—CHAPTER ONE—
Rose would be attending her first Order meeting that night.
It was the final day of July, the summer air balmy and warm, the grounds of Hogwarts buzzing with humble bumblebees, quiet and idyllic. After weeks of harassing their parents, they would finally be allowed to sit into an Order meeting.
She and Scorpius were in the greenhouses for a change, standing on the long benches as if mounted on a stage. Both had their wands out. Rose was sweating. Sure enough, the air of the greenhouse was humid, fogging the glass panels. It was too hot, but they were tired of practising in the unused classrooms, where the noise always attracted the other students that had chosen to stay on the grounds. Scorpius suggested the greenhouse and Rose thought that perhaps the flowers and foliage may have a settling effect on her mind.
"Focus," Scorpius said, his face hard, his wand extended. "You need to focus."
"I am," Rose said between her teeth. She moved her feet a shoulder width apart, readying her stance again, crouching in the knees. She raised her wand and blinked the sweat from her eyes.
Scorpius flung the first curse wordlessly. Rose was able to protect herself with a silent Shield Charm, but it was all she could do to hold it. Her nonverbal offense was so poor that it was embarrassing. It was the first time Scorpius had ever held the upper hand in one of their duels.
"Attack Rose!"
She attacked. She tried twice to aim the spells nonverbally, but nothing but sparks came from her wand, and during this interlude she was hit with a Stinging Spell. She tried to duck left and almost slid off the table, forcing her back into the line of fire. With her shoulder still stinging, a Jelly-Leg Jinx hit her hard in the knees. After a slight wobble, she produced the counter-curse and darted around his next hex.
"Focus!"
Finally, she got a nonverbal curse out, blinding Scorpius—at least it was a good curse—and sending him staggering back down the table, grappling at his eyes. She advanced and tried another silent curse, and this one worked too. She squeezed her concentration around the spell, and it shot from her wand. It was finally working.
"Alright, let's break."
They spent ten minutes tending to their wounds, restoring their skin with half-hearted counter-curses. They were both sweating through their t-shirts, the humidity making it hard for them to breathe now.
"That was better," Scorpius said, getting his breath back far quicker than his partner. "You're not as terrible as when we first started. Have you been doing the mindfulness exercises I set you to do before bed?"
Rose raised her eyebrows. Without parting her lips, she twirled her wand and sent one of the nearby flowerpots up into the air, hovering it over Scorpius' head.
He pursed his lips to stop himself smiling. "It's easy to do nonverbal magic when you're not in a duel."
"It's easy, is it?" Rose asked, twisting her wand again. The pot flipped itself, emptying the soil all over Scorpius' blond head. "Oh, you were right, that was easy enough."
"What're you two doing in the greenhouses?"
Professor Longbottom was at the door, his face covered in scruffy stubble, uncharacteristically casual in his day clothes but still as stern as any Headmaster should be. Rose hastily flicked her wand, sending the soil back into the pot, and the pot back to its shelf. Scorpius shook the remainder of it out of his eyes.
"You aren't even a Herbology teacher any more," Scorpius retorted.
Their Professor laughed, a little miffed by their moxie. He crossed his arms. "Oh, sod off, then, won't you?"
They stalked out of the greenhouse, ducking their heads at they passed him. Rose made sure to cover the Stinging Jinx on her shoulder with her bushy hair. She and Scorpius had been practicing nonverbal duels every day since the start of the summer holidays. They tried to keep it as private as possible to avoid attention, but they were quickly running out of big enough spaces to practice.
They were also keeping it a secret from Albus, something they half-heartedly agreed upon when they had first started doing nonverbal exercises in the Slytherin Common room following the End of Term Feast. Their magic was getting more and more advanced—the better Rose got as doing nonverbal magic, the harder they made the spells. They thought Albus might not approve of how dangerous their duels were becoming, or that they were using one another as target practice. Whenever he suspiciously asked where they were off to, the pair of Slytherins would say they were off to do couple things—Rose usually suggesting that she was going to spend some time snogging Scorpius and Albus was more than welcome to join them—but this excuse felt weak behind the bravado. Affection wasn't very high up their priority list in their current state, and almost anyone who knew them could see that.
"You haven't concealed your bruise properly," Rose said, tugging at Scorpius' neck as they made their way toward the school. "You should practice your Concealment Charms."
"Says you," Scorpius replied drolly. "You look like you've had an allergic reaction."
They entered the Great Hall, which seemed larger now, as there were only two long tables filling the room. One for the students, one for Hogsmeade residents, Order members and alumni who had all stayed behind. It was still strange getting use to the lack of House divisions, the disappearance of banners, although Rose had been hopping between tables for so long that she was only relieved she could now openly sit with her family. They found Albus in the crowd, sitting opposite Mary Boot and Angus Finnigan, eating a chicken broth. Everyone had noticed that the food was being rationed—that there were only three types of dishes served each night and no longer any desserts. It was something Isabella Nott complained about frequently in their common room.
"How are you wearing long sleeves?" Rose asked Albus, clambering over her bench with her long legs, "It's so warm outside."
"You're worried about my long sleeves. Meanwhile, we're eating chicken soup."
"Ah, chicken soup," Scorpius said, taking a seat beside Mary, opposite Albus. "Nothing I prefer better on a hot summer's day."
Mary smirked and stirred her soup slowly. "At least it tastes good."
"At least we're not starving," Angus added. "They're Hagrid's chickens."
"You mean, the chickens that he keeps to feed all his creepy critters?" Albus asked.
"Soon ferret will be on the menu," Rose interjected.
They all grinned at each other and returned to their meals, spoons clanking against the sides of their bowls. The glass sky above them was beginning to cool in colour, turning a dusky blue, the clouds creamy like peaches. Night was coming.
Rose plucked Albus' sleeve discretely and leaned in to say something in his ear. "First Order meeting tonight."
"How could I forget?" he murmured back.
Rose let go of his arm and noticed, as he shook his sleeve back into place, a long scaly scar running up his arm and disappearing under the fabric. The angry red scab peeked out for a moment, startling her, but it was hidden too quickly for Rose to put her shock into words.
"What time shall we meet?" Albus went on, not noticing her expression.
"Er—ten to seven at the staff room. Al, is everything okay?"
Their eyes met, green against blue, both muddy with concern as they took the other in. Albus nodded once.
Another joined their number—Lucy Bird, her blonde her swinging in its ponytail as she took a seat beside Finnigan. She was holding a library book. The library was mostly deserted nowadays, no Librarian to keep it in order, just piles of books that were read and then never returned to shelves, piled up on tables, like paper dunes in a paper wasteland.
"I found it, Al," she said, sliding the book across the table to him. He caught it and flipped it over. Rose read over his shoulder, Mending the Unmendable by Josefina Calderon. "It was still in the return pile from the previous group of seventh-years."
"Cheers," Albus said, tucking the book into his bag, under the table. And the distraction made it impossible for Rose to broach the subject again, so she dropped it for the time being.
While she was gradually doing better, it was hard for Rose to be emotionally in tune with the people around her. The better she was getting at nonverbal magic, the harder it was for her to talk. All her energies circulated around learning to cast advanced spells without words, on an unnaturally internal process. She found it difficult to focus on reading other people's moods. Everyone was permanently grim on their bottom most layer, so it was hard to judge how well they were coping. Albus had seemed to be okay in the last few weeks—keeping busy, always in company—so Rose had assumed he was doing okay.
Albus checked his watch, and then clambered back over his seat, dragging his bag along with him. He gave Rose's shoulders a squeeze.
"Gotta go, but I'll see you before the meeting tonight."
"Where're you going?"
"Just have to be somewhere."
He was off, and Rose was left with a sick feeling in her stomach. Like most things these days, it was hard to put it into words, but it didn't stop her from feeling it.
Becoming a teacher was a bit of a throwback for Harry Potter. In fact, it was one of the few things—alongside his family and friends—that still gave him joy. He should have expected this. Taking on trainee Aurors was one of his favourite parts of the job, and writing the Auror's curriculum for their training courses was more enjoyable than the usual paperwork he had to push through.
But teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts was different. It made Harry feel fifteen again, standing in the Hog's Head with Ron and Hermione stubbornly by his side, a list of sign up names on a piece of charmed parchment. It reminded him of secret classes in the Room of Requirement where they practised spells beneath The Inquisitorial Squad's noses. He always came back to that moment, the reluctance he felt having to pass on skills that felt like nothing more than survival instincts, something unteachable.
He was right back there again, much older this time, much wiser, much more experienced, but still needing to impart something that could not be learned in a textbook or a classroom.
Defence Against the Dark Arts had been a blessing and a curse throughout Harry's entire school life. It was the class he excelled at most, that he knew he needed once he was out of Hogwarts. It was also the class he had to wrestle against most, with teachers like Quirrell, Barty Crouch Junior and Umbridge posing real threats to his life. But the content never betrayed Harry, and he still leaned on it.
Harry and Ginny were living in the Defence Against the Dark Art's office quarters that all the previous teachers had used during their stay in the position. It was unsettling at first to think that whenever Quirrell went to sleep, Voldemort's face had pressed into the pillows that he and his wife now shared. Of course, Ginny reminded Harry that there was no chance these were the same sheets, or even the same bed, that their Defence teachers had used—but it was hard to shift the thought.
To balance out the unnerving reminders, he found himself thinking most about Remus Lupin. It was hard not to think about him when it was this office that once held a Grindylow tank and Remus' tattered textbooks, cardigans draped over desk chairs and—even on one occasion—the Marauder's Map that he had helped make. Remus would have shared this bedroom too, and the thought made him breathe easy, knowing it was one of the few times in Remus' life that he had been safe and well.
Of course, these thoughts always made him think of Teddy, and it had been so long since he had spent time with Teddy that all he could do was ache.
There were still crumbs in his bed. Ginny had said she had dusted them all off the sheets that morning, but he found them scattered on the quilt. He had turned forty-three that day. Ginny had woken him at midnight in bed with a cupcake balanced on her palm, the candlestick burning, and telling him to make a wish.
It was extraordinary that when he was eleven, he could close his eyes as he lay on the floor of a rainy shack on a rock in the middle of nowhere and wish for life to get better, and it seemed that it had. With magic, everything had to be better.
"Sometimes I think we should get a contingency escape plan together," Harry told Ginny as she licked the icing off her fingers.
"Mm—what, and just take off like Percy did?"
"Well, if it gets to that point where we run out of options."
Ginny had frowned at him in their cramped office room and gently placed her sticky fingers on his cheek. These words, she knew, were very unlike Harry. "We can't run."
"I know," he had frowned, shaking his head. "I know."
"There are too many of us anyway—we can't take everyone with us."
"But can't we? How about we all meet at the Burrow and then leave for Romania—"
"Our family is enormous, Harry. Would you be satisfied if it was just us and the kids? What about Hermione and Ron? George and Angelina, Bill and Fleur? And then you would be too anxious to leave Neville behind—or Luna—"
"It was just an idea." Harry then huffed, falling back onto his pillows.
Ginny had eaten most of his birthday cupcake, but he didn't mind. She straddled him on the bed, her knees creaking into the mattress on either side of his hips, and she popped the last bit of sponge cake into his mouth.
"You don't want to run," she said. "You never run."
Harry sighed, looking up at her. Without his glasses, she was fuzzy around the edges. He licked the icing off her finger. "I'd run if it meant they would be safe."
"It's funny, how protecting the ones you love makes you selfish," she grinned. She leaned down and kissed her husband briefly. His expression was unchanged when she pulled back. "They'd never be safe, Harry. Even if we run."
Ginny had climbed off of Harry, dusting the crumbs off the sheets and snuggling herself in beside her husband. She wrapped her arms and legs around his back, tucking her chin into his neck. While Harry would never admit it, Ginny was always the big spoon, especially on nights like these.
Harry used his wand to get rid of the last of the crumbs. He would have a quick dinner before the Order meeting, which he had been prepping on—Hermione's orders—and mentally prepare to have his own child sit in and participate.
He slipped out of his office into the Defence classroom and almost jumped out of his skin. His wife was standing beneath the dragon skeleton, which now dangled with silver and gold streamers. The floor was cleared of desks, except for a much larger table beneath the chandelier, where a high tea had been set up—teapot and mini sandwiches and all.
"Merlin, are you trying to rub in how old I am?"
"Don't be ridiculous. It's just tea—the kids should be here any minute."
Harry took a seat and pointed up at the streamers dandling from the dragon's ribcage. "Is this insensitive?"
"That dragon's been dead a very long time. I don't think he minds."
Perhaps half a lifetime spent together was better than Legilimency lessons, because Ginny wound her way around the table and wrapped her arms around Harry's neck. She sighed heavily, running her hands through the beard that he had started growing at the beginning of the summer.
"What's on your mind? Upset Al is coming to our Order meeting?"
"No," Harry said decidedly. "No, I'm just annoyed there were still crumbs in my bed."
"Nonsense. I got them all."
"Mhm. Peeves must have put them there, I suppose."
"What's really bothering you? You're not still thinking of running, are you?"
Harry sighed heavily. Since midnight had passed, the erratic thought of an escape plan had gone with it. What was bothering Harry was much worse; he had to let his children fight, he had to even risk their lives on purpose knowing that it may be the only way to end the battle. While the realisation was coming, it was hard to accept it; that there was a prophecy, that Albus, Rose and Scorpius would be offered up like lambs to the slaughter.
"Maybe I shouldn't come to the meeting."
Ginny snapped back now, the softness in her arms vanishing. She walked around him so they could look at one another, face to face.
"Don't start on this again, Harry. You're not in charge of the Aurors or the Order. That's enough concessions. You have to come to the meetings."
"I just don't know if my input there is where I'm most—"
"Your input is one of the only reasons people come to these meetings. Why we have an army."
"That's the problem though, isn't it?" Harry snapped. "I don't want to be some mastermind tweaking the strings in the background, Ginny! I'm not some brilliant strategician who can just use people—"
"That's what Ron's there for—"
"You really think if Rose wants to storm Hogsmeade next month, or Gringotts, Ron will put her on the front lines, do you?"
They stared at each other tersely for a moment, a nerve working in Ginny's jaw. She opened her mouth to retort just as the classroom's door opened, and both James and Lily came in. The mood immediately changed—neither were on the Order (James didn't want to be, and Lily was too young to join) so they made an effort not to talk too much about Order business in front of them. This topic was particularly off the table.
"Sorry, James insisted on eating dinner before coming up here," Lily sighed, rolling her eyes. "He thought there wouldn't be enough food."
"Well, they're bloody starving us here anyway," James replied flippantly. "I might as well take two dinners where I can."
Ginny didn't say anything. Since the siege, she was very careful to tiptoe around James, hell bent on making sure he was recovering.
And James had improved—slowly. Painfully. He spent most of his time around his father or Lorcan. They didn't talk about the war in front of him, or Hogsmeade, and that was working for now. They talked a lot about other things though; James suddenly thirsty to hear about Harry's own escapades as a child in a way that he hadn't been since he was a young teen. He wanted to hear stories of heroics, of life and death experiences, of calamities and their resolutions.
Harry never told those stories unless they were the punch line to a joke or an embellished fantasy before bedtime. The words felt heavy now, reliving them to adult children. That he sobbed over Cedric's body; that his first taste of firewhiskey followed Mad Eye Moody's death. The basilisk wasn't nearly as scary as the fact a teacher tried to rob them of their memories to save his skin. It was unpleasant reliving the blank look on Stan Shunpike's face, or the callous disbelief of the Minister for Magic when they told him Voldemort was back. Voldemort didn't seem real in these stories anymore. He had become the Big Bad Wolf, impossibly evil and twisted, ready to be destroyed from the outset. It was harder to explain Dolores Umbridge, who tortured schoolchildren while convinced she was doing what was best. It was hard to explain the little moments attached to the smaller people, the ordinary people who created so much pain.
James loved these stories but Lily was quick to cut them off, a knowing look in her expression. She hated reliving the morbidity and seeing the way it entertained her brother.
"Hi, Daddy," Lily added candidly, skipping around the table to kiss the side of his cheek. "Happy birthday."
"Thanks little one," Harry said smiling half-heartedly. He watched his daughter settle into the chair opposite him, neatening the teapot between them so the spout and handle were parallel to both sides of the table.
Harry tilted his head to the side as he surveyed his fifteen year old and wondered where on earth she got her precision. She took one of the finger sandwiches and placed it on a plate, sliding it across to her father.
"Remember when we used to have tea parties?" Lily suddenly asked, looking up at him.
"Yes. You were a little tea party tyrant back then."
"You're telling me," James huffed, taking the seat beside her. "You never had to deal with one of her famous tea party tantrums."
"James, you caused the tea party tantrums," his father replied sternly.
If they weren't at Hogwarts, sitting under the cavernous dragon skeleton in the Defence classrooms, this would have felt like any other summer.
Ginny poured them both tea and glanced at the door. "Where's Albus?"
"Oh, I think he was coming," Lily shrugged.
"Couldn't he have been on time? We don't have long before the meeting."
"It's fine," Harry placated. He took a bite from his sandwich, making loud grunting noises to express his delight.
Ginny tsked and shook her head, leaning her hip against the table and refusing to take a seat. Her dark eyes were fixed on the door, waiting. But Harry didn't mind Albus' absence as much as he should have. It was Albus that he felt heaviest for. Albus, who shared his same green eyes and dark hair, the same burdens. Ginny was tapping her fingers in aggravation, eyes on the door.
Albus, Rose and Scorpius troubled him. They reminded him too much of Ron, Hermione and himself when he was their age. It was stark looking at them and seeing a mirrored reflection. And he wasn't stupid—he knew they were preparing. They were stepping up, thinking they were being discrete about it. Off in the library, locked in old classrooms. In the same way he, Hermione and Ron had been readying themselves at the Burrow, perched to take off, they were getting ready to leave.
There was no stopping it, and it would be foolish to try and slow them down as Mrs Weasley had once done. Harry's only choice was to equip them. But the very thought of that made him ache.
The door opened and Albus popped his head in. Ginny opened her mouth, ready to argue, but he merely flung his school tie at his father and smiled coyly.
"Put that over your eyes please."
"What's going on?" Ginny frowned.
Lily giggled.
Harry knotted the Gryffindor tie around his eyes, James making sure it was secured in place, waving a few obscene hand gestures in front of his father just to be sure. Lily wound her arm through her father's and led him from the room, still muffling her giggles. They were going in a small brigade, Ginny no longer irked, but her voice still sceptical as she prompted, "What're you three up to?"
They helped Harry jump a trick stair. They got him up a second, moving staircase. He wondered whether they were taking him to the Gryffindor common room—which would be a treat, he felt. To see the old fireplace, the round tower, the Sword of Gryffindor behind its glass case. But he sensed they were travelling in the wrong direction, although they were up very high by now.
After a pause, a set of doors clicked open and he had his blindfold removed as Lily ushered him inside.
It was their lounge room—exactly their lounge room. The brick fireplace with the family portraits stood opposite the comfy chintz sofas and armchairs, and on the coffee table, there was a frosted cake bedecked with candles. It had been so long since Harry had been in their home that it muddled him for a moment.
It was the Room of Requirement, certainly. But it fooled him, just for a second.
"Surprise," his children chorused, grinning. They all began an off-key rendition of Happy Birthday, which Ginny laughed throughout, weaving her arm around Harry's shoulders, smitten by the sweetness of their children. They finished singing but Harry didn't want to move. This was too nice. They were so safe and cozy. Lily waltzed around to the cake and knelt down beside it, grinning up at him. "C'mon Dad, make a wish."
When Harry hesitated, Albus caught his eyes and nodded towards the table. It was hard to look away from him. It was Albus who must have gotten the room ready and it was perfect, right down to the last detail.
There was only one wish he wanted to make, and that was to keep his children safe. As he closed his eyes and blew out the little dancing flames, he poured his whole heart into that wish, until it was almost a plea, a prayer. Keep them safe, he wished.
But as the candles went out, he felt his heart give a squeeze. He couldn't guarantee their safety, and the longer they stayed here, the greater danger they would be in. And Harry would just allow the danger to find them, in the hopes they could stand up against it.
It was terrifying.
Rose and Scorpius met Albus outside of the staffroom, where he showed up with his mum and dad, walking between them both like he would have done as a child. But now, Albus was almost the same height as his father, like a younger imitation, and there was nothing childish in his expression.
There were not as many people as she had expected. Only about fifteen, gathered around the table. It was far more intimate than the last Order meeting she had burst into—for instance, none of her teachers were there except for Professor Longbottom. There were a few others she didn't know by name.
A nervous energy had suddenly charged through her body. Since Harry had agreed to their demands to attend the Order meetings, Rose had been quietly satisfied. Having been barred for so long, she hadn't anticipated what it would be like to actually sit in this room. Maybe Albus and Scorpius felt the same, but she couldn't shrug the feeling that she was out of place.
She noticed her mother, bushy hair tied back into a bushy bun, lean down and murmur something into her father's ear, who in response, dug what looked to be a lighter from his pocket. His Deluminator. Rose noticed it the same time that Harry caught the subversive action, but as he opened his mouth to enquire or protest, Ron had already clicked the contraption, sucking all the light from the room. In the sudden pitch of darkness, everyone burst into a very cheery rendition of Happy Birthday, just as Hagrid appeared—squeezing through the door—with a cake.
Caught by surprise, the three of them only managed to join in half way through the song.
"Oh no—why'd you have to—thank you, Hagrid, this is really nice, I can tell you baked it yourself—but I told you, Hermione, I didn't want a fuss—yes well, sure, I'll blow out the candles, but then straight into the meeting."
Rather perturbed, Harry's blew out his candles with what was more or less a sigh. Everyone applauded, Ron got the lights back into their lanterns and Hermione Summoned the cake across the table so she could divvy it up into symmetrical pieces.
"Some of you may have noticed," Harry added, as Ginny forcibly put a pointy cardboard birthday hat on his head, "that Rose, Scorpius and Albus have joined us today. They'll just be sitting in and observing for the moment, so it might be worth us catching them up on all the details."
Everyone turned to the three teenagers, greeting them oddly as if they were foreign dignitaries, and not a group of family friends and strangers.
"Let's get started, shall we?" Hermione asked, dipping her quill into parchment.
"I think our most pressing concern is that the gangs in Hogsmeade are tunnelling again."
"To lay mines or to get into the school?" a woman that Rose recognised as an ex-Auror asked.
"Well, it's hard to say…"
"Don't we have a contact in Hogsmeade?"
"He's out," Harry said, frowning. "He got discovered. Right now, we have no information."
"Based on what our contact found out before he was exposed, we think these tunnels are unmined. That they are building passages. You all know that we've been running surveillance and physiological warfare on the gangs in Hogsmeade. Oh—well, I suppose not all of you are aware," Hermione hesitated, catching her daughter's eye. "Ron, will you quickly brief us?"
Ron leaned forward on his elbows, and under this lighting, Rose noticed that he was beginning to go bald.
"What we've been doing for the last few weeks is Transfiguring the suits of armour in the school and sending them down to Hogsmeade in the middle of the night to march the perimeter of the town. It sets off their alarms and it also sets off their mines. Keeps them up through the nights, which is good. We've noticed that it's slowing down their tunnelling, too."
"But the tunnels are definitely not mined," Hermione added. "Courtesy of Minerva, the suits of armour have already detonated all of the explosives."
But this was not a relief. If the tunnels were not defensive, then they must be offensive. As this dawned dreadfully on Rose, the same realisation spread around the room.
"So…zey are trying to get into ze school?" Fleur asked, her eyebrows drawing together.
"It appears that way."
"It's not worth being worried about," Neville added. "We've reinforced all of the soil around the school—it's harder than concrete. No one can dig through it. Not even goblins."
"But they are trying to get in—and it's worth asking why," Hermione said promptly. "We're trying something at the moment—since the goblins are so keen to kill off Harry and I, we think this may be why they're trying to get into Hogwarts."
"Naturally," Harry shrugged, his party hat making him entirely impossible to take seriously.
"So, we came up with a plan. It's taken us awhile to get it into place, of course, because we need to brew a batch of Polyjuice Potion—"
"Hermione's speciality," Ron grinned.
"—But we're going to have a decoy Harry and Hermione stationed away from Hogwarts to draw the goblins off."
"And Harry's agreed to this?" Minerva asked slowly, raising her eyebrows.
"Well, it's not the first time," Harry grumbled, rolling his eyes. "I'm not entirely pleased about it but if it means the tunnels stop—"
"If they don't stop, then we know that the goblins have other motives to break into Hogwarts. Which at this point, I doubt."
Everyone was silent as they mulled this over. For Rose, she had never even considered that their motives were important. She had never tried to think as if she was inside their heads.
It was Ginny who spoke up next, her fingers running through her short, red hair, pulling at her temples.
"Let's work this out logically," she said. "There were three major requests made at the Summit. The first was wand rights, which also granted the goblins citizenship. The second was goblin representation in the Ministry for Magic, which Gladstone agreed to and ultimately allowed the goblins to bring down the Ministry from within. The third was to control Gringotts, which they have now taken by force."
"They got everythin' they bleedin' wanted, didn't they?" Hagrid growled gruffly.
"Well, it would seem that way, but it doesn't explain why the goblins are trying to break into Hogwarts—if that is in fact what they're doing."
"We have another piece of information," Bill Weasley frowned, placing his hands together on the table. Everyone turned their attention to his grizzly, sombre face. "I don't know whether it is important or not—but this week, we were in touch with Charlie in Romania. At our last meeting, we mentioned that they rescued a goblin that works for the King and he's been feeding them information."
"How can you be certain that he is trustworthy?" Minerva McGonagall asked, her wrinkled mouth turning as thin as a string.
A few people around the table murmured their shared concern.
Bill shrugged, clearing his throat gruffly to regain their attention. "We don't. He could be lying. We have no proof. But whether he's lying or not, he is feeding us information, and its worth asking why."
"What information?"
"He's told them that the King wants a Philosopher's Stone."
"That's ridiculous."
"A Philosopher's Stone?"
"If he is lying, what advantage is it to the goblins that we think their King is looking for a Philosopher's Stone?"
"There's no Philosopher's Stone in Hogwarts," Harry said, his tone dull. "There isn't a Stone anywhere in the world."
There was a gentle knock and Hermione sat up, her eyes now alert as they darted from her watch to the door.
"Oh, they're early."
It was impressive that up until this point, Rose had kept her cool. At least, she was impressed with herself. She hadn't interrupted with questions. She had not made any demands. In what was a performance of her maturity, she sat between the boys and observed, listening, drinking in all the new information, all the plans. It was only when Orlick arrived did the hairs on her arms stand on end.
Rose had grown up around goblins. They handled her family's Gringotts vault; they occasionally worked alongside her parents at the Ministry. When she was a child, she never really thought much about them. They were different from her—clearly, with their long taloned fingers and short statures and glittering black eyes—but that difference was unseen. They blended into the margins of invisibility.
Now, when she saw a goblin, she wanted to reach for her wand. She wanted to plummet them with curses. It was an instinctual reaction. She had flashbacks to Romnuk's voice over the radio, or heads strung up on signposts, or Meredith's hot blood running through the back of her shirt. She saw a goblin, and she saw the enemy.
Both Albus and Scorpius were just as tense—Albus' shoulders had bunched up and she could almost feel the muscle working in Scorpius' neck. But Rose was visibly on guard—she half stood in her seat, crouching, like a tiger preparing to strike, and she slipped her wand from her robes.
"I think everyone here knows Orlick," Hermione said, gesturing to him as he stepped through the door, along with a man who had basset hound eyes. "He came to most of our Order meetings last year. You two didn't have any trouble getting here?"
"The Portkey Doorway you set up is still going strong," the man said, conjuring up two chairs. "No trouble from Diagon Alley either."
As the goblin dragged back his chair, sliding into the seat that was too high off the ground for him, Rose suddenly reached for her wand. She half stood, and Scorpius grabbed her wand hand under the table. She yanked it free.
"What is he doing here?" she said, between clenched teeth.
Orlick sighed, very jadedly. "It is not the first time I have inspired this reaction."
"Orlick is on our side, Rose," Ron urged patiently.
"No," Rose said. "No, he shouldn't be on the grounds."
Ron began to protest, but Albus added, "I don't like this either."
As Hermione moved to stand, Orlick raised his long, gaunt hand to stop her. Rose realised by the crinkles around his black, beady eyes that he was much older than she first thought.
"I think I should explain who I am and why I am here, to dispel any myths in the children's minds."
Rose bristled at the word children, but she kept her mouth shut. Slowly, she lowered herself back into her chair.
"I understand that at this school the goblins are studied, but how much do you three know about the Goblin's monarchic system?"
"You choose your Kings," Scorpius said, almost as if he were in a classroom answering the teacher. "Everyone in the goblin kingdom must work, and the King is selected because he works the hardest."
"Correct," Orlick said, smiling, but with his mouth closed. "Royalty is earned, not something one is born into. The best metalsmith is crowned after the death of the previous Monarch. The King selects who will replace him, then ensures that this subject is trained to be the best, so that he can take over once the King dies."
"We don't need a history lesson," Scorpius said coldly.
"But I think you do. Surely, you have heard of Morgana the Morose. She was our greatest metalsmith, and the King selected her to be the next for the throne—yet, a female goblin cannot be made the ruler of our Kingdom. Traditionally, the title goes to her next of kin. Morgana has two brothers, neither who would be decent rulers.
"The King chose to hide Morgana while he dealt with the public's revolts, but her brothers broke into the royal quarters and killed the King. The eldest took the throne, as he was supposed to as the next of kin. We formed a resistance, of course," Orlick said, touching his chest with his long fingers, "but we were overthrown, Morgana was imprisoned, and those defecators who survived—like myself—were forced to move to the wizarding world, to find work here."
"So that's who you are," Albus said, still quite rudely. "A defector. A member of the defeated resistance."
Orlick gestured to all the faces gathered around the table, then smiled his tight-lipped smile once more.
"To me, it looks as if the resistance is still alive. Where there is a spark, there will be fire."
"Orlick," Hermione said, leaning across the table, "you would know better than us. Where do we need to strike first?"
"We strike Gringotts, Diagon Alley," he said. "This is the goblin's heart, their home away from the mountain. And I have a good sense of how to get inside of it."
They sat high up in the Astronomy Tower, where the stars were shrouded with misty clouds, hiding just enough from them. The air was cool and fresh after the stuffiness of the staffroom. Rose stretched her legs out, the cool stone under her thighs making her feel like a sandstone affixture, a cold granite gargoyle, ugly and weather worn.
Tucked up with his knees under his chin, Albus was uncharacteristically withdrawn. Even Scorpius seemed keener than he did to talk, and that wasn't saying much. They were all digesting, staring out at the grounds, gazing at the little lights in Hogsmeade, thinking about the Order meeting.
Finally, after a long silence, Rose offered, "More tactics than you'd think, wouldn't you?"
"Not really," Scorpius replied shortly. "I mean, I expected them to have tactics."
A long silence again, the clouds meandering by like lost sheep in the dark. Somewhere, an owl was hooting quietly, maybe venturing out to hunt. Albus wasn't looking at either of them, his expression drawn and puzzled, his knees pulled up to his chin.
They had ended the meeting by briefly discussing an evacuation plan—that in the event of the goblin gangs breaching Hogwarts' defences, they would evacuate through what everyone called the Portkey Doorway (although her mother had explained to Rose that the magic was hardly similar to what a Portkey could do at all) and then seal the exit once everyone was in Diagon Alley. The goblins didn't know that they had found a way to circumvent the siege, to get in and out of Hogwarts as needed. But this plan was unlikely. Everyone who had stayed on the grounds—students and Hogsmeade residents alike—were here by choice, in order to fight. They would defend Hogwarts until it burned.
"I don't understand the Philosopher's Stone thing," Rose said slowly, shaking her head. "Why would they be after a Stone?"
"Probably for the gold," Scorpius answered, almost reflexively, as if he were in an Alchemy lesson. "The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. A goblin's dream, I suppose."
"Surely the King has enough gold though."
"Is it possible to make another Stone?" Rose asked.
Scorpius pulled a face, one that suggested that he thought very little of the idea. "Unlikely. Since Flammel, no one has been able to do it."
"What do you think Albus?" Rose said, turning to him.
"I don't understand how we're involved in this," Albus said, gazing up at the shy constellations. "I mean, this entire thing started before we were even born because of some chauvinist goblin who didn't want his sister to rule their mountain. Why do we matter?"
They were both quiet for a moment.
"The prophecy, I suppose."
"But even the prophecy makes no sense. Why us? Why are we the children of enemies united?"
Rose shook her head hopelessly. Even though she was daft to the average human's emotional spectrum, she had noticed Albus getting less and less keen on this battle. He had been the least vocal when they asked Harry to join the Order, and whenever they saw him, he only ever spoke about superficial distractions. Rose couldn't stand dancing around it any longer.
"What's the matter?"
"You can't just pose that question anymore. Not when everything's the way it is."
"But something's palpably wrong, Albus! It's like you've utterly lost interest in fighting."
He stood, unfurling his curled up limbs, his dark hair falling over his eyes, already moving to leave. Rose seized his sleeve, trying to keep him put, but yanking the fabric back to reveal the long, dark scabs up his arms.
"Bloody hell, Albus! Are you—are you cutting yourself?"
Her cousin yanked his arm back, looking peeved. "Hardly."
"So those scars magically appeared on your wrist then?" Scorpius asked tersely.
"Don't be a muppet, Malfoy."
Scorpius was so taken aback by this retort that he only mouthed wordlessly for a moment. Since her partner was speechless, Rose had to take the diplomatic route herself, something she was never very good at. She adopted a tender tone.
"Is this trauma related? Are you not coping with the siege?"
"Oh—please. I'm coping better than you."
"It's not because Imogen left, is it?"
The look Albus gave her was murderous.
"Okay, so it's not because of Imogen. Is there a particular reason then?"
"You two have your secrets, I have mine," Albus said haughtily.
"That's it. Scorpius, read his mind."
"I'm sorry?"
"You're a Legilimens, aren't you? Read his mind."
"It's not as simple as reading his mind, Rose. Anyway, that's an invasion of privacy."
"Thank you, Scorpius."
"Oh, be quiet. You called me a muppet."
They stood there for a moment, squaring off.
"I have different priorities to you both," he said, a little colder than necessary. "I'm not thick. I know you're making plans without me—"
"We're not—"
"I know, alright? So I've been preparing too. In my own ways."
He didn't pause to keep arguing. He left, his footfalls fast down the spiral staircase. The two Slytherins were left behind, the stars blinking sadly at them from behind the clouds. They were left wondering, too, how they were possibly the ones supposed to fight this battle.
Isabella had fallen into the habit of pacing back and forth in her bedroom, while making intense, rousing inspirational speeches. This was the sort of thing she imagined Scorpius would do, so it always left her feeling pleasantly flushed—an odd yet guilty pleasure, like she was exercising some great faculty of her brain.
The content of these speeches were really rather stupid, often lacking in the detailed minutiae needed for stirring political commentary, or for a motivating pep talk. They were filled with empty platitudes like, "we have to stand together or refuse to stand for anything at all," and "this is the moment we were made to prove ourselves," and other such nonsense that she pretended she understood, that she put on like clothes, because Isabella had never been in a duel, she had never fought an enemy, she had never risked her life. So she had to practice, to play pretend.
It was a good distraction from the fact she had not heard a word from her parents since they had left the country, or that Scorpius rarely had time for her in the last few weeks of the summer, or that she and Zabini only ever shared stiff words, or that James was hatching out of his shell-shock and she was the last person in the world that he wanted to speak to. Making speeches to imaginary crowds and armies distracted from how very little attention Isabella had in her life, how very little she seemed to matter to anyone, and how very much she clung to the desperate belief that fighting this battle would make her life mean something bigger than what it was.
Isabella had fallen into the habit of making speeches, and it was to her great embarrassment that she was caught in the act, while avidly extolling her propped up pillow.
"Well, you've almost moved me to tears," Alice said, placing a hand to her heart.
Isabella spun to face her, very pink, utterly deflated.
"It's fine, Nott. We all have our kinks."
"This isn't my kink," she defended.
Alice crossed the room, taking her pyjamas out of a drawer. She stripped off her shirt, dropping it on the dresser and sliding her singlet over her flat chest. "I don't really care what your kink is," Alice said, climbing into her shorts.
Isabella sat on her bed, grabbing her propped up pillow and hugging it to her chest. She tucked her fringe behind her ears, as it was long enough now to brush the tip of her nose. Her roommate sat on the floor opposite her, legs stretched out and crossed, hands behind her head as she leaned against the four post bed.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked. When there was no answer forthcoming, Alice added, "Why are you talking to yourself like a lunatic?"
Maybe it was because she had no one to confide in, and Isabella desperately needed a confidante, that she spilled her guts, the words gushing up. That there was no one left who cared about her, that she was all alone, that she needed to feel like she was exercising some control over her life.
All of this bubbled up, no reservations in her confession. Alice watched her unblinking until she was done.
"If you feel like having some control, we can go do a night raid on all the younger kids. We're the seventh years now."
"We're not the seventh years. And no one is doing a night raid."
Rose was at the door now, arms crossed, her auburn red hair as wild and matted as ever. There was a spark in her eyes, a dangerous look. Alice still felt no fear, quick to question her.
"We're all that's left of the seniors now. We can do what we want."
"It's not that simple," Rose said. She crossed her freckled arms. "I'll explain after the Welcome Feast."
"What welcome feast?" Alice demanded. Rose walked by her, grabbing the Chudley Cannons t-shirt she slept in. She yanked off her clothes and pulled her pyjama shirt on, tugging it over her mane of hair. Alice followed her, persistently. "Rose—what welcome feast? There aren't going to be any new first years. There will be no feast-"
"It was the instructions I was given, okay? I dunno how it works, but I can't explain until after the first of September."
Both the girls stood now, wide-eyed and alarmed. Rose was keeping information from them. Possibly vital information. She was squirming under their looks. She picked up Isabella's brush and attempted to drag it through her hair. This would have usually annoyed Isabella, but she was too attentive to mind.
"What do you know that you're not telling us?"
"I can't say anything, okay? If I could, I would. You know me, I hate keeping anything to myself. But as soon as I can tell you, I will."
"Who died and made you Merlin?" Alice scoffed, a little annoyed.
Rose threw the brush down with a clatter, clumped with her hair in the bristles, causing both girls to draw away slightly as they prepared for an outburst. Instead, Rose gently fingered her matted mane and sighed. "I think I just need to cut it."
"Pardon?" Isabella blinked.
"I won't ever get these tangles out. I even tried a spell earlier but I think it made it worse."
In the months of her depression, Rose had not washed or combed or groomed her hair at all. It had become an unmanageable mess, one that always gave Isabella a bit of anxiety to look at. It needed to have been properly conditioned, perhaps even with an overnight serum, but it was too late for that. The idea of having to cut so much hair off—curly, unruly hair at that—made her heart skip.
"I think you should wait to see a hairdresser," she said, due to her panic.
Both girls looked at her, so that she realised her stupidity a few seconds too late. Rose fumbled around in the dresser drawers until she pulled out a pair of very sharp scissors, handing them over her shoulder to Alice. She didn't even pause to argue, but took them, and squared off behind Rose's shoulders.
"Wait!" Isabella cried. "Don't do it!"
"You're right, it'll make a mess," Alice replied, sarcasm curling her smile as she snatched up one of Isabella's silk pyjama robes and draped it around Rose loosely like a hairdresser's gown.
"Oh, are you sure about this Rose?" Isabella pressed, her anxiety growing, not even caring about the robe. "Your hair will look so strange short—won't it just frizz up like a little orange afro? Oh, I really don't think you should be doing this—Alice, wait—on gosh, that's so short. That's above her shoulders—hold on—hold on!"
Alice paused, tongue between her teeth, the scissors splayed open between another tangled dreadlock.
"I can't concentrate with you blathering, Isabella."
"At least let me do it then," she replied hotly, pushing Alice out of the way and taking over.
It was definitely the worst haircut anyone had ever been given, with exception perhaps to the portrait of a witch on the forth flour with incredibly tight ringlets and a very short fringe. Isabella did her best to try and thin Rose's hair, to cut down on the volume of it, but she knew she wasn't doing a particularly good job. Still, Rose was hardly fretting. Chunks of red hair floated down onto her mustard tee-shirt, and she never said a word. When she finally spoke, it had nothing to do with her new hairstyle.
"What would you do if you thought someone you cared about was hurting themselves?"
The pain on Rose's face made Isabella think immediately of James, who she had fallen completely out of the habit of speaking to. It made her anxiety gnaw more vigorously than ever.
But it was Alice who offered the solution, calm and matter-of-fact, while she dusted the hair off Rose's shoulders.
"You tell them they can talk to you about anything, in confidence. That nothing is off limits. And that you will be just as open. And then you listen non-judgementally to whatever they have to say."
She whipped the robe off of Rose and handed it back to Isabella, but not before extracting her wand to Vanish off the loose hair.
The three leaned in to survey their reflections in the mirror, where they were framed at various heights, faces pale in the greenish light of the underwater windows and half-lit lanterns. Rose's hair stopped just on her shoulders, floating there in clean, blunt strokes. It was uneven, but not as bad as Isabella had expected it to look. Alice and Isabella's hands rested on either of Rose's shoulders, and they peered for a moment longer, looking past their complexions, searching for something beyond the glass.
Rose turned away, craning over her shoulder to look at their actual faces, the distilled originals. She smiled weakly, lips pulled tight.
"I'm glad it's us three left in here," she said. Then, to break the sentimentality, she stood and dusted her hands through her short curls. "Thanks. I'm going to go have a shower and wash my hair properly. It needs it."
They watched her stroll away, arms swinging loosely at her sides. Alice huffed and kicked at the pile of hair on the floor, picking up her wand and giving it a quick swish to send it into the bin.
"Of course, it's our job to clean up."
Isabella beat her robe out a few times before sliding it on, the cool silk making her skin feel glossy and new. It had been a gift from her mother for her sixteenth birthday. The collar of the robe was made from Puffskein fur and was very expensive. It seemed so silly to be wearing it now—like she had outgrown it in a single year, but not because she had gotten any taller.
She opened her eyes to find Alice much too close, her dark fringe falling across her face, making it hard to read her expression. For a moment, Isabella flinched back, gripping the silk cuffs of her robe, expecting maybe a taunt or even a physical jab. But Alice only reached up to press her cold finger gently against Isabella's cheek, just under her eye, beside her piggish nose, drawing away a ticklish strand of Rose's red hair. She grinned and let it fall to the ground.
"Wouldn't want Essence of Weasley stuck to your face," she joked.
Isabella laughed, brushing her fingers over her neck to make sure there were no strands still stuck to her. Her roommate had already moved on from the moment and was climbing into bed, tucking her wand under her mattress in a way that Isabella decided she ought to imitate. She also got into bed, dimming the lights while she and Alice listened to the running shower in their dormitory bathroom.
In the greenish dim of the night, Alice's voice said—a little sardonic, but less so than usual—"We have to stand together or refuse to stand for anything at all," before erupting into a surprising giggle.
Isabella needed to get out of the habit of making speeches.
It was the first day of August, the summer air balmy and warm, the sky cloudless, the lake a crystal blue that bounced back the tree line along the shore. Rose met Scorpius early that morning, in the boy's bathrooms, where they slid down into the Chamber of Secrets and sat silently in the small, echoing space that Scorpius used for potions practice. It was painful to make the decent; when the last time Rose had been down here she had been with Meredith. Her fingers clung to the rungs, as if she didn't want to let go of them.
"Are you ready?" Scorpius asked, as the trapdoor above them slid back over their only light source.
Rose nodded. They were pitched into darkness now—Scorpius had no cauldrons on fires, and they didn't light their wands. It was dark, so dark that she was frightened for a moment. Her eyes began to adjust, to make grainy shadows in the dark.
She felt a spell fly at her—silent, sudden—from the other side of the room. She dodged it. In that moment, she knew briefly where Scorpius was, but then he was gone again, moving too fast for her to aim a non verbal spell back.
It was cold and damp and dark, and they spend their first morning of August deep in the bowls of the school, beneath the dungeons, under the lake, duelling. When Rose finally disarmed him, they stopped.
After collecting it off the floor, Scorpius lit his wand and moved towards Rose, panting hard. The beam waved dizzyingly in his loose grip, making the wet walls sparkle. He leaned forward and brushed her short hair through his fish-bone fingers.
When Rose had caught her breath, she asked him, "Do you like it?"
"A good change," he said, and it was a testament to their relationship that Scorpius—obsessed with orderliness and neatness—did not comment on how uneven it was, or how blunt the bottom of her hair was. Instead, he pulled her in and hugged her tightly. Rose felt her body relax and she hugged him back, arms wound around his torso. She wanted to cry, could feel it brimming near the surface.
She broke away, gulping down a deep breath, but Scorpius seemed to read her mind. In fact, he may have done so.
"I'm worried about Al," he said.
"Me too."
"I think we shouldn't confront him like we did. We need to be a bit more sensitive now that he—if he's doing what we think he's doing."
Rose nodded, but she still felt lost. Not too long ago, this would have been an adult's problem. What she wished, more than anything, was to be in the summer before her fifth year. The last summer where her ignorance and innocence had still been in tact. Where she and Albus and their siblings had thrown around a Quaffle in the warmth of the sun, bathing in that warmth, only leaving when it turned to dusk. Where they had tea with their parents, who still disguised the reality of the world from them, kept them safe and sheltered.
She hadn't really known Scorpius back then though. She hadn't known who he was beyond the droll insults and the awkward body language and his obsession with his studies. She hadn't reconciled the turbulence of their first year, or formed such a strong friendship with him yet.
He was the only really good thing that had happened to her in the last two years, and she was grateful for it. Whatever would come next, she knew they would both make it out the other end intact.
A/N: Happy Easter everyone! Please consider my typos a gift to you, because I didn't have a lot of time to proof read.
Thanks for everyone's encouragement. Even if I haven't responded to your review personally, I have read all of them.