Disclaimer: Copyright J.K. Rowling

Scorpius Malfoy pushed open the door and stepped inside the Leaky Cauldron. An instant roar of noise rose to greet him; the dark, smoky interior of the pub was packed with witches and wizards returning from work who had lingered to embrace the evening. Mrs Abbott, the landlady, gave him a curt nod when he entered, barely looking up from the glass she was cleaning.

Most of the customers ignored him as he passed, though a few paused in their merrymaking to stare boldly, hostility written all over their faces. Scorpius fixed his eyes on the door and made his way towards it calmly with his head held erect, ignoring the stares. His wand was stowed in his jeans pocket, but he felt no urge to grab it. He never had. After sixteen years of enduring strange looks and distrustful whispers, Scorpius Malfoy would have found it strange to walk into the Leaky Cauldron and not attract hostile attention. At any rate, they always got bored of staring after a minute or two.

"Hey, Scorpius!" Torrance Bole, his stocky, brown-haired roommate at Hogwarts, had risen from a table crowded with Slytherins nearest the far door, grinning at him. "Come sit with the outcasts of sixth year."

Scorpius returned his grin, feeling some relief at the sight of his Housemates. "I thought I'd find you all here." He slipped into the free seat beside Carlos Santini, a burly, olive-skinned boy, who gave him a brief nod before returning to his Firewhiskey. "Were you getting school stuff?"

Before anyone could answer, Orchid Ottelby, a girl with dyed blonde hair in a ponytail who was currently going out with Torrance, rolled her eyes and said, "Can we please not talk about school right now? I, for one, do not want to revisit my 'P' in History of Magic. Seriously, how could anyone actually get an 'O' in it?"

One of Scorpius's closest friends, Jeremy Sharpwood, cleared his throat awkwardly, then ducked as she lobbed an empty goblet at him. "C'mon, Ottelby, it's easy if you just listen to Binns," he protested, re-emerging from behind the table a moment later and adjusting his glasses.

"Nah, I'm with Orchid on this one," Nina Meyer said firmly. Tall, black and curly-haired, she was the only Muggle-born in their year who had been Sorted into Slytherin, and one of the few in the entire house. "All those in favour of Professor Binns being forever removed from Hogwarts and us actually getting a decent History of Magic teacher?"

All the Slytherins raised their hands except for Jem. Scorpius was the last to do so, and glanced apologetically at his friend. "Sorry, Sharpwood. He is a pretty awful teacher. And History of Magic was my only 'E', after all."

"Oh, sod off, Malfoy, we all know how smart you are," Torrance said, leaning back in his chair and grinning. He slipped an arm around Orchid's shoulders. "Sharpwood, for that you're getting the next round of drinks. Hop to it."

Grumbling, Jem dragged his skinny frame up from the table. "Fine. Scorpius, you want a Firewhiskey?" At his friend's nod, he sloped off to the bar.

"So, Scorpius, how come you didn't join us earlier?" Orchid asked.

"My aunt and cousins decided to come over at the last minute," Scorpius said with a groan. "Only managed to escape a few minutes ago. Anyway, I've bought all my stuff already."

"Well, you didn't miss much." Nina shot a pointed glance at Orchid. "We had a really fun day of shopping that didn't involve any arguments or shouting at shop-assistants or failures to purchase a certain Potions ingredient…"

"There wasn't any left in any of the apothecaries, I checked!" Orchid insisted, dropping her head onto Torrance's shoulder. "Merlin, buy your own Honeywater…"

There was a brief lull in the conversation, then Carlos Santini leaned towards Scorpius in his seat, suddenly eager. "Hey, Malfoy, wait till you hear my masterplan for this year's matches."

"Oh, yeah, I heard you got captain," Scorpius said vaguely, keeping his features impassive. He was painfully aware that the others at the table were watching him closely. Though what possessed Professor Vance to pick you, when I was the clear choice… "Congratulations."

It wasn't that he was conceited. Scorpius had often been told that he was one of the best Slytherin Seekers in decades. He had attended more training sessions than anyone else on his team, and in May, had made a spectacular capture of the Snitch that had won Slytherin their only match of the year. As well as that, he had been on the team two years longer than Santini, whose familial connection to the national Spanish Quidditch team was undoubtedly the sole reason he had been made captain.

"Thanks." Santini gave a self-satisfied little shrug that made Scorpius want to hex him. "Anyway, I really think we've got it in the bag this year. All we have to do is increase the training intensity… I've already got the pitch booked for four training sessions a week – doubt any of the other captains have thought of that yet…"

"Well, I hope you've reckoned with James Potter," Scorpius said casually, unable to help himself. "Gryffindor's won the Cup every year since he started at Hogwarts."

"Ever the pessimist," Carlos smirked slightly. "Look, it's Potter's last year, and he's getting soft in his old age. Complacent. They only won last time by a margin. I bet you ten Galleons we take it this year."

"Make that twenty. I'd like to buy myself a new set of dress robes at the end of the year." Scorpius angled his chair away from Santini's before he said anything else. There was a tension at the table that had not been there before; he saw it in Nina's raised eyebrows at the exchange, in Torrance's frown as he watched the two Quidditch players, felt it in his own tightened muscles, the surge of irritation whenever he looked at Santini's smug face.

The truth was, Scorpius knew exactly why the Slytherin Head of House hadn't chosen him as captain. He had known the instant his school letter had arrived with no silver badge attached, and his father, shaking his head, had said quietly, I don't think you ever stood a chance, Scorpius. But it had seemed just as unlikely the previous year that he would be made prefect, yet they had sent him that badge.

The uncomfortable silence was broken when Jem returned to the table with their drinks, weaving around the crowded tables. A deafening cheer went up from the bar, where a group of intoxicated wizards stood with their arms linked around each other as they listened to the W.W.N. "I was talking to Mrs Abbott up there," he said, setting a goblet of Firewhiskey before Scorpius. "The votes are nearly counted, and she's saying that the new Minister for Magic is probably - "

"Hershia Potts?" Orchid said at once, who followed Ministry politics religiously. She lifted her head from Torrance's shoulder, shrugging off his arm. "I bet it is. She really blew the other candidates out of the water."

"No…" Jem resumed his seat, taking a sip of his own Gillywater. "It's Percy Weasley."

There was a chorus of groans from around the table. Torrance swore loudly, Nina shook her head in disgust, Santini sighed, while Orchid simply went pale and began to rant furiously. "But Hershia Potts clearly deserved it! She put the most into her campaign, by far! And they haven't had a female Minister for Magic since Millicent Bagnold – it's ridiculous! They - "

"Sweetheart," Torrance broke in, his expression sour. "No one cares about Hershia Potts. What we careabout is that yet another Weasley has crawled their way into a high place – the highest place there is, in fact – and is now making decisions for us!"

"Is anyone really surprised, though?" Jem said sceptically, glancing around at the others. "I mean, the Potter-Weasleys have had everything sewn up since the War. Not just the Ministry – the Quidditch league, The Daily Prophet… And with Potter as Chief Auror and Granger as Head of the D.M.L.E., it was only a matter of time until another one took the Minister's office."

"Bloody nepotism," Orchid muttered, still looking livid.

"As if they don't have enough power already," Torrance agreed darkly. "Next they'll be abolishing Slytherin or something… Incarcerating all the former Death Eaters' children…" At this point, he turned to look at Scorpius, who had remained resolutely silent throughout the discussion, drinking his Firewhiskey. "What do you think, Scorpius?"

Scorpius shrugged his shoulders, expressionless. He set his almost-empty goblet down. "Doesn't make much difference to me."

"You never seem to have anything to say about the Potter-Weasleys, do you?" Santini remarked from beside Torrance.

Scorpius's hand was itching towards his jeans pocket, but he didn't move. "My dad doesn't like me to talk about them," he muttered.

"Oh, really?" Orchid leaned across the table confidentially. "Is it because Harry Potter saved his life? I've always wondered."

Scorpius looked at her for a moment, then shrugged again, the usual heavy feeling inside of him returning, like lead filling his veins. He could feel the others' curious gazes on him, and stared down at the wood of the table, raising the goblet to his lips and draining the last of the Firewhiskey so quickly that the room grew fuzzy around him. Santini's mouth was framing another question when Jem spoke hastily.

"So there you have it. Another Weasley in power. Anyway, it's getting a bit late for me, I've got to catch the Knight Bus." He stood from the table, swinging his tatty Muggle jacket around his bony shoulders. "Scorpius, don't you have to be getting back too?"

"Oh, c'mon, it's only half ten!" protested Torrance, dismayed, as the two rose from the table. "And here we were, having a nice House reunion…"

"We'll see you in a week, Bole," Jem said laughingly, nodding at the others as they said their goodbyes before moving away from the table.

Scorpius was silent as they left the Leaky Cauldron together, striding away into the darkening streets of London. The dusty warmth of the day still lingered in the air, and Jem folded his jacket over his arm, glancing at his friend as they walked. "Look, Scorpius… You know Carlos, he's an idiot - "

"I saw the way they were all looking at me," Scorpius said in a low, strained voice as they turned into a shortcut: a long, narrow alley. "It's always about my dad, always - they want to know whether he still has the Dark Mark, or why he isn't in Azkaban, or what's it like living in a house with him, or…"

"I know," Jem said, sighing.

"No, you don't." Scorpius didn't say it with any accusation in his voice, just weariness, for they had held this conversation many times before. "Your parents were collaborators, but they never took the Mark. There was never any question of them going to Azkaban. But Voldemort handpicked my dad to kill one of the greatest wizards of all time." They emerged onto a wider street, just as the streetlamps flared on. "People don't forget something like that."

"They do, though." Once they had passed a pub where two Muggles stood outside the door, smoking, Jem turned around to look at him, and they came to a halt. "The wizarding world's been at peace for almost a quarter of a century now. Who people were during the war, what they did - it doesn't matter anymore."

Scorpius shook his head. "It does, though."

They were silent for a moment, then Jem sighed again. "There's no point arguing with you. Look, I'd better be heading home. I'll see you at King's Cross next week, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Jem held his wand out over the pavement. With an unearthly screech, the garish, multidecker bus materialised in the road before them. The door opened and a young, round-faced conductor waved cheerily from the door and made the usual introduction. "Good evening, an' welcome to the Knight Bus…"

Jem was climbing the steps when Scorpius said roughly over the conductor's voice, more to the street than to his friend, "Thanks, Sharpwood."

"No problem, Malfoy." Jem glanced back at him once, and raised his eyebrows. "I think Santini was right about one thing though. This year's going to be… different." With that, he turned, and stepped into the bus.

The Malfoys' house was only a ten minutes' walk from the Leaky Cauldron on Charing Cross Road. That was partly the reason his parents had purchased it when they married, some years after the War. It stood concealed in the centre of a line of townhouses, overlooking a wide grassy square. Lights were still on in most of the windows, spilling across the path.

Scorpius stood for a few moments before the gap between Number 7 and Number 9, thinking hard, until a line of white appeared, emerging into a fully-grown house in a matter of seconds, identical to the others. It was tall, elegant and old-fashioned, with steps to the front door and a railing with steps to the servant's entrance below ground… for back when there had been servants.

The House-Elf Protection Act of 2010, passed by Hermione Granger, meant that it was considerably more difficult and expensive to acquire house-elves as servants these days. Even his grand-parents lived without aid in their great, dusty family manor in the countryside, though Scorpius could not fathom how.

He was about to ascend the steps when the door opened, and a tall witch stepped out, two boys in tow. Instinctively, Scorpius ducked behind the railing and watched his aunt make her way down onto the pavement. She was a fragile, bony woman; her skin had the appearance of a material that had been stretched too far, almost to breaking point. It strained the muscles of her face, making her seem older than she was – the effect was not helped by the tight bun her dark hair was pulled into.

Her eyes, sharp and green, scanned the darkness around her briefly. Scorpius, crouched beside the railing, prayed that she would not catch sight of him. Thankfully, she turned back towards the front door after a moment. "Tobias! Hurry up!"

A dark-skinned boy of about eleven slammed the door behind him and bounded down the steps, a mischievous grin on his face, to join his younger brothers as they stood around their mother on the pavement. They already held her hands, so he reached up and took a tight grip on her upper left arm. With one last sweeping glance at the house, Daphne Greengrass gathered her robes around her and spun on the spot. The small family vanished into the night.

Scorpius straightened up from the railing, but waited a few more minutes, until he was sure they were well and truly gone. Then, breathing a sigh of relief, he ascended the steps and opened the front door, stepping into the hall, and blinked a few times to adjust to the light. The polished marble floor stretched before him, shiningly clean. The house was quiet, he noted. "Dad?" he called.

"In here," a voice called. Overhead, the suspended lamp followed Scorpius through the air as he made his way to the door at the far end of the hall, entering the brightly-lit dining room where his father sat at the long wooden table, a frown of concentration on his face as he wrote on a yellowing scroll with a quill. Behind him, a pot scrubbed itself clean in the sink, and a brush was sweeping the floor discreetly.

"How were your friends?" Draco Malfoy asked, casting a brief glance at his son and setting down his quill for a moment. He looked tired, weary lines etched in his face. Streaks of grey ran through his white blond hair, barely distinguishable from it. His dark blue shirt-sleeves were buttoned to each wrist, as they always were. Scorpius often wondered how his father managed to endure the long, sweltering days of summer at work without rolling up his sleeves.

"Fine," he said, rather unconvincingly, but his father simply raised his eyebrows and resumed his writing. "I saw the Greengrasses leave a few minutes ago."

"I'm sure you cunningly managed to avoid them."

"Was it bad?" Scorpius said apologetically, slumping into the nearest chair. "Sorry, I just had to get out. Aunt Daphne was driving me mad. She's so draining."

"Don't speak ill of your relations, Scorpius. I certainly could have used your help entertaining them, though – and your mother's, too. It's been a long day." His father put down the quill and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes for a moment. "But never mind. There's some stew left in the pantry, if you're hungry." He waved his wand in a precise, controlled movement, and a covered bowl flew from the next room, landing beside Scorpius.

"Thanks. Mum's not back yet, then?" Scorpius asked as he uncovered the stew and began to spoon it into his mouth. It was still luke-warm - he hadn't realised how hungry he was. "I thought she said she wouldn't stay past eleven."

"Must have been held up." His father pressed the parchment down and lifted the quill again, covering more of it with his swirly writing. "She shouldn't be too much longer, though. I thought I'd finish these vault entry records in the meantime, since I took a half-day to host our guests."

There was a sourness to his tone that Scorpius recognised well. His father worked at a desk in Gringotts bank, overseeing loans and currency exchanges. He had his own office upstairs, with a handful of wizards and witches following his orders, but had to report to Bill Weasley, and frequently deal with goblins. In addition to these attractiveprospects, the work seemed mind-numbingly boring. However, there hadn't been many other places willing to employ a former Death Eater after the War.

Scorpius had finished his stew and placed the bowl in the sink, where the scrubbing brush eagerly resumed work, when there was a knocking sound on the window. Looking up curiously, he unlatched it, and ducked as a haughty, official-looking owl swept into the room, alighting on the windowsill. His father set down his work, turning in his seat, startled.

"What is it, Scorpius?" he asked, watching as his son tugged the roll of parchment from the owl's claws, and stopped short.

"It's a… a Ministry Howler," he said quietly, turning the roll in his hand to look at the seal as the owl flapped through the window once more.

"Hand it over," his father said, his expression unreadable. He stood from the table, and Scorpius passed the parchment to him. Quickly, his father opened it, and the Howler drifted down to rest on the table. The parchment unfolding itself, and commenced its speech in an absurdly calm wizard's voice that filled the room.

"Dear Mr Draco Malfoy,

We regret to inform you that your wife, Astoria, has been arrested by the Ministry of Magic on suspicion of poisoning Hermione Granger, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, at the wedding of Edward Lupin and Victoire Weasley. She is currently being detained in Ministry headquarters. Your presence is required when convenient. Please send us your reply as soon as possible.

Hoping you are well,

Yours sincerely,

Clive Pratt

Auror Office

Ministry of Magic."

On signing off, the parchment promptly exploded, showering ash across the table.

Scorpius's ears were ringing from the wizard's voice. He stood, feeling suddenly very numb, as his father hastily scribbled a reply, his face white, loosing their own owl from its cage and fixing the parchment to its claws.

"They can't just…" Scorpius tried to speak, but his mouth was dry. His father ignored him, closing the window behind their owl as it took off into the night. He strode into the hall and Scorpius followed behind, watching as his father fastened his travelling cloak around his neck. "Where are you going?"

"To the Ministry. And you're not coming, Scorpius."

"Yes, I am!" His voice was loud in the wide, silent hall. "I have to! Mum needs us there… If they're detaining her…"

"You're staying here," his father repeated shortly, his grey eyes boring into his son's identical ones. "It could be dangerous." He returned to the dining room and moved to the fireplace, scooping a handful of Floo Powder from the mantelpiece and scattering it on the hearth.

"But - "

Green flames shot up, illuminating the dark marble on either side, and, with a warning glance at his son, Draco Malfoy took the remaining Floo Powder with him. "Just in case you get any ideas about following me. Get some sleep, I'll see you in the morning. "

"Dad - " Scorpius said desperately, but his father was already stepping into the green flames and shouting, "The Ministry of Magic!" At his shout, the flames whirled him away into nothingness, and vanished.

Scorpius did not sleep. He lay fully-clothed on the covers and waited, as the darkness around him intensified, listening to the awful silence of the house around him. And waited. And waited.

He stared at the ceiling, which his father had enchanted to look like a night-sky when he was much younger, at the height of his childhood passion for astronomy. The stars twinkled down at him, and he tried to distract himself by naming the constellations… But it was no use; all he could see when he looked at them was his mother in plain grey robes, being carted off to Azkaban, locked in a cell among the Death Eaters, cowering pale and helpless in a corner –

No. They could not do that to her. Or to them. What had they done in their lives to deserve this, suspicion and distrust at every turn? His dad may have been a Death Eater, but his mother had never been involved with them…

Though an angry, irrational part of him wanted to march straight to the Ministry on foot - there was another part of him, small and loathsome, that whispered those dreaded, impossible words he did not want to acknowledge, or even consider…

What if she did it?

In the dark hours of the early morning, there was something like a thump downstairs. Scorpius had slipped into an uneasy doze; he sprang off the bed and ran to the kitchen. There he saw, with immense, overwhelming relief, Astoria Greengrass climbing out of the fireplace, sweeping the powder from her robes. She looked exhausted, but alert. Though she had the same sharp green eyes, her face was fuller than her sister's, and she wore her black hair loose, tumbling around her shoulders in soft, meticulously-styled curls.

The Malfoys were not the sort of family that engaged in physical expressions of affection very often. When greeting each other or bidding farewell, they preferred to simply shake hands or kiss a cheek. But in the present moment, Scorpius felt fully justified in striding the last few steps to the fireplace and embracing his mother. "Are you all right?"

She held him tightly for a moment, then pulled back, scanning his face. He had grown over the summer, and now stood almost a foot taller than her. "It's not me I'm worried about, Scorpius. You didn't sleep at all, did you?"

"I couldn't," he said hoarsely, just as his father appeared in another burst of green flames, and stepped out of the fireplace. "What happened?"

"Hermione Granger is in St Mungo's – she might live," his mother said, taking a seat in the nearest chair, her eyes still fixed keenly on her son's. "And after some consideration, the Ministry decided to release me for the time being. Insufficient evidence. It helped that your father did some negotiating, too. But I have a hearing next Wednesday."

"Wednesday? That's the same day - "

"- that you return to school, yes," his father finished, setting a hand on the back of the chair where his mother sat. He had dark circles under his eyes, and looked even paler than usual. "And no, you will not attend the hearing instead. Things are still proceeding as normal, Scorpius. I want you to forget about all of this."

"I'm almost of age," Scorpius said, matching his father's calm, cool tone. "How can you expect me to forget something like this? Everyone will know soon. It's probably in the Prophet already."

"We don't expect you to forget, Scorpius," his mother said wearily. "But there's nothing you can do to help, so it would be best if you tried to put it out of your mind."

"Are you even going to tell me what happened?" He stared at her in disbelief, then at his father. Both stern, uncompromising. After a moment like that, he turned on his heel and pushed open the door. His mother's voice stopped him.

"Scorpius," she said softly, and he turned back to look at her. "Scorpius, I didn't do it. That's all you need to know."

There was something desperate in her green eyes. He did not respond, but left the room, closing the door behind him.

Much, much later, after his parents had gone to bed, Scorpius stepped out quietly into the landing to get some water (he still couldn't sleep) and heard the low rumble of their voices through the walls of the house. He stopped beside their door, unable to help himself, and listened.

"…if not for that Weasley girl," his mother was saying. "Hermione Granger's daughter. She told them that she saw me nearby before it happened."

"I told you not to go," he heard his father say, sounding pained. "I told you they'd be suspicious, they'd think - "

"I had to pay my respects!" she snapped. "You know I had to." Then, to Scorpius' shock, her voice began to shake. His mother never cried. "I just don't understand it, Draco. We've kept our heads down since the War, we've never once looked for trouble…"

"Astoria." His father spoke so softly that Scorpius had to strain to hear. His voice was rough, as though he too was close to tears. "This is my fault."

"No, Draco." Her voice was firm again. "It's mine."