There's the sound of feet shuffling and murmurs jumping from person to person as everyone makes their way to the auction section. I glance up at Scorpius, but he's running his fingers through his hair and looking at the sea of people.
"Shall we follow, then?" I ask.
"I don't think so. Something's going to happen. We need to be prepared," he says, and his eyebrows furrow as he thinks.
I look around the ballroom, where only the band members are left, snagging food and laughing, and then I look to the auction. In front of the rows of white-cloth covered chairs is a small stage with navy blue curtains, where an elaborately carved podium sits. And, of course, behind that podium is a beaming Felix Yaxley, twirling his bloody wand between his fingers! My own fingers pull my wand out of my bun and squeeze tightly. I have the urge to hex him now, before anything happens, but Scorpius drags me away.
"We need to get behind the backdrop curtain," he whispers, as Felix begins to speak to the guests, his voice no longer engulfing but loud enough to be heard from the back of the room.
"Let's just take him down now," I hiss back, trying to jerk my arm away but Scorpius grasps it tighter.
"Rose, what about Albus? What if Yaxley's got him backstage with one of his idiots, and they Disapparate? Then this whole thing would be pointless."
I huff. "Fine then. Let's go," I reply, sneaking behind a large group of people and a column until I'm at the side of the stage. I glance back to make sure Scorpius is following, and when we make eye contact, he gives me a reassuring nod. I climb up the sidesteps that are partially hidden by the front curtain, hoping that Yaxley is distracted by the crowd. Darting behind the curtain, I make my way through the left wing of the backstage and behind the two black backdrop curtains. I peek out through the small gap between the two, and watch as Yaxley guides people over. There aren't enough chairs so a few people have to stand in back. I see my mum and dad sitting in a row towards the back, my mother looking excited for this special object and my father glancing around at all the people coming in, his arms crossed. He mutters something to my mum that makes her roll her eyes.
I miss them. I haven't seen them since we boarded the Hogwarts Express, but I got a letter a few days ago that I never wrote back to. Don't they know I'm missing? Don't they know their nephew is being held hostage?
I jump as a hand lands on my shoulder. My head whips around, but I see it's just Scorpius. "Prat," I whisper, but he just smirks and looks through the gap.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," Yaxley says as the crowd settles down. "I'm sorry to say poor Mr. Collins is no longer fit to be our auctioneer tonight. He is currently being taken to St. Mungo's, and let us all hope he gets better soon."
I wonder how much of this is true. I mean, I bet the part about Mr. Collins being "no longer fit" is true. Who knows what terrible things Yaxley's done? I just have my doubts when it comes to promises of him being taken to St. Mungo's. The poor man! Just an innocent bystander, really!
"On a lighter note-" is it just me, or is there laughter in his voice? "-our next item up for bidding is truly one of a kind. And the money, of course, would go to a cause greater than you would expect. Bring out the specimen!" he calls, turning his head to the right wing.
One of his cronies pushes out Al, who's bound in ropes all around his body, his mouth gagged. Before the guy turns Al to face the audience, I can see he's got a black eye and his nose looks crooked. The audience gasps, and in that moment of initial shock, Yaxley performs some sort of nonverbal curse that causes the entire audience to freeze. They're surrounded by some sort of hazy purple glow and their bodies are completely still, except for their faces. An old witch in dowdy pink robes screams. A handful of people managed to whip out their wands in time, but not fast enough to use them, or even point them towards the stage.
People start shouting things, yelling, the noise filling up the room. Some call for the band to help them, but the magical divider makes it impossible for them to hear.
"Hush, hush, SHUT UP!" Yaxley screams at last. He takes a deep breath, trying to maintain his composure. "Let me tell you what is happening right now. You are all bidding for the freedom of one Albus Potter, son of, yes, the famous Harry Potter, who saved you from everything that would have made you great. Now, everybody shut up unless you're making a bid. We will start the bidding at a hundred thousand galleons. A hundred thousand-"
But he's interrupted by more and more screams and shouts of people calling him a monster and crying, "No, not the Potter boy!" and so on.
Yaxley shakes his head, points his long, crooked wand at Al, and shouts, "Crucio!"
Even with the gag, you can hear Al's screams. He thrashes about, inside of his cocoon of ropes. It must be so painful. The pain, the torture- and all while getting rope burn, no less. I cry out, but it's muffled by Scorpius' hand. I pull it off of me.
"Scorpius, we need to save him! Let go of me!" I hiss, trying to pull my arms out of his hands.
"Rose, be logical. We have to wait for the right moment, otherwise Yaxley's going to kill him. Don't you understand?"
My breathing is rough. I'm so infuriated, it feels like heat is coming out of every surface of my body. I know my cheeks must be burning red right now.
"Scorpius, let go of me right now or I will literally gouge out your eyes with a big plastic spoon!"
"Well, that has got to be the weirdest threat I've ever received. Just how big is this big plastic spoon?"
"Scorpius!" I say, and then I thrust my combat boot back, hitting him right in the knee. He curses in pain, grabbing his knee and I use the opportunity to pull my wand out of my other boot. "Stupefy!" I cry, pointing my wand through the gap straight at Yaxley. He freezes and then falls, his wand still positioned for torture, and the sadistic smirk still on his lips. I rush out on the stage and I hear Scorpius' footsteps behind me. The crowd is no longer in the purple haze, and most people have jumped to their feet. I feel myself being tackled by two of Yaxley's beefiest companions but they're jinxed in no time by who knows who, and Scorpius lifts them off me before punching someone in the face. People are flooding the stage and the room is utter chaos. It looks like Yaxley has brought almost half of all his sick little followers.
In midst of all the chaos, I look for Scorpius, who has somehow gotten farther and farther away from me. He's dueling with some idiot, but I call his name, and he manages to dodge a blue jet of light just in time. Once he's by my side, I grab his hand.
"Where do we go?" I ask, grabbing onto Al's rope.
"Just go- anywhere," he commands, and I oblige. It's only as I'm turning that I hear someone calling my name.
"Rose! Rosie!"
I catch a glimpse of my mother. But by the time I register her, I'm already gone.
When we've stopped traveling, I look around and realize we're in Scorpius' bathroom.
"Interesting choice," Scorpius says, eyeing me. I shrug.
"Well, it is rather pretty," I reply quietly, kneeling down and ripping the gag off his face. As I start cutting the ropes off of him, from what I can tell, he's unconscious. But at least he's breathing. Scorpius opens the medicine cabinet and looks at some bottles of potion before pulling a small one out, along with a box of bandages.
I gasp as I pull off some of the rope. His exposed arm is red, and mostly rubbed raw, with scratches here and there. And a gash down his forearm that looks deep and infected.
"Scorpius, what do we do?" My voice is hollow. I think I might start to cry.
"Here, this'll help with the blistering," he says softly, pouring a careful amount of the light blue potion onto Al's arm. It makes a gross sizzling sound, and pus starts leaking from the gash. Scorpius grabs a hand towel from the sink counter and dabs it gently. The red parts are a little lighter, at least. "I use it when I get blisters from my broomstick, but there's not much."
"We need dittany, don't we?" I'm weary now, not just from the physical exhaustion of the day, or the work of cutting off the ropes, but from being out of school, and not in contact with any of my family.
"There might be some in the store cupboard, but I don't know if I can get it without my parents seeing me. And it might not be enough."
I nod. Scorpius pours some of the blister-soothing potion onto Al's shoulder, which is redder than his arm was. Al's body seizes up for a moment, his eyes flying open and a shriek escaping his lips. The pain must have woke him up.
"Al!" I stroke his dark hair and grin, even though he looks like he's in so much pain. At least he's here, instead of wherever Yaxley's crowd would have taken him. Or maybe they were going to kill him. In that case, at least he's alive! "Everything's going to be okay," I say automatically, because that's what you say when somebody is distressed. And he is certainly very distressed right now.
He tries to say something, but all that comes out is a croak. "Rose," he manages, his voice hoarse, "Where are we?" He winces in pain as Scorpius dabs up more pus from his arm.
"Scorpius' bathroom. Al, we need to take you to St. Mungo's-"
Al's eyes go wide. "No! Don't. They'll be waiting for us there."
"What, with all the security around that place? Al, you really need to get actual treatment," I explain, but Al won't take it.
"They'll be there and they'll-" he pauses, his eyes squeezing shut while Scorpius wraps his arm in a bandage, "They'll kill whoever they have to."
I start unraveling more rope. "Then we'll get aurors, we'll have the Ministry on our side for sure after-"
"No. Rose, we can't. They said- they said that if the Ministry found out about their plans, they would..." his voice trails off, his eyes watering in pain.
"They'd what?"
"They'd kill our whole family."
"Oh, please, Al, that's ridiculous! If they were protected by aurors, what could those dumb kids do?"
Al shakes his head as much as he can, which isn't much. "Rose, I watched them kill a little Muggle girl. They killed her entire family- while she watched." His tears flow freely now. "And then they tortured her, and- and-" Al shakes his head, and his voice drops to no more than a whisper. "Don't tell anyone, Rose, please."
My eyes meet Scorpius', looking for his reaction. He looks as unsure as I do.
"Alright, Al. We'll treat you as best we can, but if you get substantially worse we'll take you to St. Mungo's straight away. Alright?" I negotiate. I can't bear him in this state, but I couldn't bear him living in constant fear for his family, either, so I guess we'll just have to wait before we put him through both.
Scorpius and I continue to treat him, and eventually most of his ropes are off. "So do you know what their next move is?" I ask him, but then I realize he's asleep. Probably passed out from the pain and the exhaustion.
"You can ask when he wakes up," Scorpius offers, and we do our best to heal him well into the night.
Eventually I fall asleep on the cool tile floor.
A/N YAYYYY UPDATING!
So, yes, I'm aware I haven't updated this in forever. But now I have! This chapter's been done for a little while now, but I wanted to get a head start on my next chapter so I won't get behind. Originally, I was gonna make sure that I was one chapter ahead of what I'd posted, so I'd already have the next chapter done, but clearly I can't follow my own rules. But chapter 12 is almost done, I swear! So hopefully that'll be up soon.
And thanks so much for reading! You should definitely review!
xx
Ali