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Chapter Six

Scorpius

In all of his wildest schoolboy fantasies, Scorpius imagined that seducing Rose Granger-Weasley was sure to be some Herculean task. This was not based on any sort of firsthand knowledge, and certainly the rumors going about these days did much to support the idea that Rose was a rather easy catch. Still, she seemed so unattainable, So untouchable in his mind that he never dared to dream he might live those fantasies.

Even as he kissed along her jawline now, he found himself repeating over and over in his own head to wake up. When he didn't, Scorpius felt as though he may pass out from lightheadedness.

He was kissing Rose Granger-Weasley. And she was letting him! And if the little whimpering sounds she was making were any indicator, she seemed to even enjoy it! Merlin's tits!

It had been her idea to go back to his flat, from which Al was mercifully absent. It had been her idea to stumble to his room, her idea to push him back on the bed and straddle him wantonly. She was warm, and although she tasted like a spicy combination of firewhisky and cigarette smoke, she was supple soft in all the best places. Scorpius ran his fingers through her silky sheets of hair and struggled to control his ragged breath, feeling as if Christmas had come early.

He was brought back to reality when he felt Rose's hands began fumbling with the fly of his trousers. Scorpius sighed and reluctantly moved to stop her, sitting with great difficulty. She fell back clumsily, nearly sliding off the end of the bed.

"What's wrong?" She demanded, scowling up at him and blowing out an exasperated breath that reeked of booze. Charming.

"I'm not having sex with you tonight, Rose." Scorpius was surprised to get the words out without stumbling over them, though he could feel the tips of his ears turning hot and most likely bright pink at the mere thought of it. He placed a pillow in front of his groin as if to drive the point home.

"Why not?" She asked, her lips grazing his neck and her hands seeking his trousers again, pushing the offending cushion out of the way.

"Rose, I'm serious," he said, though it certainly pained him. "You're drunk. This is not how I want our first time to be."

She laughed cruelly. "Pictured it, have you?" She moved to grope him again, and he swatted her away. She sat back on her heels, clearly annoyed.

"Fuck's sake, Malfoy. I'd have thought you'd be well up for this." She scowled at him through long lashes.

"You're not going to make me change my mind by pouting, Rose." He smiled at her in what he thought was a playful manner, but she seemed in no mood for banter and charged straight ahead to anger, rocking back to sit on her heels and folding her arms.

"I could have found somebody else tonight, you know, but I thought you'd jump at a chance for what you've dreamed about all these years." She stumbled over her words, but the message was clear enough.

He turned to her, his face a mask of impassivity.

"I don't know whatever you could mean." he said stiffly.

She smirked, clearly pleased at having touched a nerve.

"Oh, don't pretend you aren't constantly glaring daggers at any guy who tries to approach me, Malfoy," she accused, her eyes flashing with danger. He looked on at her, stunned into silence. "It's a bit pathetic, really. We've kissed like, twice, it's not like you own me, so move on."

"I don't know about that, Rose," he replied, feeling his throat constrict but fighting the sensation. "It seems to me that just about everybody owns a bit of you."

She drew a raspy breath, her nostrils flaring with anger as she glared daggers at him.

"You're an asshole," she accused, her words like ice. She grabbed her wand from the bedside table, and for one terrifying moment Scorpius thought she might hex him, but instead she wound it into her hair for safekeeping. The straightening charms were beginning to wear off, giving her a frizzy halo as the light from the hall backlit her retreating form.

It took all of his strength to smirk back at her and ignore the sinking feeling in his chest. "If you say so," he replied as nonchalantly as possible, as she stormed out and his heart went up in flames.

The fate of Gregory Goyle was meant to be confidential, so, of course, the news had been leaked within the Ministry within days. However, by the end of the week, the Wizarding world was more or less over the shock that the Goyle case had caused. There was little sympathy to be found in the press that covered the tragedy - after all, this was a former Voldemort sympathiser whose social life had been all but extinct for the last twenty years. When asked to comment on the event, Minister for Magic Hermione Granger-Weasley was diplomatic and succinct. "The fate of the victim is a terrible tragedy, and we continue to work to find the person responsible." She declined to give further comment when a reporter asked about her strained relationship with Goyle whilst they'd been at school.

Things eventually went, for the most part, back to normal. Scorpius, at least, noticed no real change in the way he spent his days. He got up in the mornings before Albus, went for a run, read the Daily Prophet over a steaming mug of tea, went to work and subsequently came home again. By Friday, there had been the thrilling news of the Wimbourne Wasps pulling ahead of the Falmouth Falcons in the Quidditch league tables, and all thoughts of the attack had diminished.

Friday afternoon came in glorious and bright splendour, uncommonly warm for late September in England. Scorpius had discarded his thick robes and rolled up his sleeves by midday, when the sun streamed through the patterned window panes onto his desk. He was working on a particularly tricky rune translation, and found himself uncharacteristically stumped. The rune in question was one the company's excavation team had brought in from a recent trip to America. Though the colonies had much less in the way of ancient artefacts, the ones they'd found had been incredibly complex and unlike anything Scorpius had ever seen. They just didn't seem to follow the same patterns or rules he'd applied to the more ancient runes. Several hours passed while he pored through tome after tome, struggling to interpret the symbols before him.

Scorpius blinked slowly. He'd been staring at the same faded images of a series of small crescent moons carved into the leather binding of the old book he'd been studying for the last fifteen minutes, without comprehending any of what he was doing. He realised with a start that he had a small bit of drool dangling at the corner of his mouth where it'd been hanging limply open, and wiped it hastily with the back of his hand, hoping nobody had seen.

Not that there were many people around. It was half four on a Friday, and his colleagues had one-by-one been making their excuses to get away for the weekend. Looking around, he realised only Aubrey, who sat in the corner and had been with the department for near to fifty years, was left. Rubbing his tired eyes, Scorpius stood and walked over to the elder translator.

"Bert?" he asked, his voice croaking from lack of use. Bertram Aubrey looked up, shocked from his reverie. He squinted up at Scorpius with his thick coke-bottle glasses, looking irritated at being distracted from the scrolls he'd been poring over.

"Erm -" Scorpius began, thoroughly intimidated by the old man. "I've come across a rune I've never seen before - one the team picked up on their recent trip to Boston, I believe. You wouldn't have any idea what this is, would you?" He delicately handed the tome over to Aubrey so that he could read the markings.

After a beat of silence, Bertram cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I'm not sure what it is," he admitted, frowning, "But I've got a feeling I've seen it somewhere before... if only I could remember where..." he trailed off, flipping through an ancient textbook of runes he had on his desk. Scorpius could see several complicated-looking, very old and faded marks upon the page Aubrey had flipped to and was running one short, stubby finger over. Scorpius waited for several moments in silence before he realized Aubrey was unlikely to address him again. He checked his watch, biting his lip as he looked around at the otherwise empty office.

"You can keep that for a while, if you'd like," Scorpius offered, and the old man's eyes lit up with the suggestion. "I've got plenty of other artefacts to work with from the Egypt dig." Aubrey nodded once, already tuning Scorpius out as he read from a passage in his textbook.

Smiling to himself, Scorpius gathered his rucksack and waved a goodbye to Bertram, who ignored him still, before he headed outside to greet muggle London. It was a warm late September's evening, so he opted to walk the mile and a half home to his flat rather than apparate. Stolling along the banks of the Thames, he felt rather happy and carefree. When he approached the intersection of Diagon Alley and Dillyd Alley, where he lived with Albus, he was surprised to hear somebody calling his name from the pub opposite.

"Oi, Malfoy!"

He turned, instantly recognizing the voice. Sure enough, Rhys Selwyn sat outside the pub across the street with two other boys who'd been the year above them in Slytherin House. Rhys waved Scorpius over, and the blond reluctantly approached the table.

"Selwyn," he said, looking down at the boys where they sat at their table, nursing several pints of beer. "Bowker, Fitzgerald." He nodded at Craig Bowker, who smirked back at him, and Eoin Fitzgerald, who was puffing on his muggle cigarette like a chimney.

"How've you been, Malfoy? It's been a while," Selwyn said, looking up at Scorpius with a genuine smile. He pulled out the chair next to him, and Scorpius took a seat, not necessarily comfortable with the situation, but knowing it'd be rude not to.

"I'm all right, you?" he replied hesitantly. He and Rhys had never been particularly friendly at school. Then again, they'd never been enemies per se, but the two boys had shared a dorm room for seven years and yet he barely knew the bloke.

"Yeah, good, mate," Rhys replied, still smiling. "Made the reserves for the Pride of Portree this year, so can't complain, really."

"You still living with Potter?" Eoin asked Scorpius, blowing thick cigarette smoke into the air. Scorpius struggled to keep his face straight and not wrinkle his nose in distaste. He hated the smell of cigarette smoke, and never allowed Al to smoke in the house. Instead of opening his mouth to reply, he nodded at Eoin, while surreptitiously holding his breath.

Selwyn nodded back at him. "Potter's all right," he said, as if benevolently giving his stamp of approval. Scorpius fought not to roll his eyes.

Eoin snorted, and lifted one eyebrow at Rhys. "You're just trying to get in Potter's good books cause you're shagging his cousin," he informed Selwyn smugly.

"Which cousin is that?" Craig's thick brogue was laced with a practised air of boredom as he looked at Rhys. "There are more Weasleys than you can keep track of."

Scorpius felt his blood run cold before anybody even said her name.

"Rose Granger-Weasley," Eoin informed his friend, smirking. "Good catch too, mate, she's easily the fittest of the lot." Scorpius was breathing through his nostrils now, very slowly.

Selwyn laughed, rubbing his hands through his thick, dark hair. The prick. "It's not anything serious," he said, raising his eyebrows at his friends, "she's just a good lay."

"That's surprising," Craig said, swigging his pint, "considering she was with Toby Kirke all through school. Can't have learned much from tha' wee Ravenclaw ponce."

Selwyn winked at his friend. "Don't worry, I've taught her a few things," he reassured them.

Scorpius quickly scooted back in his chair and stood, all in one swift movement. He stuck out a hand to steady the chair from wobbling over on the uneven cobbled street. "I've just remembered I'm late for... I've got to go," he said, clenching and unclenching one white-knuckled fist behind his back. "It was nice seeing you," he added quickly - because his mother had raised him to have impeccable manners - and walked away as quickly as he could without running.

Well, there was his nice evening ruined.

Though Albus had insisted Scorpius go out with him - "It's a Friday night, mate!" - Scorpius couldn't be bothered after the run-in with Selwyn. The memory of Rose in his bedroom was fresh on his mind, as was the sting of her rejection. He really didn't fancy running into the redhead while out with her cousin, especially as he'd so carefully omitted any details involving Rose when Al had asked how his night'd gone.

It was for this reason that he found himself rather dubiously knocking at the front door of his old family home. Malfoy Manor was nowhere as austere-looking as it'd been during the last war - Scorpius had seen pictures. When his mother was alive, she'd dedicated much of her time to livening the place up a bit, and renovating it into a grand old estate. However, it still retained a sense of grandeur that unnerved Scorpius. He glanced over his shoulder, spying the last remaining albino peacock in the distance. Those birds had always freaked him out.

"Master Malfoy!"

Pipsy, his father's matronly - and handsomely paid - house-elf greeted him at the door, her little hands tugging him inside when she saw him. Her eyes were large and luminous in the darkness of the falling dusk, but with a snap of her long fingers, the torches in the entrance hall lit, the flames crackling merrily in their wrought-iron casements.

"How are you doing, Pipsy?" Scorpius asked kindly, having always had a soft spot for the elf who had practically raised him.

"Oh, Master Scorpius," she said, her round eyes wide as she shook her head sadly up at him, "Pipsy is worried about the elder Master Malfoy," her voice lowered to a hush, as if scared that Draco may pop out of the shadows and hear her.

"My father?" Scorpius asked, "What's wrong with him?"

Pipsy just shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. Alarmed, Scorpius took off in the direction of the study.

For the second time in as many weeks, Scorpius Malfoy barged into his father's study without knocking. This time, however, Draco barely glanced at his son.

"Dad?" Scorpius asked, stopping cold at the sight of his father in a high-backed chair before the fire, a large neat firewhiskey in his hand. Scorpius came to sit in the chair opposite him, watching the way the dancing flames illuminated Draco's pale, drawn face. "Are you - are you all right?"

Draco sighed, running one long-fingered hand over his temples, and finally looked at his son. There was a sadness in his eyes that Scorpius usually did not see. His father was so good at wearing a mask that even Scorpius too forgot that Draco Malfoy had feelings beyond what he presented to society.

"We need to leave England," was all he said, his voice hard and cold as he took a large swig of the firewhiskey, biting back the sting of the drink.

"Leave?" Scorpius' jaw dropped as he looked at his father. "Whatever for?"

The sadness in Draco's eyes turned to steely resolve as he stared at his son, his spitting image. "The attack on...on Greg, it's not an accident. Somebody must be - surely they're hunting down ex-Death Eaters on some sort of revenge mission." Scorpius sat in shock, staring at his father as if he'd never truly seen him before. Draco carried on, running his hands through his thinning hair frustratedly. "Goyle was lucky, he didn't have any family to lose, but I… your mother would've killed me if I placed you in harm's way."

For one horrifying moment, Scorpius thought his father might cry, but then he composed himself, ever the aristocratic gentleman.

"Father…" Scorpius tried and failed to come up with the words to comfort the older man. Instead, as he often did, he settled for logic.

"It's been years since the war, and Gregory Goyle has made just as many enemies in back-alley trade deals since the war as he did during it. You've said that yourself." Scorpius' words were even and measured, his eyes scanning his father's face for a reaction. Draco seemed to take them in, his face softening slightly.

"He was my friend," he said suddenly, weakly, looking at his son as if not properly seeing him.

Scorpius said nothing, just watched, still as he could be. He felt rather as if he were trying not to spook a skittish animal.

Draco continued, grimacing. "I know I haven't been close with Greg in the last few years, but he was one of the only ones who knew what it felt like to..." he trailed off, but Scorpius could guess where his father was going with the statement. Gregory Goyle had been ostracised from society as a former supporter of the Dark Lord in the Second Wizarding War. Though he had renounced their old allegiances, an act that'd kept him from Azkaban, he continued to be somewhat of a social pariah due to his murky history.

Much like his father.

Scorpius struggled to think of something comforting to say, and failed to come up with anything of merit. In truth, his father had tried to protect him from knowing too much of his past. Especially after Scorpius' mother had died and the horrible rumours about his parenthood surfaced, Draco seemed determined to raise his son purely in the light. He'd read every book in the Hogwarts library on the war, of course, and he knew the facts and figures, but it wasn't often his father opened up about things like this. It just wasn't done.

His father seemed to have a similar train of thought, because he straightened suddenly, seeming to snap out of his reverie.

"I'm sorry, son," he said, his face smoothing over into the cool, detached mask Scorpius knew so well. "I've had a momentary lapse of judgement." The facade was back in place, his accent smooth and unaffected. Scorpius wondered how he managed it. "How was your evening with Miss Moreau the other night?"

Scorpius could hardly remember. "Fine," he said quickly, "it was fine. Are you- are you sure you're all right?"

"Of course I am," his father replied with just a trace of bitterness. "I'm a Malfoy, aren't I?"