilliant truth, Rosie," Alden praised. Rose again blushed and smiled.
"That is disturbing," Clara sighed. "Well, if it were up to me, I'd choose Araluen Zabini's dad, Blaise."
"Why the hell him?" Xavier practically growled.
"Well, he's tall, dark, a Slytherin bad boy, but also supposedly one of the nicests and sweetest guys in that entire generation. I would have to say, if that's true, and if Araluen's mother ever divorced him, she must be crazy."
"Rose, your turn."
"Truth," she replied to James.
The boys were careful not to groan. Amelia laughed at their expressions, however. "See, you boys are learning!"
Peyton grumbled underneath his breath.
"Anyways," James directed, "I think we're all dying to know, Rose. What happened that made McGonagall scream and call both you and Scorpius to her office?"
Rose stiffened and the word dying, and then froze as James completed the rest of his sentence. For a few moments, she didn't respond at all, staring numbly into space. Suddenly, she choked and sprang up from the circle, running out of the common room with her face in her hands, audibly sobbing and banging the door open, much to the Fat Lady's protests. Alden jumped up and glared at James.
"Look at what you did!" he sneered, running after the mourning girl.
"Wow. I didn't think it would be that bad," mumbled James.
Clara looked sadly at the door, hanging ajar. "Someone died," she said hollowly.
"I guess it could have been that bad," shrugged Peyton.
"No, didn't you see the way she froze when James said that 'we're all dying to know'? And you don't elicit that sort of response unless that was exactly what happened. Someone died, I know it," argued Clara.
"I have to agree with Clara. I mean, why else would McGonagall have screamed? It must have been really bad news for her to do something like that. I bet it was one of Rose's parents. And maybe Draco Malfoy had murdered one of them. That would explain why McGonagall had to call up Scorpius, his dad's in Azkaban!" Xavier concluded.
"While I think you might be right on Rose's parents, I doubt that the Malfoys murdered anyone. I think they're being closely watched enough, as it is," suggested Abe.
"Mmm," Amelia pondered this. "Anyways, I hope whatever it is, that no one died. It does no good for us to sit around speculating. We should all go find Rose and you, James, should apologize to her."
"Give her some time," Lorcan suggested. "If something happened to my mum or dad, I don't think I'd want to speak with anyone at the moment."
"True," nodded James.
"She was really good at hiding whatever the bad news was," Peyton thought aloud. "When she came to sit down with us, she just smiled and said it was nothing."
"I was trying to get something out of her, but she just snapped at me and the food fight started before I could continue to pester her," said Lorcan.
"How insensitive could you be?" Clara asked, shaking her head disappointedly.
"Oi, I didn't know it was anything this bad," Lorcan defended himself.
"Whatever. I just hope she's okay," Amelia replied softly but firmly, trying to end the conversation. The rest of the Gryffindors understood - there was no reason to continue speculating on something they probably had no business knowing.
"I hope it wasn't my aunt or uncle, I really hope..." James trailed off.
Amelia turned to James, who was worriedly wringing his hands. "I'm sorry James, we're being insensitive. We know they mean something to you, too."
"It's okay. I just hope whatever it is, that they'll recover from it."
"You'll be surprised as to what people can recover from," Abe piped up optimistically.
James shrugged, and Amelia got up to hug him.
"Rose!" Alden called after the retreating girl. "Wait up!"
She ignored him, continuing to sob and stumble down the moving stairs, not knowing or caring where she was going.
"Rose!" Alden panted, running down several flight of stairs, until one of them magically detached itself from the landing that would allow him to reach her. "Bloody stairs!" he cursed, waiting for the flight to stop moving so he could strategize a new path.
But then, the unthinkable happened. Rose, not really looking where she was going, tripped and fell down the stairs to the detached bottom, barely hanging on as the stairs started moving again. "HELP!" she shrieked trying to pull herself up and onto the stairs, but without any success.
"ROSE!" Alden roared. "Just hold on! I'm coming to get you! Just hold on until the stairs reattach themselves somewhere else.
"I'm going to die!" she was hyperventilating, clutching on the bottom post that supported the stair rail. "I'm going to die, just like him! My mum will never see me again. And neither will Hugo! Hugo!" she wailed. "I'm going to die!"
"You'll be okay!" Alden attempted to reassure, now running down another set of stairs as he tried to get closer to her. "Don't let go, hang on for me, Rose!"
"Why? What's the point?" she sobbed, tears streaming down her face. "I'm just going to join him, Alden. I've always been Daddy's little girl. How will I live without him? I can't do it Alden. I'll just let go now."
"DON'T YOU DARE!" Alden yelled. "Stay with me, Rosie. Stay for your mum. Stay for James and Hugo. Stay for Ara and Scorpius. Stay with me Rose, I'm almost there. Your stairs are almost there! Just HOLD ON!"
She just continued to sob and she was swung by the stairs, who began to firmly attach themselves to another landing, finally.
One more flight to go, and Alden would be able to reach her. He continued to sprint down the steps, taking three at a time. "Just hold on, please, Rosie. You can do it," he pleaded.
She attempted to pull herself up, but only managed to swing herself to the side of the stairs, where she couldn't pull herself over the rail.
"Alden! ALDEN! I'm slipping! I don't want to die!"
"I'm here!" he cried, leaning through the rails to hold onto her hand. "I'm here, don't let go." She gripped his hand fiercely. Putting her foot on the edge of the stairs and with Alden's help, they managed to get her safely in the middle of the staircase. Panting, they just sat there for a while.
"Thanks," she mumbled. "You just saved my life."
"You Weasley's get 'nto life-threatening situations far too easily," he joked, clutching her tightly to him. She leaned into him, sobbing.
"My dad's dead," she whispered into his tear-soaked shirt.
"I know, Rosie. I know," he replied softly, stroking her hair. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Why did he have to go?" she moaned.
"Sometimes it's jus' to clear way for the new, Rosie. He'll be watching over you, you know. He loves you, and he'll always be with you."
"He didn't have to go, though! I can't talk to him anymore. I can't cuddle with him. I can't ever hear him go on about the Chudley Cannons. He won't be there to interrogate my first boyfriend. He won't be there to walk me down the aisle. Who's going to do that? He won't ever be my true father, I want my dad back!"
"Shh," Alden hushed.
The two Gryffindors sat on the moving staircases for a while, mourning the loss of a loved one and the opening of new wounds.