The Walk back
APOV
"Al… what on earth was he?" Scor asked me as we made our way up to the castle.
"Scor... um... not that your abnormal degree of confidence in my intelligence isn't appreciated…yeah? but, um... I haven't the slightest idea." I said contemplating the verses of the 'Goddess's Song'.
"Any ideas as to what he... it... meant?" Scor queried.
Again, which part of the myriad of bombs Phoenix had dropped was Scor referring to now?
Scor's eyes were still an eerie light pink in the moonlight. "I haven't the slightest…" I said again.
"Come on Genius." he went on, knocking a closed fist against my head… "Think harder."
"Oh bugger off. That was the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me and I can barely process at all right now." I said rather curtly.
"Seven families." Scor whispered ignoring me. He had caught on to more than he was willing to admit… such a shit sometimes, he was likely catching up to my thought process so why did he find it necessary to bombard me with unnecessary questions...
"Why are you asking me if you are already figuring it out?" I asked again rather too annoyed. I wasn't usually this irritated. I actually never spoke to anyone this way. It's just that His eyes were so unnaturally beautiful they made me want to scream in terror. It was beyond irksome.
"Seven Families, Seven Fonts, Seven Mysteries…" Scor continued entirely ignoring me.
"How many chambers are their in the DoM?"
"Seven... now shut up." I said crossing the threshold of the entrance hall.
"We could be famous. More so than anyone before us. Why are you being so terribly un-Slytherin about this?"
"Because Scor, I'd rather be alive than famous… and I would rather not lose my best friend to some godforsaken fools quest that has lead to the deaths of everyone who has ever gone in search of it."
"Your best friend?" Scor whispered barely audibly as we headed from the entrance down the corridor that lead to the dungeons.
A lantern swung out abruptly in front of us revealing the aged caretaker who still roamed the corridors in the dead of night in search of troublemaking children. "What are you two doing out of be…" Filch started angrily.
"Oh piss off, we happen to be returning from detention with Hagrid and I haven't the patience to deal with you." Said Scor to the squib, walking right past him as if he were a lampost. Sometimes Scor didn't care enough to wrap up his wealth or station in perfunctory courtesies. This was one of those times. I was surprised Filch hadn't come after us swinging his lantern like a morning star.
"Those pink eyes of his were too unnatural, don't you think?" I said not wanting to tell Scor that his eyes had looked similar outside in the moonlight. They were their usual color now.
"Pink? What are you on about Al? They looked extraordinarily green to me." Scor said turning the corner towards the dorms. Green? How could anyone have mistaken that eerie unnatural color? Unless Scor had really seen green…
What could that mean? Why would we have seen two different…
"Basiliskar" Scorpius said opening the way to our common room and snapping me out of my frenzied thoughts.
"Can you imagine how terrifying one of those must be?" I asked abandoning my thoughts in favor of adopting what passed for regular conversation between us... Merlin the thought of eyes had started to hurt my head.
"Not worse than the real thing I imagine. A Basilisk animagus is rare indeed but I doubt that the same magical properties of the creature are applied to the wizard." Scor responded.
"Well… actually I read a paper that says some of the properties of legendary creatures in animagi are carried over during transformation if performed by an extremely skilled witch or wizard… its fascinating really." I offered back not wanting to sound too much like i had corrected him.
We were suddenly Ravenclaws again discussing theory and hypotheses, and soon we would be asleep and all of the night's events would be but a bad dream.
~*~*~*~*~)*(~*~*~*~*~
A Lion and A Raven in the Snake pit
SPOV
"Gods Scor you take forever to get ready for bed. Really it's rather ridiculous." Al said as I approached the fourposter.
Oh gods not him...
"What are you doing in my bed?" I asked the strange Gryffindor whose head rested snuggly in Al's lap.
"Well... Al was in this bed... so I decided to join him." Lou said without so much as looking up from what he was reading.
"More appropriately, the question should be, why is Al in your bed?" The blond Weasley asked smirking from behind the pages of his shite fashion magazine.
"How did you even get into the dorms?" I asked deciding against lying down in what would have been an overly crowded mess. For fucks sake this was my bed.
"Aurora let Rosie and I in. We were having fun waiting for the two of you to get back from detention." He finished turning the page. Al merely smiled and continued to stroke the blond's hair affectionately. Family must have been nice I thought before remembering that James was also related to them… what a tosser.
"Wait Aurora let you both in hours ago? So you're telling me you and Rosie have been here all night and nobody has yet to try and maim or murder either of you?" I asked incredulously.
"Aurora said I was too adorable for anyone to try and hurt me… she warned the rest of your house that they would have to deal with her Personally should they try and cause trouble…" Louis finished too smugly for his own good, closing his book to look at me with his signature smile. I was related to him… I felt like laughing at the hilarity. We did look somewhat similar which was weird given how distantly...
"So…" Louis said pulling me down abruptly as he shifted out of his Al sofa to lie sideways at the foot of the mattress.
"...Do anything interesting for detention?" He finished smiling at the mess he had caused. I merely readjusted myself (calmly) on the Al cushion that had been previously occupied, and fluffed it for comfort. Maybe i could transfigure them both into pillows...and BEAT THEM LIKE RUGS.
"Cushions shouldn't laugh, what kind of crap enchantment is that." I said jokingly, elbowing Al as he started to laugh at what i considered "fluffing".
"Oh you know, usual nonsense." Al lied casually in response to Lou's question, beginning to repeat the motion that he had done for the Weasley.
It was beyond weird. I don't think I remember either of my parents ever stroking my hair. Yet ... It felt nice.
"Mais oh, tu viens de me mentir! Je sais toujours quand tu me mens!" Lou said smiling enormously at Al.
(Hey, you just lied to me! I can always tell when you're lying to me!).
"Mais n'importe quoi espèce d'imbécile…" I said yawning (What bollocks you idiot).
"Ehhh! Mais Al! Tu ne m'as pas dit qu'il parlait Francais!" Louis said excitedly (Al! You didn't tell me he spoke French). How quickly the giddy fool forgot his line of inquiry.
APOV
This was the genius part of Scor's mind… he had known Louis would be more enamored by the fact that Scor spoke french than he would care about hearing tell of our little detention in the forbidden forest. I was glad that Scor had thought to do what i would have. Then again Scor always did.
I was tired and most certainly did not want to relive that little experience or have the energy to explain half of it… I would have much rather just gone to bed now without having to entertain Lou and... Rosie!
my hero had come to the rescue.
"Well not that hearing Scorpius is more talented than we initially assumed isn't absolutely fasc-ina-ting, but couldn't we maybe do this another time? Perhaps when its slightly less likely we'll be caught out of bed in the middle of the night?" Rosie said as she and Aurora came over towards us… much to the disgruntled bewilderment of some of the other boys who were still up late.
"You don't think we're actually going back now do you?" Lou asked incredulously. "I don't know about you but I'm staying right here." He finished indignantly, lifting himself up enough to cross his arms and turn his nose in the air.
"Um… no you're not. Not in my bed." Scor said annoyed.
"Sure Lou can stay here with us. Rosie and Aurora why don't you joi… ooomph" I started as Aurora jumped into the bed before Scor could interject again.
"Al, Lou… you do know that our parents would kill us if they found out about thi…"
"For christ sake four eyes just come on…" cried Aurora pulling Rosie down onto the four of... "ooomph"
"You are all insane, and this, by the way, happens to be MY bed, so you can all just piss off." Scor said sourly from his position braced against me, now slightly crushed by the new arrivals.
"Oh come on, don't be such a prat." I said kissing the top of Scor's head. Rose had been too busy cleaning her magical lenses to notice, and Aurora had picked up Louis's book interested in the French fashion. Louis merely smiled "I guess thats settled. I'm afraid i've indulged Al's over-expressed snuggle gene too much over the years. Apparently Al has decided for you." he said to Scor. A Malfoy being told what to do by Weasleys and Potters... oh dear this couldn't end well.
Over expressed snuggle gene my ass.
Louis and I had slept in the same bed for years at his insistence and while James thought we were insane Lily had always been overjoyed at the idea of joining us. Family… Scor had had entirely too little experience with proper family… it was time he learned what it felt like.
SPOV
Did the imbecile Potter just kiss the top of my head?
In what world could he have imagined that would placate me? I am not a little child who could be patronized or sated by some overly personal gesture of camaraderie…
...Although... it was oddly comforting…
Aurora had done that for me when we were little when Father would leave on business or for holiday. She was older than me by a measure and I always felt oddly close to her. We would stay together all the time at the Manor... She was starting to get really pretty too.
Stupid Al and his presumptuousness. Father was right about the Potters and their belief that they somehow owned the planet.
Yet somehow I couldn't argue with the green-eyed twit… It was weird to feel so right in ones place. Surrounded by friends and ... family. Besides I knew our true names now… it couldn't very well get any more personal than that I imagine. In that moment i thought to check the family archives to see how we were all actually related. Jeez what a funny thing to contemplate… I am much too tired to argue or to think… I realized.
"Sometime in the night we are all splitting off into the adjoining beds. There isn't enough room for five in one of these crap things." I offered begrudgingly, my resignation made plain. Two yes... five absolutely not.
"Yay!"
"Yess!"
"Now we won't have to risk losing points!"
"Thank you Scor." Al said softly kissing the top of my head again. I felt like a little sibling… how strange that i should feel so… human.
I'd have to remember to hex his face off in the morning.
"How are we even fitting in here anyway?" asked Rosie suddenly realizing that our little modification had actually-
"Oh, Scor and I enchanted his bed a while ago so that we could both fi-" Al started before I shocked him with a wand jab to the ribs. Father told me always to sleep with it under my pillow...
Yawwnnn.
Nothing is more wonderful than the glorious veil of Nyx's dark cloak. Strange that the moon should have power enough to pierce her shadow,
like an enormous eye.
"Goodnight mr Giant Squid." I heard Al whisper before wrapping his free arm around me. That stupid hand was tingling. I might wake up and have dreamed all of this...
Night herself has come. My only regret was that we could not have seen her from within these deep dungeons. Only the eerie green light of the dark waters was visible and the magic of the creatures who lived in their depths. I wondered how Cyrille was doing.
no more thoughts...i am too tired for thought.
That night I dreamed that Al had dreamt. I could see pink eyes... snow fall in the summer greens... blossoms blooming as the autumn leaves turned crimson... A great white Lion in tears... a hooded figure roaming ageless through the woods of time, Lost. Christmas and family... an enormous archway, the painted veil covering the entrance beyond...
whispers...
Al smiling,
Al crying...
and the smell of toffee...
everything was burning...
yet I was so cold...
The five of us were warm in here though...nice and warm...
I am not really continuing... this was just a fluff filled way to transition back from the forest and maintain my quasi inhuman upload speed. I churned this out rather quickly so forgive me if the writing is a bit dodgy... I am actually thinking of editing much of the chapters that are already up because the dialogue is a bit confusing at times...
TF&B:TF&L receives a few additional dedications. To the enrapturing expanse of childhood. To the indescribably divine perspective of youth. To the night, the dark goddess and all that she veils from our sight.
