– CHAPTER THIRTEEN –
In their animal bodies, the weight of their worries and fear glided away. It was replaced by simple instinct. They swam swiftly, seamlessly in a surreal steel blue sea. The depth of it felt almost infinite, disappearing below into inky blackness. They were hyperaware of their bodies, of their surroundings, of the vibrations in their whiskers.
Shallow water lapped gently along the pier. The moment their bodies exited the water, they began to shift. It was like a mirage. The seal pelt separated from their skin until they were human again. The exhaustion of their marathon swim only began to set in then. The air was frigid. Rose was still hyperaware of her body but in a different way. Every muscle ached and she wanted to burst into tears, to melt into the saltwater lapping against them. As she clung to the edge of the pier her arms shook from the effort.
The selkie chief rose from the water, transforming into his startling human-like appearance. He was luminous in the pre-morning light. The sky was a soft powder grey and the city was asleep behind them.
"Now you must return our skins. I leave you here."
Rose felt tears prick her eyes. The sentimentality confused her. It had been so long since she had felt this kind of compassion and gratitude. It has been so long since she has felt something so pure. The selkies were gaining nothing by helping them. They had disrupted their festival and sacrificed their skins - a gamble, really - in order to help three humans and a goblin cross the sea. For what?
Their goodness confused her. She quickly wiped at her eyes but the tears continued to flow. She could tell the boys were looking at her as if she was insane.
The chief gestured for their pelts. Rose took them from the wizards and goblin in her company. She bundled them in her arms like a pile of fur coats. They were so incredibly soft. They made her skin tingle. She approached the chief, sloshing and treading water until she was close enough to hand them back to him.
He took hold of them but held Rose there for a moment, not allowing her to release her grip of them. He looked at her with his disturbingly round, black seal eyes. She felt something deep in her stomach shiver.
"Remember my advice. Revenge is not the way to end this."
She said nothing. She could feel the kindness rolling off him in waves but they smashed against her coldness. She simply could not. She could not. Revenge was the only thing that was keeping her alive.
With a final nod, the chief wrapped the skins around him in layers. He began to shimmer and shift. Before they had blinked, he had slid back down into the water to return to his clan. She continued to tread water, staring at the steel grey surface he had vanished beneath. Already, she missed the instinctive simplicity of the selkie form. There had been no emotions to contend with there. Why would the selkies ever choose to surface, she wondered, if the moment they did these horrid emotions assaulted them?
She felt two hands grip her and begin to pull her back towards the pier. Immediately, she gave into them. Albus and Scorpius helped her up over the metal ladder under she was lying like a wet panting fish on the concrete beside them.
It was still before dawn and they needed to move quickly, especially with Romnuk in their company. They were too close to the heart of the city. They dried their clothes with their wands, trembling and blue-lipped in the icy air. Albus dried Romnuk too. The goblin stood there docilely, like a deformed mannequin. A sign indicated that they were in Vågen harbour. A row of identical warehouses lined the dock with steep gable rooves and painted in rustic colours. Christmas lights twinkled in window displays and around the streetlamps. They were at risk of being seen.
"I need a hotel," Rose said.
"What?"
"Please," she begged. She still felt weak and snotty from the crying. Her whole body was depleted. "We need to shower. To sleep for a couple of hours and then figure out our plan."
They stared at her. It was hard to take her suggestion seriously.
"Let's break into somewhere and leave it just as we found it."
A shower did sound terribly tempting. The air was glacial and they were still somewhat wet from their colossal swim. They heard chatter from somewhere, Muggles speaking to one another in distant shouts. What time did the docks get busy?
Albus grabbed Romnuk and shoved him down a narrow alley. No one emerged or walked by them. The chatter faded.
"Let's move. If we do this, we have to do it now," Albus said.
They began to scurry down the docklands. If only they had an Invisibility Cloak. At least if they could hide Romnuk they wouldn't have to be constantly on guard. They stopped in front of the first hotel the saw. It was in the line of identical wooden merchant houses, painted a bright yellow with white letters declaring Radisson Blu Royal Hotel. As they rounded the corner, they saw that the historic façade was attached to a much larger extension.
Scorpius moved ahead to scope whether there were any security cameras. The last thing they needed was to break the Statute of Secrecy in a foreign country they had illegally entered. He gestured for them to join him. There was a trellis they could climb to the second floor where a row of windows was dim.
It was a good idea to have broken into the hotel. It was becoming increasingly light out and they needed to work out the next steps of their plan without being seen by Muggles. Albus locked their hotel room door with a spell to make sure that no Muggle would be able to enter, even if they swiped a key-card. They wouldn't be able to stay for long without being noticed. They couldn't risk even staying until the following day. They only had a few hours, at least.
The room was small but felt luxurious after the days sleeping rough. The fit-out was modern with Scandinavian furnishings. There was a large, fluffy bed with four puffed pillows and fresh white linen. A desk was pushed against the wall opposite with a skeletal lamp and a thin grey chair. They sat Romnuk down on it. The cocktail of Confundus Charms and the Imperius Curse has left him in a fog. He stared vacantly at the wall opposite, where a black and white photograph of the dock outside hung above the bed, his black beetle eyes blank.
"Merlin, the bathroom is incredible," Albus moaned, peering in. "Do you mind if I go first?"
Rose opened up the little beaded handbag and Summoned some fresh clothes. They were filthy from being on the run for so many days. Albus caught a fresh t-shirt and jeans and headed into the bathroom.
Scorpius gingerly lay down on the bed. Now that he was afforded a moment to rest he could feel every muscle protesting and aching. The muted sound of the running shower water soothed his pounding head. It felt like his human body didn't fit quite right, the way old dress robes feel too formal and tight. Rose flopped down on the bed next to him and sighed.
"Oh God," she groaned. "The last few days have been exhausting. I don't even want to think about what comes next."
He agreed with her by taking her hand and squeezing it. When he tried to recall the last week's events, it felt surreal. From the moment they had fled Imogen's apartment, it had felt like an absurd dream. Being chased down by centaurs, the messy Apparition accident, living in an abandoned lighthouse, the ferry ride with a goblin in a suitcase, sleeping in a cave, the solstice festival with the selkies…it didn't seem real.
Rose rolled over and got on top of him, straddling him, their hands remaining linked. They sat there for a moment staring into one another's eyes. She looked as feral as he felt. Her short hair was wild and still wet from the sea. Her fingernails were caked with dirt and her face was thin and drawn. Her eyes were still the same bright blue with golden flecks around the iris, a summer sky caught beneath her lashes. There was so much he wanted to say but when he opened his mouth to try his stubbed tongue strangled the sounds.
"Shh," Rose said. She leaned down to kiss him, gingerly at first as if scared of his misshapen mouth, but then becoming almost fervid. They pressed their bodies against each other and he ran his hands over her, bringing her in tighter. They smelt like animals, like salt and sweat and dirt. She snaked her hand down his thigh, pressed between their bodies, and Scorpius took her shoulders to draw her back.
She sat up again, still straddling him.
"What?" she asked, panting.
He sent a pointed look over her shoulder and she craned her neck to see what he was pointing at. Romnuk still sat docilely at the desk chair facing them. His hands rested on his knees, the long gnarled fingers defaced with his gang tattoos. It was like having a cat sit at the foot of your bed or on the other side of your shower screen, witnessing an intimate moment with utter banality.
"He doesn't know what's going on," Rose shrugged.
Scorpius scoffed. Rose leaned down again, intensity emanating off her in strange waves. It was an actual heat. The hiss of the shower water could have been mistaken as the sound of steam coming off her. He still held her back.
"All these near death experiences really make me feel like having some life-affirming sex with you," she said, rather brazenly.
Scorpius stared back at her, his face unyielding. His grey gaze was intense and unblinking, almost hard. He understood what she meant. He was seriously considering it. He had really almost died. He had almost died without knowing her body, without knowing their bodies together. Who knew what would happen tomorrow?
Yet there was another part of him highly conscious of Albus showering behind the thin wall of the bathroom, of the goblin sitting in a trance at the foot of their bed, of his morbidly shortened tongue, of the Muggle hotel room they had broken into. He couldn't even speak to her to tell her how much he loved her, how badly he wanted her, words that he knew would surprise her as they shattered his prim and proper exterior. This was not the way he wanted things. He wanted her. Not like this though. When he imagined having sex with Rose for the first time, he imagined having his entire tongue in his mouth and a little privacy, to say the least.
The shower water turned off. He rolled Rose off of him and turned on his side to kiss her quickly on the lips.
"'Owa," he said. He gestured towards the bathrooms. Shower, he had meant. She didn't need to be told twice.
"No problem. I'll just aggressively masturbate in the bathroom seeing at this may be my last chance to do so for a while," she replied jauntily. She was teasing him. She didn't need to. He didn't want to resist her. All those times she had been in his bed after Meredith died, depressed, impassive and then occasionally aggressively sexual. He had resisted then too. Was there something wrong with him?
The thought troubled him for just a second before he firmly reminded himself of how broken Rose had been then. He wanted this girl for the rest of their lives and he didn't want them to consummate their relationship based on a traumatic bond. He wanted it to be because they were simply in love.
If he had said this aloud he was certain she would have rolled her eyes. Instead, he rolled his eyes to convey his exasperation. She smiled and leaned down to quickly kiss him again before getting off the bed. "I love you."
How desperately he wanted to say it back but couldn't bear to hear those words mangled in his mouth. The bathroom door opened with a cloud of steam. Albus came out freshly clean and Rose took his place, locking the door behind her. Scorpius tried not to think about her as the hiss of the water came on again.
"She was right suggesting we get a hotel. I needed that," Albus admitted, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
He noticed how rumpled the sheets and pillows were. He raised an eyebrow. "What were you and Rose up to?"
Scorpius sheepishly shook his head. After what had happened while at Imogen's place, he was highly sensitive to the fact that Albus could easily feel like the third-wheel in their trio. He was determined for that not to be the case. He opened his mouth and pointed at his tongue.
"As if that would've stopped her," Albus scoffed. "You forget how well I know her."
They laughed. This time Scorpius pointed at Romnuk. They both looked at him warily. It was understandable that he was a far more effective deterrent for having sex that Scorpius' injuries. His figure, sitting there blankly, was eerie.
"We need to figure out a way to get to Trolltunga without him being seen."
Scorpius sat up, thinking hard about it. Albus had already said that he could manage a Disillusionment Charm but not an Invisibility Charm—it had been discussed when making plans for the ferry ride and working out if the suitcase was necessary after all. A Disillusionment Charm would only get them so far without wearing off and they were scared of the charm fading while they were on the ferry. The same challenged presented itself now.
"I may go for a quick walk and get us some breakfast and other resources," Albus suggested, peering out of the window. Scorpius shook his head hard. He also needed to shower, and he didn't feel comfortable leaving Rose alone with Romnuk should Albus leave. Not merely for Rose's sake but also because he was concerned what Rose would do to him while left to her own devices. He knew how badly she wanted to hurt him. Every look she sent him rippled with disgust. Not to mention that he knew she was consulting that little black book of theirs and wasn't sure what suggestions it was offering.
He pointed at the shower then pointed at Romnuk and then pointed at himself. Albus squinted at him in utter confusion. He reached around Romnuk to pick up a small notepad with the hotel's name inscribed on it and a pencil. Scorpius took them quickly, relishing the opportunity to finally express himself. He scribbled out his concerns.
"Alright," Albus said, after having consulted the neat cursive. "I'll wait until you've both showered, then I'll go."
It did seem like Albus was the obvious choice to go exploring. Rose was far too rash and jumpy to be left alone at the moment. Scorpius simply couldn't get around without drawing attention to himself, not with his tongue all mangled. In any case, Albus would blend in. He had always carried himself in a very nondescript fashion anyway, not one to draw attention. No one here would recognise him as Harry Potter's green-eyed raven haired son.
Rose poked her head out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a white towel turban. Her usually olive complexion looked lighter, as if she had removed the layers of dirt and smoke that had been caked onto her skin over the last few days.
"Your turn," she said, gesturing to Scorpius to get up.
The bathroom was full of steam. Everything had fogged up and the tiles had become slippery. He undressed and began to wash his clothes in the tub with him, allowing the hot water to pound his back. The water running off him and being wrung from his clothes was a revolting brown. He had never felt so dirty in his life.
He hung his wet clothes on an empty towel rack and then stepped back into the shower, careful not to use up all the complimentary bottles of shampoo and shower gel so he could refill them with magic when done. It was important that they left the room as they had found it.
While he had vowed to be quick, he found himself taking Rose's recommendation and spending a luxuriously long time treating himself under the hot water. After sleeping on a pebbly shore for several days with a group of shape-shifting seals, the feeling of a hot shower was heavenly. Not to mention the privacy to do as he wished with his own body. Rose had been right. He was dreading whatever was coming next.
When he finally stepped out and wrapped himself in a towel, he took a moment to wipe the mirror clean of steam. His reflection was merciless. He had not seen himself since the accident. His stomach plummeted to the wet tiles.
The scar on his jaw made his mouth cave in slightly where the flesh had been scooped away. When he opened his mouth, the sight of his tongue was horrific. Tears stung his eyes. How could Rose want to kiss him, let alone sleep with him? He looked like a monster.
He ran his hands through his silvery blond hair several times, slicking it back off his face, and tried to regain reason. The damage was not permanent and the wounds were not Cursed. Any skilled Healer would be able to put him right once this was over.
Rose had said that she loved him and if she said that while he looked like this, surely that counted for something.
He took a deep breath and stared once more into his bloodshot grey eyes. His look was fierce. They just needed to get to the Goblin Kingdom—and then what?
When he came out of the shower, Rose was sitting bolt upright on the bed, staring at Romnuk. Albus was gone. He felt his heart hammer. Why had Albus still left? Scorpius queried her with an eyebrow.
Unable to know what his question was, Rose just supplied what was on her mind.
"I know he's under the Imperius but I can't sleep alone with him sitting there," she said.
Scorpius understood. They were desperately in need for a nap though. He walked over to Romnuk and bound him tightly to the chair with a hex. He bound his ankles for good measure. Albus gave a special knock—an elaborate rhythm of taps—just as Scorpius was checking how secure the binds were. Rose leapt up to answer the door and usher him in.
"I got us some salami and cheese from the deli we passed earlier," Albus said, holding up a plastic bag. "Plus a free map of Norway."
Scorpius hadn't even noticed a deli. He was impressed that Albus had been so astute under pressure. Rose plonked back on the bed.
"I was thinking about how we can get out of the city with Romnuk with us," Albus went on, chatting animatedly. He reminded Scorpius of a toddler that was overtired. "There are all these weird troll statues around the city. They call them trolls but they look identical to goblins. Life-sized goblin statues. I'm some sort of thing in Norway. We could dress Romnuk up like a goblin version of Father Christmas and pretend we're carollers and he's in a costume!"
Both Rose and Scorpius stared at him. Scorpius desperately wished he had been able to speak just so he could scathingly deride that idea.
"Could we sleep first and plot later?" Rose asked. "I can hardly keep my eyes open."
Scorpius stood up and pointed at Romnuk's binds. In any case, the enchanted Romnuk was also drifting off to sleep.
"Yeah, alright," Albus agreed, placing the food on the table. "Let's get a few hours rest and then we'll work out a plan."
The three of them climbed into the fluffy, white bed and swiftly fell asleep.
The Minister for Magic stepped neatly from the fireplace, dusting down her robes. She took a moment to soak in her surroundings. The black brick walls and black iron fencing of Number 10 has always held a formidable enigma in the same way the Department of Mysteries had. She had never dreamed she would be standing behind them, let alone in this office.
Not that the current British Prime Minister inspired a great deal of respect or admiration. It was odd that as the Muggle world had been consumed by a combustible conservatism, the magical world had imploded on the other end of the political spectrum.
"Good evening, Prime Minister."
He was not expecting her. Well, he was expecting someone. They had sent warning. Yet he was certainly not expecting Hermione Granger.
"Oh," the Prime Minister blustered. "What—what's happened to the other one?"
"Do you mean the former Minister for Magic, Curtius Gladstone? I'm afraid he's dead."
The Prime Minister looked gobsmacked. He collected his jaw rather quickly.
"I am Hermione Granger," she went on. "I am the new Minister for Magic."
"Well, he was a strange fellow, I suppose. Didn't quite like him."
He was assessing Hermione with nervous eyes, trying to decide if he would like her. She was wearing black robes fastened at the neck over a simple black dress. She did not look particularly witchy, she hoped.
"He was assassinated. I am not sure what exactly he told you when he lasted visited but he's left us rather war-ravaged and deeper in a recession than we ever imagined possible."
This seemed like a lot of information to take in. He blinked at her rapidly, trying to gather his wits.
"I, er, have my own problems. My own country struggling to agree which way to go. I don't need any magical recessions on my plate either," the Prime Minister said warily.
"I'm here to inform you, not ask for help," Hermione replied, clipped. She was liking him less and less by the moment. Although, how often these days were Prime Ministers and leaders likeable? More often than not, they were incidental, just as she was? Thrust into roles they were vastly unprepared for. It was not an enviable job, she decided. "I am a Muggleborn witch. That is to say, I grew up not knowing I had magical abilities just like any ordinary child in England. I am well aware of what is happening in your Government. I just thought you should be aware of what is happening in ours."
They stood opposite one another for a moment. This was a formality. Hermione really ought to get back to where she was needed. She nodded once and prepared to leave, snatching the bag of Floo powder in her pocket.
"What about the trolls?"
"Sorry?" Hermione blinked.
The Prime Minister snapped his fingers and balled up his face. It was quite an effort to remember. "Erm… what was it? He mentioned some sort of monster. Thought it was a joke at first."
"The goblins," Hermione clarified. She felt her chest tighten. Her head, as it always seemed to be doing these days, skipped to her daughter. She briefly touched the mirror she carried in her robe pocket at all times. Always cold. "I'm afraid to say that they also did us quite a bit of damage. They carried out a successful coup and wreaked absolute terror on us all. Fortunately, we've purged the last of them from the country."
"Sounds like you have quite a bit of nation building ahead of you," he decided.
Hermione bowed her head once in agreement. It was underwhelming. All of it. Why would anyone want to be the Minister for Magic? To be the one to put out fires, to navigate crises, to solve impossible riddles, to be ridiculed by those who elected you, to always take the blame. She could not grasp what had driven Gladstone to want the role off Kingsley. She did not know how Kingsley had found the courage in the first place.
"I won't keep you any longer, then. Merry Christmas, Prime Minister."
It was the first time in a while that Teddy had read a newspaper. They were in print again. His wife was back at work again. She was employed and he was not. Most people were not. It felt painfully strange to have a paper in front of him. Stranger still was the photograph of Hermione on the front page, her wild frizzy hair pulled back into an ineffectual bun. She was speaking at a podium, her fist pumping into her hand. She looked fierce. It was a wild relief.
In fact, the entire paper was dedicated to her and the new cabinet. It was almost a love note. Praises leapt from the page. One of the sharpest minds of this century…The youngest witch to ever be Minister for Magic…A veteran of two wars that rose through the ranks of the Ministry.
The names of his Ron and his godfather jumped off the page too. No one needed refreshing of the history there. It was still retold with glowing rapture.
It made him uneasy. Why were they being so generous? How easily they could turn on her, Teddy thought. Public opinion was so fickle. The media would change tact in an instant if it suited them and the public would follow blindly. They had all once loved Gladstone like that too. They had once loved Kingsley before him. Were people daft or did leaders eventually grow tired and corrupt? He wondered if that would be the fate of Hermione, too.
One of the articles, about three pages deep, was calling for the unthinkable:
THE TIME FOR AN INFRASTRUCTURE AND EDUCATION REVOLUTION
It was an opinion piece, penned directly from Hermione. He wondered if the chief editor had argued with her over how boring the title was. Still, it was a meaty piece. Perhaps that is why they had dedicated the very first edition to the re-launched Daily Prophet to her. She had so kindly let them into her head. People were desperate for good news and leadership.
He skipped past the initial claptrap—propping up the economy and creating jobs with new infrastructure and all the rest of it. The tone fell short of inspiring and felt more like an essay or a lecture, which is why Hermione made Ron do the Christmas cards.
There was one particular section, following her ideas for expanding the education system, which caught his interest.
It has long been the case in magical Britain that magical technology is managed and controlled by a restricted few. Knowledge is restricted to the developers and the designers, not we as the users. Gladstone instigated legislation that saw non-humans gain wand rights. Yet non-human beings, namely goblins, never understood or mastered the very tools they had fought for. The wands became status symbols and decorative ornaments. We must be grateful for this under the circumstances, for the damage they may have done with wands would have been untold.
However, they also pointed out a fatal flaw in our system. A chink in our armour.
Few of us truly understand how this most central piece of technology works. Few of us have any knowledge of wandlore—for those even aware of what wandlore is, we would argue that it falls in the realm of the wandmaker, not the wand-bearer. Where does that leave us? Ignorant and oblivious of the very power we carry.
Our greatest space for experimentation and inquest sits behind an impenetrable colosseum of locked black doors. I am one of the few people who have seen what lies behind those doors without having taken a binding oath of silence. The very fact that those who test the limits of magic are labelled Unspeakables speaks to the core of the problem.
We guard our ideas and knowledge jealously, from each other and from other creatures. We are fearful of sharing our insights. We thought ourselves an evolved society following the Second Wizarding World. How blind we were to the fault lines weakening the foundation we were rebuilding on. If we had been willing to exchange knowledge as its own rightful commodity with other beings, would they have been less likely to pry it from our hands at all costs? This may forever remain speculation.
The article went on. Still, Teddy was rattled by this one passage. All those years he had advocated for wand rights to the scorn of the very woman who had penned this piece. They had all thought him madly radical and mindlessly rebellious. When broken and beaten on the other side, he had thought that they had been right about him all along. How could Hermione have written this?
He flipped back to the front page and stared at her. When he finally looked away from the newspaper his eyes met a photo of his younger self.
The room was full of photos of Teddy. He and Victoire were staying with his Nan indefinitely. It was mostly a financial decision but it was nice to be back in his childhood home after so many traumas. There was a photo of him as a toddler, nude except for muddy wellies (Victoire's favourite), there were photos of him with missing teeth, photos of Harry and Teddy cutting a tenth birthday cake, photos of he and Victoire in their early teens on the beach. Andromeda had them all over the place. The house felt like a weird shrine.
He heard footsteps on the stairs and played his new favourite game—wife or grandmother? Victoire had been out late covering a press conference at the Ministry for the Daily Prophet. She would be sleeping in. It was quite early by her standards.
Grandmother. Andromeda smiled coyly as she rounded the kitchen counter.
"You have no idea how lovely it is to have you home," she said.
In her older years, she was elegant in a bohemian kind of way. Her grey hair had a few black streaks remaining, but it was curled and styled in such a way that it seemed intentional. She wore a dark green paisley robe and a dangly set of earrings. Her heavy-lidded eyes were crinkled but still sharp.
Teddy gestured at the newspaper. "Have you read this?"
She glanced towards the newspaper then turned away. She retrieved a loaf of bread and waved her wand to make the knife busy slicing it up.
"Hermione's piece? Yes, I did. Quite bold of her to peddle it to the masses so soon."
"What do you think of it?"
Andromeda turned back and smiled. Her smile was always wry.
"You forget what a rebel I was, Teddy. Of course I like it. Just not sure the world will be ready for it after everything that's happened."
She began buttering the slices of bread. She took out several slices of ham but then hesitated, remembering that Teddy no longer ate meat, and instead added cheese to his toasted sandwich.
"Why do you say that?" he asked as he watched her.
"Well, we've just been through hell. Gladstone's progressive ideas backfired. The goblins turned on us. People won't be very trusting at the moment. They'll want to look in, to conserve and protect. Hermione's suggestions do the opposite."
Teddy mulled this over and didn't comment any further. She seemed to have noticed because she pinned him under a sardonic stare. He stood up and set the kettle boiling so he could make them both tea.
"You were once radically aligned. Don't Hermione's ideas sound appealing to you?"
He knew they were good ideas. They aligned with the value system he had been raised with and had lived out for most of his life. Values imparted by his Nan and Harry almost religiously. Something about the opinion piece made him feel uneasy though. This uneasiness felt like a betrayal. He had to find a way to justify it. He handed his grandmother a mug of her favourite chamomile tea and took a sip from the mug he had poured himself.
"Eat your breakfast," she instructed, "and I'll share something with you."
With another wave of her wand, a plate of scones and several homemade jams (apricot, plum, strawberry) whizzed out from the pantry and skated across the surface of the table to come to a perfect rest in front of Teddy. His grandmother took the seat opposite him and wrapped her hands around the mug of tea.
"I grew up during the First Wizarding War, just like you grew up with all this happening," she said, gesturing to the newspaper. "I was a rebel in the Black family. I had always thought the Pureblood business was nonsense. However, by the time I was your age, it had become deadly serious. I was disowned for marrying your grandfather, as you well know, with a target on our heads. Every act of my life, even my marriage, was an act of rebellion against the establishment."
"Inspiring words," Teddy said dryly, raising his mug to toast her. She laughed throatily.
"Well, you had that streak in you too, I think," she marvelled, assessing Tedding with a twinkle in her eye. Then, she sighed, looking plaintively into her tea.
"I thought my family were monsters. Some certainly were," she sneered, filled with contempt. "However, it was only as I grew older that I realised why they clung so desperately to the Pureblood mania. Perhaps not Bella, but certainly Cissy. Throughout history, the Muggles had truly tried to wipe us out. Witch Hunts. Burnings. Drownings. Whole families murdered by Muggles in a single day. Our society was driven into hiding. People turned inward, they tried to conserve, to protect. That conservatism was built on fear and mistrust. It bred a slow animosity and hatred. It bred a desire for revenge—brewed over centuries! I wonder how much of Voldemort's hideous ambitions were driven by a need to avenge his ancestors?"
"Voldemort's ideologies were not just personal, though," Teddy interjected.
"Of course not, he was a megalomaniac. Yet he tapped into a collective hatred for Muggles in order to gain popularity, did he not? So many had stories in their own family of Muggles torturing or killing relatives way back when. Even Albus Dumbledore had that ghastly story of his sister. It was not hard to win people over to Voldemort's hatred for Muggles."
Teddy was silent for a moment. He regarded his grandmother with a hard glare. He had never heard anyone defend Voldemort before, much less his Nan who had lost both her husband and her daughter to the war he had started. She interpreted his look easily.
"Please don't think I'm supporting the perversity of the Pureblood movement," she said, rather firmly. "I just want to impart an old lady's wisdom. This world is not black and white, good or bad. Aren't you feeling the draw of conservatism after everything that's happened? It's a surprisingly powerful response, isn't it?"
He felt sick at the accusation of conservatism. His stomach rolled at the word. Still, there was some truth in her words. His initial reaction to Hermione's opinion piece was a strong feeling of resistance, driven by fear. He took a bite out of a jam scone and chewed it slowly. Not since his break up with Victoire had he confronted himself like this.
Andromeda tapped the newspaper and smiled again. "I think they're good ideas if she can pull them off. People won't have a taste for them at the moment, though."
Teddy brewed over everything she had shared. He had missed her in the time they had been apart. He always forgot how spunky she was, how earthy.
There was a lot he needed to think over. Teddy had denied the part of himself that was caught up in the Goblin Rebellions. Maybe it was time to revisit him, forgive him and see what aspirations he had once held were worth reviving.
Albus woke up startled, unsure of the time or where he was. It was dark. The curtains had been drawn. He was in a queen-sized bed in a hotel room in Bergen, Norway. For some reason, he was between both Scorpius and Rose. He couldn't remember why they had gotten into this position. He couldn't even remember falling asleep. All he knew was that he felt better rested than he had in weeks.
The glow of a digital clock on the bedside table revealed that it was just before noon. They had to get moving. They needed a plan. If they didn't like his troll Father Christmas idea then he would have to find another way to get out of the city with Romnuk.
He stood up and moved over to the desk. Romnuk was still tied up and asleep in his chair. Now that the three of them were clean, it was particularly palpable how filthy Romnuk was by comparison. He was covered in grime and smelt as terribly as they had—perhaps worse. Albus wrinkled his nose despite himself. He fished out some pieces of salami from his plastic bag and rustled further to pull out the map he had scored from a tourist stand.
The distance from Bergen to Trolltunga was far. At least 150 kilometres away. Covering that distance on foot would be impossible. Apparition would only be an option if they knocked Scorpius unconscious and he couldn't see that happening somehow. The best he could think up was using broomsticks to fly there—but where on earth would he find broomsticks?
He left a note for Rose and Scorpius on the bedside table, telling them to eat the salami and cheese, to shower Romnuk and to wait for him to return before making any plans. Then he went through the beaded handbag until he found Scorpius' purse of gold coins. It was the only money they had left on them, but he might need it. He left them asleep.
With the map in hand and his wand tucked into his pocket, Albus took to the streets below like any tourist bracing the snow.
They had chosen one of the busiest parts of the city to hide in. It was certainly off-season, especially with the freezing wintery cold, but still this, quarter of the city was thriving. He walked along the picturesque pier, trudging through the blanket of snow, passing coffee shops, Christmas stores, museums, homeware boutiques, restaurants, souvenir stores. People streamed by, in and out of shopfronts. It was that strange week between Christmas and New Year's where everyone seemed to be on holidays and there was an excessive number of people about.
Albus could feel himself sweating a little under his thick coat. He had no idea what he was looking for but in a city of this size. Yet, it was the gateway to the Goblin Kingdom—surely there would be some sign of magic somewhere.
He rounded the pier, the cold wind blowing off the water and smarting his face. He turned his back to the harbour and realised he had stumbled on a market square, filled with stalls of brightly bunched flowers and fish. An odd combination, he decided. Any pleasant aroma from the flowers was being drowned out by the sharp smell of seafood.
He had been walking for about ten minutes. While it looked different in the grey daylight, he was sure that this was the pier they had climbed onto earlier that day in the freezing hours of the pre-dawn. Perhaps the voices they had heard had belonged to the fishmongers coming to set up their stalls. In the middle of the square was a bronze green statue on a sandstone plinth with the inscription Holberg. His stockings, garters, breeches and waistcoat, a look completed with hat and cane, gave him away as an eighteenth century figure. In any case, he could have belonged in one of the many portraits at Hogwarts for his clothes were so elaborate.
A short brass green filigreed fence ran around the statue, probably to protect it from vandals. In any case, the fence hardly reached his chest and wouldn't have provided much of a deterrent for anyone with a can of spray paint. It could easily be hurtle over.
Albus walked up to the statue and gripped the icy balustrade, looking up at Holberg's stately expression. Then, convinced he must have not gotten as much sleep as he thought, Albus could have sworn that the statue dipped its head at him and winked.
He took several quick steps back, releasing the balustrade of the fence. The statue appeared like a normal statue. Muggles continued to mill about the market, chatting in Norwegian as they peered into the floristry stalls or haggled over fresh fish. Albus blinked a few more times in the dark grey afternoon.
Tentatively, he took a few more steps forward and placed his hands on the balustrade again. Once more, the statue turned toward his direction and dipped its head ever so invitingly. Albus quickly looked left and right. No one seemed to have noticed it. Feeling highly conspicuous, as if at any moment someone would grab a hold of him and yell at him for trespassing on a beloved city monument, Albus jumped over the brass green fence and fell straight into the plot that housed the statue.
The feeling was like diving into icy cold water. It was as if he had plunged off the side of the pier. It took him a moment to regain his breath but when he turned around to face the market square again it had been completely transformed.
He must have been in the equivalent of Bergen's Diagon Alley. Wizards and witches roamed the street in reindeer fur robes. The square was full of shops and houses, an apothecary and menagerie and a spellbook store with enough books in its display to drive Scorpius and Rose mad with envy.
Without the help of Rose and Scorpius, he had found this magical crevice of the city through intuition and dumb luck! An immense feeling of pride surged through him, mixing with his disbelief. He climbed carefully out of the statue plot, back over the fence he had hurtled over a moment earlier.
This was exactly what they needed. Here they would surely find their way.
As Albus ventured further into the market square he noticed that the buildings looked starkly different to the Muggle version he had just arrived from. The skyline of brightly coloured gabbled rooves and steeples had been replaced with short, timber buildings. The look of the wizards and witches seemed different too.
Albus didn't know an awful lot about Norway but he seemed to click that the magical community living here had been pushed further underground than wizarding Britain had ever been. It was a tiny village. Why had he assumed that Bergen would be teeming with wizards?
Asking for help took a surprising amount of bravery. He approached the youngest person he saw on the street, a wizard about his age wearing a fur cap and royal blue robes who was standing out the front of a store selling reindeer pelts.
"Er, hello. Sorry, but you wouldn't happen to speak English, would you?"
The wizard looked confused for a moment, his brow knitted together. Albus felt like smacking himself in the head. Why had he expected him to speak English? He was now quite certain that these villagers were Sámi people, indigenous to this part of Europe. They may not even speak Norwegian let alone English. He stuttered, not knowing how to recover the moment or communicate.
Then, the young man began to laugh.
"Yeah, I'm joking," he said, his accent heavy. "I speak little bit English. What you need?"
Albus sighed heavily in relief. The guy continued to finger the reindeer pelts. There was something plucky about him. He may have actually been younger than Albus had guessed.
"Thank you. I'm Albus," he said. He felt it was important that he learn this man's name.
"Edo," the guy replied, grinning now. He seemed thoroughly amused by Albus and kept looking him up and down.
"My friends and I need to get to Trolltunga."
"Trolltunga?" he repeated, pronouncing it correctly.
"Yes. We need to, er, get to the Goblin Kingdom."
Edo now regarded him as if he was crazy. He looked him up and down once more with an expression of disbelief making Albus highly conscious that he did not look like the sort of person who could survive going to the Goblin Kingdom.
"You want to go Trolltunga? In winter? To find goblins?"
"Yes," Albus said. "We have a goblin with us that can help show us the way."
Edo barked out a laugh, shaking his head. Albus laughed along too, a little nervously. It didn't feel like they were laughing at the same thing at all. Edo's blue eyes glittered. "Crazy."
"Please," Albus said, pulling out a handful of Galleons. "I'll pay you."
Edo's eyebrows shot up and the smug laughter disappeared immediately. He looked Albus over again and smiled a little. "You will pay me to die."
"I know it'll be dangerous," Albus said, pleading now. He was conscious of the time slipping away. "Trust me that it's important that we get there. It's a long story."
"Yes, tell it," Edo said, seeming to be enjoying this.
Albus wanted to explain that he hadn't been offering to tell the story at all. Still, he was at Edo's mercy and needed to win him over. He set to quickly recapping the entire story, staring with Gladstone allowing wand rights, the rise of the goblin gangs in Britain, the takeover of their Government and then the razing of Hogsmeade. He explained that they had the Goblin King's brother held as a hostage in their hotel room and needed to go to the Kingdom to end the century old blood feud once and for all.
Edo stared at him, mouth agape. When it was clear Albus was done, he spoke in another language in what must have been an expression of disbelief and called out to someone over his shoulder. Once he had done so, he turned back to Albus.
"You need to get to Trolltunga then you need—" he said a word Albus had never heard before.
"A what?"
"You touch and it take you there," Edo explained shortly.
"Right! A Portkey."
Now Edo looked confused. "A what?"
Albus shook his head. Someone was coming out of the squat timber building behind Edo's reindeer skin store. It was a very tall, large man in vivid red robes. His eyes were the same twinkling blue as Edo's. He barked something out at Edo who responded with great gusto, speaking rapidly in another language. Albus stood there still sweating in the cold air. If Scorpius and Rose woke to find he had left, would they have gone looking for him? He desperately wanted to get back to the hotel.
When Edo had finished providing what must have been a summary of everything Albus had said, the man looked him up and down slowly. He said something to Edo. Based on the resemblance, this man must have been his father.
"He says you cannot go Trolltunga with magic—it is protected by goblin spells and traps," Edo explained. This was not surprising. Surely the Goblin Kingdom was well shielded. Albus anticipated that they would need to hike some of the way on foot. "You will go Skjeggedal. It winter so no tourist allowed there," Edo went on.
"Right, right. So you'll help us?"
Edo's father spoke briskly again. Edo grinned. "Yes, but he thinks you're lying about the goblin."
"I wish I was lying," Albus huffed, handing over the gold.
Scorpius and Rose were still asleep when Albus got back to the hotel room. It was almost two o'clock and he was nervous to leave the city. When he slammed the door behind him he didn't perform the spell to secure the lock. They would be gone soon and they needed to leave the room as they had found it.
"Wake up!" he yelled.
Both Rose and Scorpius leapt up from their beds. Romnuk groggily opened his eyes. He was still bound and groggy.
"Merlin, you two are useless. We don't have much time. You two need to shower Romnuk. I'm not having him come with us smelling like that. I have to put the room back to how it was."
His two friends were startled by his entrance, eyes wide like stray cats that had been shaken out of a dumpster. Albus clapped at them loudly several times as if bashing cymbals together. "UP!" he yelled.
They got up and quickly began to unbind Romnuk. Albus waved his wand to clean the bed and return it to its previously perfectly made state.
"Are you daft?" Albus barked as he watched the other two lead Romnuk to the bathroom. "Use the Imperius Curse so he can shower himself."
Scorpius turned on the shower water and helped Romnuk into the tub. Rose performed the curse.
"What's gotten into you?" she snapped.
"I don't have time to explain but I found our way out of here."
Albus momentously pulled an old, holy mitten from his pocket and placed it on the desk. They stared at him as if he had lost his mind, looking first from the mitten to Albus.
"It's a Portkey," he said. "It's due to leave at two. We have less than seven minutes."
"Plenty of time," Rose said, grinning shrewdly. "How'd you get us a Portkey?"
"Eat the salami," Albus ordered, thrusting it towards them. He broke off some cheese from his plastic bag from the deli and took a huge bite of it. He was still starving. They all ate silently until they heard the shower water turn off. Scorpius went into the bathroom and emerged a moment later with Romnuk now freshly clean but still wearing his filthy clothes. Scorpius also held up two small knives that he then carefully pocketed.
"The bastard was armed this whole time," Rose muttered. "Well, now we've got his stupid hammer and his knives."
"We're running out of time!" Albus yelled again. "Fix the bathroom."
They used the Scouring Charm on the towels and sheets. The small complimentary toiletries had been refilled. They Vanished their rubbish just to be safe, not risking throwing any of it away in case it was found. Then they all stood around the mitten, including Romnuk.
Albus took a deep breath. According to the hotel's digital clock, they had two minutes.
"The Goblin Kingdom is shielded by spells so we can't use magic to get there. The Portkey will take us to the start of the trail but the rest is on foot. We'll have to lay off all the Confundus Charms so Romnuk can lead us there."
They both nodded. It was comforting to see Albus speak with such authority. The other had already had their moments to shine throughout this insane plan. Scorpius had brewed the false Philosopher Stone at Imogen's place. Rose had gotten them to Norway. Now it was Albus' turn to take charge.
Then it would be Romnuk's. They all shuddered a little at they looked at him, his eyes still blank. Albus took hold of his hand and planted it on the mitten. They all followed and did the same. In silence, they watched the digital clock count down the last minute. The mitten began to glow hot under their hands. Their fingers felt super-glued to the wool. Then, with an unpleasant sensation of being hooked behind the navel, they vanished.
A/N: Heck, maybe I'll end up finishing this never-ending story while in isolation. Hoping you're all as well as you can be under these circumstances and that this chapter lifts your spirits.
(Did I also gain a deeper understanding of the cultural context of Frozen while writing this chapter? Yes.)
Keep safe and stay home reading fanfiction x