Scorpius woke up on the floor of his dorm room, scrapping at his back and covered in sweat. After the pain subsided and he realized that he was indeed awake, alive and in no way in mortal danger he chuckled. On the floor like an idiot, he chuckled until someone snoring above him snorted in their sleep.
He got up and he showered, making sure to wash the spot where he felt the sword go through him, extra thoroughly. He didn't care that nothing particularly good came out of his dream last night, other than he felt as if he could initiate it. It may not be true, but it felt like a warped victory.
He only hoped that the situation didn't upset Rose any more than it seemed to. Hmm…
He walked down to breakfast chipper, Donald was already there, looking perfectly tired.
"M'rning!" Donald managed through a mouthful of scrambled eggs. "You looked alright for a man with bags the size of golf balls."
"Gee thanks Don." Scorpius smirked, grabbing a plate of French toast. Donald eyed Scorpius's breakfast longingly, to which Scorpius nodded a friendly 'sure come and get it'.
As Donald slid the piece of French toast he had commandeered from Scorpius, Scorpius eyed the room for that red hair.
"Excuse me?" A nervous prefect asked from beside him. He ignored it, searching for her, he needed to see if talking to her had created a positive or negative effect. "Scorpius Malfoy?" The kid asked again.
"Oh, me, yes, sorry what?" Scorpius snapped to attention. "What can I do for you?"
"Headmistress wants to see you in her office. Now." The prefect narrowed his gaze on him, and so Scorpius took his seriousness to heart.
The prefect led him down the corridors and up a flight of stairs, in total silence. Scorpius meanwhile had a few ideas what this could be about. Crossing his fingers, he hoped it wasn't a big deal.
"Collins was it?"
"Colin," the prefect corrected him. Sounding annoyed, "Colin Creevey. The second."
"Coling Creevey, where have I heard that name before?" Scorpius asked but he didn't receive an answer, they were at the Headmistresses staircase. The prefect left him there, before stopping to hesitate. Walking back to him, Scorpius waited to hear what the guy had to say but all he got was a punch in the face.
The door swung open and Scorpius walked through, nose dripping with blood.
" what is the meaning of this?" Headmistress Mcgonagall almost shrieked.
"Sorry Miss, walked into the wrong door on the way up," he lied. Rose didn't know why that bothered her but it did, was bad enough to watch him bleed in her dreams to watch him bleed in real life was enough.
"Well, sit, clean yourself up." She hurried him, the roar of her office Floo fire sprung to life, and through the green flames Rose's mother stepped out. Rose could almost see him visibly groan, but he kept all noises to himself and she was glad for it.
"Well, Miss Granger, I mean, Mrs. Weasley, pardon. Now that you are here we can start." Mcgonagall announced. "Scorpius. It is my understanding that you two went dream walking again last night."
He nodded, shrinking into the chair he had been seated. Her mother was silent.
"It is also my understanding that you 'made it happen', is this correct?" She eyed her two students, as if to see whether one would object. Neither did. "Well then, Mrs. Weasley is here because she would like to start working with you a few nights after class, monitoring you two."
"I'd like to set up some sleep monitoring if that's possible." Her mother, finally, chimed in. "Would it be possible to get a room where I can set up some monitoring spells. I could set up some muggle recording devices to help."
"Yes, yes. That is perfectly acceptable. I think there's a few old classrooms available-"
"I was hoping, that is, to use the room of requirement." Hermoine explained nervously. "I know it hasn't probably been used since the uh… it would be much easier to set everything up there is all."
Headmistress Mcgonagall clutched her chest and mumbled a positive response without saying much of anything else.
"Right, well I think that with upcoming exams it would only be appropriate for you two to work on this after curfew. So you can keep up with your school work. Mrs. Weasley will pick each of you up from your dorm rooms and escort you two to the room… of requirement." Headmistress shooed them out after that, and after a quick hug from her mother Rose ran off to class.
They picked him up together a few minutes after curfew. He'd been waiting awkwardly in the empty corridor waiting when they approached and he ran up to meet them.
"Right, off we go." Mrs. Weasley sounded a lot like a teacher would he decided but she smiled the sort of genuine smile that he didn't get from many of his teachers. He decided he liked her then. She seemed nice.
They walked down the hall quietly not to disrupt the ghosts, nor the students for that matter.
"Hey, do you know what the room of requirements is?" Rose whispered to him, both dragging behind her mother.
After all this time, it was the first thing she'd said to him, he might have been angry if it weren't for what she'd asked. "It's a place my father nearly died in actually. If it weren't for your uncle, mother and father that is."
"Really?" She smirked softly.
"Yeah, I probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for them if you think about it." He sighed.
"The room of requirement!" Rose's mother announced suddenly, probably listening in on them.
As they listened, standing there waiting for her to continue a door slowly appeared into view behind her. Their faces must have spoken volumes as Hermoine smiled knowingly.
Opening the door, the two students were in awe as the room was fitted with two beds, a few muggle cameras and several floating enchanted parchments. Mrs. Granger walked through the room, going over everything, nodding in approval, adjusting things where she deemed necessary. "Come."
She made them sit on the beds, one each.
"Now, Scorpius. Go over what happened last night," she sat on his bed as she said this, studying his face, searching for answers.
"Um," he glanced at Rose. "I needed to speak to Rose. I, just thought if I could will myself into one of those dream walking dreams that I could control the situation enough to talk to her. Let her know what was on my mind."
"And did that work?" She was taking notes, Rose was silently picking at her nails on the other bed.
"It took a while. Felt like hours I think. I'm not sure. I don't even know if it really was me to be honest." He glanced at Rose again, but she wasn't looking up.
"Rose, dear, have you tried?" Hermione looked up from her notes.
"No. Mum…" She went back to picking her nails and Scorpius gave up on engaging her in conversation.
"I'm going to get you two to sleep tonight. Each bed is charmed to pull the memories from your head as your dreaming them. Here," she lifted up the covers to his bed to expose a jar. Rose mimicked her mother's actions to find a jar of her own. "I'll review the data we get from tonight, and tomorrow I'll have Scorpius try to initiate a dream walk. Then the night after that, you'll try Rose."
"We'll be doing this for that long?" Rose cried.
"Probably longer dear. This is all I've planned so far. I'll take action after a review of the data we've collected from these experiments. I'm sorry kids but if we're to get you guys through this we need to explore everything to find a solution."
"Thank you Mrs. Weasley." Scorpius said politely, Rose catching his words gave him an accusatory side glance. What?
They both changed into their sleepwear behind change screens supplied by the room. This room, was truly fantastic Scorpius decided. He took a glass of water from the wash basin near the room and drank it completely. As they settled in their beds Hermoine worked around them activating the enchanted scrolls, which immediately began taking their body's vital information.
"Now, the jars won't take your memories unless you're sleeping, so don't worry about that too much. Um, stay in the beds, even if you find the floor more comfortable, the data won't record and the dreams won't be syphoned otherwise."
Mrs. Weasley sat there a moment after she turned the lights off, even in the dim magic-light it was obvious that no one was close to sleep.
"No offense Mum, but we don't fall asleep so easily these days. It might be a while if you intend on waiting." Rose spoke into the silence.
"It's been a while since I watched you go to sleep Rose, I'll wait a while before leaving." She sounded happy in the darkness, and apart of Scorpius started imagining that life. The one where Rose went to sleep as a child under her mother's watchful gaze. Suppose she'd been doing that since Rose was a baby, even after they had her brother Hugo. They'd probably take turns through the night, watching over them, smiling. Holding them when they hurt themselves, playing in a backyard together laughing…
Rose stood in a pure white dress adorned with gold, her red hair shone like curling flames. He was kneeling down at her feet. She pulled the sword up and in swift movement dug it into his collarbone. He felt warmth pour down his body. Blood, if he had to guess. He couldn't cry out, he was stuck staring at her with reverence. He fell to the floor and felt the distinct thud of his heartbeat slow down, filling his ears with a thud… thud… …thud. He knew he had died by the time she had screamed. Her scream changed each night with new horror but tonight its misery felt mournful with old sorrow.
Then everything went light, with golden wisps and all he could see were the curls of her hair, the whites of her smiling teeth and golden wings lightening up every space in his vision.