Chapter Fourteen:
Scorpius
The facilities in this hotel were well worth the obscene amount gold he'd paid for their room. When he stepped into the shower, Scorpius was delighted to find several faucets with various perfumes and functions lined up along the spacious shower cubicle. He sampled a few until he found a pine and citrus scent he liked, and lathered himself with it, enjoying how the water seemed to warm him from his insides out.
Despite the warm water, a fear was beginning to creep over him, making his skin crawl. What were they doing here, in America? Without the book of runes safely in his rucksack to reassure him, he started to wonder whether he'd acted far too rashly, on some hunch that had taken them halfway across the world on a whim. Had he actually found significance in the scribbles Bert had left in that book, or was he simply seeking answers so keenly that he'd imagined it all? Could it be that his brain was finding meaning in the meaningless, in a desperation to comfort Rose and his best mate in their grief?
What if this mission failed? What if he'd been entirely wrong?
No, it didn't bear thinking about. One thing was certain in Scorpius' mind - they needed to get that book back.
With that resolute thought, he switched off the shower taps, a fluffy towel hovering outside wrapped itself around him, tucking itself snugly around his waist. Despite the situation - and himself - Scorpius smiled. The immense magical convenience and creature comforts of this grand hotel reminded him of being home at Malfoy Manor. As he'd done his best not to touch his considerable inheritance since leaving school, Scorpius had been living with quite a lot less of these added luxuries for the last few years. He was reminded now how nice they could be.
Muttering a drying spell at his hair, which was considerably mussed up due to lack of product in it (he usually didn't go out without at least a touch of Sleekeazy's), he grabbed his dirty clothes from where he'd folded them on the bathroom counter, and emerged from the lavatory in search of his rucksack. He turned the corner and ran smack into a moving body with quite a lot of red curly hair.
"Oof!" went Rose, as she toppled backwards. In desperation not to fall, she reached out to grab his shirt to steady herself. It might have worked, had Scorpius been wearing a shirt. As it was, she only succeeded in pulling him down with her.
They landed on the floor in a pile of limbs, Scorpius acutely aware of his still slightly damp arms wrapped around her, the water seeping through her shirt and leaving damp patches. She smelled slightly sweaty from their earlier travels, but her hair was wonderfully lavender-scented and intoxicatingly Rose.
"Fucking hell Malfoy, get off of me!" She gave him one big shove, and he rolled to one side, cracking his elbow against the hard tile of the cold marble floor.
"Careful, Weasley," he moaned, cradling his injury and inspecting the bruise that was already blooming across his quite alabaster skin. "Are you actually trying to off me, or are you just the clumsiest person alive?"
She didn't say anything in response, and he glanced up to see her staring at a point just above his head, her face flushed a magnificent shade of beetroot.
"You've, erm… your towel," she said, when he looked at her questioningly.
Suddenly, Scorpius realized why he could feel a bit of a breeze around his nether regions. "Oh" he said, quickly covering himself up, though his modesty remained in tatters. "Any chance you didn't see anything?" He asked her, relieved that she seemed even more embarrassed than he was.
"Little to no chance," she replied in a slightly strangled voice.
"Brilliant," he stood, checking his towel was still in place, and offered her a hand to help her up. She stood, still not meeting his eyes, her gaze hovering around his chest area.
"I'm, erm, going to go take a nap," she announced, biting her lip. "So if you need me, that's where I'll be. Not that… you'll need me, but, just in case of… emergency. Or something," she finished lamely, wringing her hands for a moment, then clapping them together "Okay!" She laughed suddenly, slightly shrilly, backing down the hall. "I'll be seeing you later, then!"
He looked after her in bewildered amusement. "Hopefully next time you'll see a bit less of me," he said, cocking his head to one side as he tried not to smile.
"Ha!" She was backing into the bedroom at the end of the hall now. "Good one!" The door slammed behind her.
Scorpius stared after her for a moment, shaking his head, before heading back into the living room to retrieve a spare change of clothes from his rucksack.
"Oh, hello," he said, when he found Eloise still there, idly flipping through an American newspaper as she sipped her tea.
"Salut," she said, smiling at him, "I heard a crash in the hall. Is everything all right?"
"Oh, er, yes." He said, digging through his rucksack. "Just had a bit of a run-in with Rose."
"Ah, I see," she said, sipping her tea with the hint of a smile. Scorpius found himself getting irritated at her knowing grin.
"Right," he said, gripping his change of clothes in one hand, his pants balled up inside the folds of his shirt so that Eloise couldn't see them, "well I'll see you in a bit, then."
She waved him off, still smirking.
No matter how much he knew Al obviously liked Eloise, Scorpius was beginning to find her rather annoying.
When he entered the room, Scorpius was unsurprised to find Albus still awake and sprawled across one of the twin beds, thumbing through an old weathered book, rather than asleep as he'd promised.
"What have you got there?" He asked his friend, pulling on a shirt once he'd shut the door.
"Just something my dad gave me," Al said, closing it and shoving it under his folded arms. He sat up and regarded his best mate. "Do you think we're mental to have come here?"
Scorpius exhaled before answering, coming to sit on the bed, still wrapped in his towel. "Maybe," he said, honestly.
Al nodded, picking a stray thread on the mattress rather than meeting his eyes.
"I just couldn't not do anything," he said, quietly. "If this thing with my dad… if it's permanent, I don't want to say I sat around and did nothing to try and help him." He sighed, swiping at his eyes furiously. Scorpius pretended not to notice. "It's not what he would have done - he would have wanted to fight." Al looked at him, his eyes blazing.
"I understand," Scorpius said, though he wondered if he did, truly. Malfoys traditionally weren't what you would call fighters. Though they had a perfectly amicable relationship, he realized he wasn't sure if his own father would have gone to this length for him.
"We're going to find a cure," Al said, with steely determinedness, "we're going to find your runes, and then we're going to find a cure for this."
"We will," Scorpius promised his mate, because it was the least he could do. "Don't worry."
"Great," Al said, as if the matter were closed. "Now, what's up with you and my cousin?"
"Sorry?" Scorpius waffled, not expecting the sudden change of subject.
"You're acting weird," Al declared suspiciously "You've been unusually polite to each other all day."
"Nothing gets past you, does it, Albus?" Scorpius rolled his eyes.
He continued, unperturbed by Scorpius' comment. "I don't know what's going on," he said squinting suspiciously, "but I don't like it." He sighed. "However, you're finally getting along without arguing like a pair of first years, so" he paused, as if pained, "just keep being friendly, I guess, at least until we get back to England."
Scorpius sighed. "Your double meaning has been duly noted," he assured his friend.
"Good," Albus said, standing up and clapping his hands together. "Shall we look for some food, then? I'm famished."
It was several hours before the sun began to disappear behind the cityscape through the large windows of their suite. Or, at least, Scorpius assumed they were windows to the outside, and not bits of wall charmed to look like they were letting through sunlight. He couldn't be sure. Either way, once their living room had faded into darkness, the four of them bundled up again to face the cold.
"I've mapped out the different regions of Central Park," Rose was saying as they left the safety of the Wizarding borough. "It's actually rather large, so we need to decide whether or not to split up to cover more ground, or to stick together."
Al looked around at them, uncomfortably. "Split up?" He suggested, glancing at Scorpius for reassurance. "I just want to get this over and done with." A gust of freezing wind blew past, making them all shudder.
"Fine by me," Rose said, attempting to rub some warmth back into her hands. Scorpius noted that they had gone a mottled purple colour.
"Here," he yanked his thick woolen gloves off his own hands and shoved them into hers. When she tried to protest, he a shot her a look. "You clearly need them more than I do," he stated. She sighed, but pulled them onto her hands nonetheless.
"Okay," Rose said loudly, as Scorpius studiously ignored Al's frown and Eloise's smirk. "There should be a Subway station just around the corner." She studied a tourist's Subway map that she'd purchased from a street vendor. "We need the… oh dear, this is confusing." A wrinkle appeared on her brow, so Scorpius peered over her shoulder to take a look at the brightly coloured squiggles on the map.
"I'm fairly sure we need the Q train going uptown," he finally decided, pointing where the yellow line cut into the large green park in the middle of the island. "My goodness, I'll never complain about the tube again," he laughed.
Rose squinted at him. "You take the tube?" she asked, clearly taken aback. "As in, the Muggle Underground?"
"Occasionally," he said, watching her fold up the Subway map.
"Right, okay," Albus interjected sarcastically, stamping his feet in the cold, "Scorpius likes the anonymity of being around Muggles, so does Rose, blimey, you both have so much in common, now can we please get into the warmth?" He gestured to the stairs leading down to the trains.
"Sure," Rose said, her cheeks colouring slightly at her cousin's comment. She made her way down to the station after one last embarrassed glance back at Scorpius. He followed, wondering how Al had realised the true reason he preferred travelling on the Muggle Underground when he'd never told anybody.
After a brief faff with American muggle currency ("The bills are all the same colour!") they finally all clutched their little yellow tickets, swiping them to get through the rather intimidating metal barrier.
"I never get how these muggle card things work," Al whispered to him once they were through, examining the rather flimsy ticket. "How do they know how much money is on them?"
"Dunno," Scorpius said, distracted by the train that was pulling up into the station.
"This is the one," Eloise said, pointing at the carriage, which was displaying a sign that had a big "Q" emblazoned on the side.
"Brilliant," Rose blinked, climbing onboard. "Well, that was easy."
The compartment was nearly empty, being past the evening rush hour, and Scorpius noticed that most of the people onboard had no interest in the four of them at all, either with headphones in their ears, tapping their feet to some invisible music, or with their noses in various books. Many of them were touching the screens of their small sleek bits of metal he knew were a type of portable muggle telephones. He leaned over to get a closer look at one, but was given a rather nasty side-eye by the Muggle woman holding it.
"We need to get to 57th" Rose said, studying her map again from where she'd sat on one of the ugly, hard-looking orange chairs. Scorpius checked the map on the wall of the compartment behind him - they had six stops to go.
He was so engrossed in his study of the rather complicated Subway map that he didn't notice the carriage slowly emptying, until they were the last ones in it. As they pulled out of the 49th Street station, the fluorescent lights above their heads flickered, making a sort of high humming sound that he found rather disconcerting.
Before he could comment on it, however, the lights flickered out, sending the carriage into complete darkness. Rose let out a little scream, to his left.
"Don't panic," Eloise's voice came from across the car. "I'm sure it's just a glitch in the system, nothing to worry about."
"Lumos," Al's face came into focus, his wand held alight in front of him.
"Put that out, Albus," Rose scolded him, "If any Muggles see you -"
But the end of her threat was never voiced, as the compartment door opened on the far end of the carriage, the squeak of the hinges and the sound of metal wheels on the tracks drowning out the end of her statement. A cold fear gripped his heart like a vice as Scorpius heard footsteps entering the car.
Albus still hadn't extinguished his wand, but rather thrust it upwards to catch the face of the intruder. However, a dark hood covered the face of the person opposite them - what was clear to see, however, was the wand pointed in their direction.
"Oh sure, as if this isn't creepy enough, add a hood" Scorpius heard Albus whine softly.
"Confringo!" The figure shouted, as Rose cried "Expelliarmus!" Their attacker dodged her curse easily, but the force of it made their own spell misfire, zinging past Scorpius's right ear.
His wand was out in an instant. "Stupefy!" He cried, watching Rose dart out of the way of a green jet of light out of the corner of his eye.
Eloise darted out nibly from behind them, twisting her wand in an elegant fashion. "Deprimo!" she shouted, blasting a hole in the floor of the carriage where the hooded figure was advancing towards them. They dodged, only barely, and Scorpius balked to see the racing track through the gap in the compartment floor. He barely had time to dwell on this, however, as the next bolt of light came their way and hit Albus in the leg, causing him to double up in pain.
"Al!" Rose called, coming to her cousin's side as blood began to seep through his jeans. "Tergeo," Scorpius could hear her mutter from behind him.
Scorpius sent a stinging hex towards the cloaked body, silently cheering when it hit the person's shoulder. They wheeled around to face him, bringing their wand down in an arcing motion, like a half moon. "Nox Aeterna," they whispered, the unfamiliar words chilling him to the bone. He only just leapt out of the way of the spell, banging his shin on one of the compartment seats as he did so.
Their attacker was a skilled duellist, firing off spells and dodging as many as they sent their way. Eloise, who was particularly good at defensive shield charms, finally cast one so large that their entire group could crouch behind it, rather than dodging the hexes that came their way. The coach rattled along the tracks, and Scorpius could see the light from the end of the tunnel, signalling that they were pulling into the next station.
The hooded figure had noticed, too, and taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Albus leapt onto the cloaked body in an instant, physically knocking them to the ground, his previous injury apparently forgotten.
"Got you," he growled, yanking the hood back.
A woman smiled up at them, spitting out blood from where Al had collided with a shoulder to her face. He looked taken aback at the face of their attacker, but held her firm on the ground as they pulled into the station.
"Who are you?" Al demanded.
The woman laughed, a disconcerting sound that sent tingles up Scorpius' spine.
"You'll know soon enough," she said in a clear, strong voice with an American accent. And before any of them could stop her, she whispered "Avada Kedavra."
"No!" Scorpius yelled, rushing forwards to his best mate. But it wasn't Al slumped over when the bright green light had faded. It was the woman, her wand still held up to her face with those cold, unseeing eyes.
Albus leapt off of her as if burned.
"Oh my Godric," he said, his voice shaking.
"Come on, Albus," Eloise said, grabbing his arm. "We need to get out of here."
With one last look at the woman's limp body on the floor of the carriage, they turned and fled.
A/N: I promised there would be another update soon! Ahh I'm so excited for all the bits yet to come, and cannot wait to share with you all. Thanks a million for all of the lovely comments, your kind words make the writing all the easier :) More to come shortly!