(A/N So I hope you don't think I'm taking this in too melodramatic a direction, but I did put it under the genre heading of drama, so I suppose I did warn you.

Thank you again to my two reviewers for the last chapter, Serenedreams and Pandora de Romanus, I hope to hear from you both again.)

The news hit the papers in the first week of the summer holidays, but the Potter household already knew all about it. Hard not to, really, with a living relic of the event in their midst as the entire Potter family plus Teddy Lupin sat around the table at an event which had begun as lunch, but had developed, when Harry arrived part way through with a guest in tow, into a tactless bickering match over the boy.

The headlines the next morning would scream hysterically about "Demon Raisers" or proclaim only slightly less hysterically that "Malfoy Family Again Entrenched in Dark Deeds" and now "Thirty Suspects Held Awaiting Trial" but the boy at the table didn't look like a dark sorcerer or a criminal mastermind, but rather more like a trapped animal, cornered and confused. He was very conscious of being the source of considerable domestic dispute.

"Well, he's a minor, and there's no proof yet that he even knew what was going on, so they could hardly lock him up pending trial, and they couldn't think of anything else to do with him."

"Alright, fine," Ginny Potter burst out at her husband, "but why here? We've got children here, it's a family home, and it's hardly secure-"

"They've gotten him to sign a binding contract saying he'll stay where he's told and do no harm or he forfeits his right to a trial and gets locked up straight off."

"Harry, you haven't answered my question. Why here?"

"No one else was volunteering, as head of the office I had to do something-" his voice raised with frustration with every syllable until Ginny cut in,

"Oh, fine Harry, disrupt all our lives then, it's not like we aren't used to it, but where are we going to put him? Did you think of that? We haven't got a guest room, and Ted's on the couch for the summer-"

Albus was as surprised as anyone else in the room to hear himself offer, "He can stay in my room."

ASASASASASASASAS

As he led Scorpius up the stairs, Albus was embarrassed to realize he was babbling.

"It's a bit different from your room, entirely different really, but then, I've never seen anything like your room, funny that I've seen your room though, isn't it? Anyways, mum told me to make up a cot for you, so we'll have to stop at the linen closet, which is this way."

The silence built as Albus set up the cot, but he broke it as he said, "So I guess you can put our things over there-"

"I haven't got any things. They all got left at the house as evidence."

"Oh." Albus replied, momentarily speechless. He'd somehow managed to forget that his new roommate was soon going to be on trial for some very dark magic.

Suddenly his mother's voice called up the stairs, "Al, your friends are here!"

In the confusion and drama of the afternoon, he had forgotten that he and some friends had been planning to spend the evening at a muggle dance in the village. He turned to Scorpius and began to ask doubtfully, "Do you want to-"

"No, you go on," Scorpius cut in, and added with a wan smile, "I suppose I'll see you soon enough."

"Suppose so." Albus said, and since he couldn't think of anything else to add, he flashed a quick smile and walked out.

ASASASASASASASASAS

Al crept into the, house careful to tread lightly on the worn wooden boards of the familiar floors. The only person in his house who was ever awake at this time of night (or morning) was his father, but there was no light under the door of Harry's study, so Albus determined that the entire household must be asleep.

The entire household except, it seemed, for Al's new roommate. As he crept down the hallway, he made out a line of rather dim light spilling out from under his door.

He opened said door just in time to see Scorpius fall asleep, and in so doing, drop Al's copy of Quiddich Through the Ages which he had apparently been reading so that it fell into a tent over his face. The visual was just a bit too comical for Albus to let go by without a laugh. Displaying the same talent for instant awakening which he'd made apparent on their first meeting, Scorpius jerked awake at the sound and lifted the book from his face.

He raised his eyebrows at Al in silent acknowledgment as he stepped into the room and closed the door. The first thing that leapt to Al's mind, and, incidentally, the first thing he said, was "Not waiting up for me, I hope."

"No," Scorpius replied, completely deadpan, as if deaf to Albus's contempt for the idea and the fact that he'd expressed it., "just couldn't sleep. Trying to change one's mental clock over the course of an afternoon can be a trying business. Plus," and here he allowed a shadow of a grin to show, "you've got to admit it's been a hell of a day."

"I suppose it must have been," Albus said, sitting now on the edge of his bed, taking off his shoes, "but I don't exactly know what happened. Apart from you apparently getting called up on charges."

"You really want to know?" Scorpius asked, but Al's only response was to tare at him like he was crazy, so Scorpius provided the words himself.

"Of course you do. So here's the condensed version. My moronic father and his sycophantic friends somehow found an old book, and a scrap or two of genuine magical talent, managed to raise a fucking demon, but failed to remember the fact that the ministry set up demon-alert charms at the dawn of time, practically. Even though most people consider demon raising to be the stuff of legends, apparently someone's checking on the old charms, and your father and all his hero-boys were on the scene soon enough to head off any real damage. Once they dealt with the demon somehow, they locked up every wizard in a one mile radius for questioning, and now here I am."

Scorpius seemed exhausted by his extensive recitation, and collapsed back onto his pillow. But Al had a few questions.

"So, were you a part of the whole demon-raising thing?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could, in the back of his mind already fancying himself an undercover agent discovering the facts of the case. The reply, a simple, curt "no" was less than satisfactory, but Al was not daunted and pursued,

"But did you know about it?"

The second reply of "no", however, sounded slightly uncertain, slightly lost. Albus decided, with some kind of inner gauge of what Scorpius could or would take, a gauge he'd never known he had, that he'd asked enough questions for the night, so without fanfare he quietly turned out the light.

TBC.

(A/N 2 So now it's taken me two days to type this up. I had it written days before, but I fucking hate typing. I can't help it. I'll soldier on though, because I rather like where this fic is going. So much so, in fact, that it'll take discipline to actually write all the rising action instead of skipping to the end.

And finally, please review. Please.)