7 days
In the time that Scorpius had been missing, the Ministry of Magic had helped the muggle police find at least three missing teenagers across England.
None of them were Scorpius.
Albus sat in the stolen invisibility cloak, behind the bushes across from Daphne Greengrass' house. He sat there for hours on end, staring, watching through the window as she disapparated and apparated twice.
He sat there so long that he knew who the Ministry patrols were walking up and down the street, watching.
Every minute he hadn't been visiting pure-bloods and former Death Eaters with Harry and Draco, asking the same questions over and over again, he'd been here, watching.
He sat there and waited, because at some point, something had to happen.
Thirty minutes. She asked for thirty minutes of keeping the chair at least a meter above the floor, and he'd given her twenty-eight before his energy had waned. It earned him a slap across the face.
"You're weak, just like your father," Daphne spat at him. "No wonder Lucius hated you."
Scorpius took the abuse calmly.
They're looking for me.
10 days
Albus didn't care that it was Christmas Eve, or that is family had asked him to at least come home for dinner. He paced outside Daphne Greengrass' home, avoiding the flow of muggles as they went on their way, carrying presents for their loved ones.
"No more information," Harry had said that morning. "Do you want to come to the Ministry with me?"
Albus had told him no - that he was going to stay at home, knowing no one would miss him if he pretended to go for a long walk in the forest. Instead, he'd grabbed James' old broom, and thrown in the invisibility cloak, and slipped out the back door.
He paced. Looking inside the windows, watching the doors. Daphne came and went as she pleased, never using the front door - never going near the muggles.
He listened as the muggles passed him by, talking about their Christmas Eve plans and their excitement to see family, and tried not to think about last year's dinner with Scorpius and Draco when they'd laughed in front of the fire place, holding hands in front of their families for the first time.
Albus played with the amulet around his neck as he watched in the window, trying to ignore the very real ache in his chest.
Daphne was pacing in her living room. She'd just apparated back from somewhere, and she looked concerned, but was quiet until someone stepped out of the fireplace.
It took Albus a minute to put a name to the face. He'd seen it before in passing - someone his dad had pointed out as a former classmate - and in old school photos.
"Pansy Parkinson?"
A muggle passing by turned her head, but couldn't place where the words had come from, so she shuffled along, an elaborate Christmas wreath in her hands.
Albus landed in front of the Malfoy Manor and threw off the invisibility cloak. He marched up the steps, broom in hand, and pounded on the door until he heard the noise echo back to him through the house. Pokey opened the door and looked up at him.
"Master Albus!"
"I need to see Draco. Now."
"He's in the drawing room, sir."
Albus ran into the house and toward the room where he found Draco with books, papers, and maps spread out across a long mahogany table. He was bent over a book, thumbing through it.
"Albus?"
"Pansy Parkinson is involved," he said. "Whatever this is. I saw her - she was at Daphne's house in London. They looked tense"
"You've been watching Daphne's house?"
"Every second I haven't been asleep or with you and dad."
Draco folded his arms.
"That's a very serious accusation," Draco said. "Are you sure it was her?"
"I'm like... ninety-five percent positive."
Draco stared at him for a moment.
"I know your father is still working, but why aren't you with your family?"
"Because a part of my family is still missing," Albus said quickly. "The longer he's gone, the worse it is. I'm not stupid, it's what everyone's trying not to say aloud. Now can we please go talk to Pansy?"
Draco nodded slowly.
"She might be at her house," Draco said. "But I don't know if she'll talk to me if I show up with you, and I know she won't if your father is with me."
Albus held up the invisibility cloak, and Draco nodded before drinking the rest of his brandy and dusting off his hands.
"Put on that infernal blanket, and let's go."
Draco apparated them both to the Parkinson Estate well outside of London. It was smaller than the numerous others and much more plain, but to Albus' eyes it was still a castle.
"You have to be silent," Draco warned.
"I know," Albus said. "Do you have any idea how many times Scorpius and I have used this thing?"
Draco stared at him, baffled.
"I don't want to know."
"No, not like that!"
Albus followed Draco up to the door and stayed close behind him, intent on hearing everything, and when he knocked, Draco whispered -
"I'm not going to sound like myself when I'm in here," he warned. "Not like you've known me. Please don't think ill of me. And... keep your wand ready."
Pansy Parkinson opened the door, and Albus got the confirmation he needed – she was the woman he'd seen through the window. She was wearing a black velvet robe and was clutching a glass of wine.
"Draco?"
Draco took a deep breath.
"Pansy."
"What on earth are you doing here?"
Draco shrugged. "It's Christmas Eve. My son is missing. I had nowhere else to go."
That's a lie, Albus thought. Mum invited him over at least five times.
Pansy, somewhat reluctant, stepped back and let Draco in, and Albus was careful to slip through the door silently behind him before it closed.
"I'm sure you have other friends, Draco."
"Not really," he replied. Albus followed as she led him into her sitting room.
What is it with the wealthy and their sitting rooms?
She gestured for him to sit in one of the armchairs by the fire. She removed an open book from her own seat before taking it. Albus noticed she held onto her drink.
"You've heard about Scorpius, I trust."
"Of course," Pansy said. She didn't look at him, and instead swirled the wine around in the glass until it almost spilled over the rim. "It's awful. I can't imagine what you're going through."
"I've heard that so many times over the last week," Draco said coldly. Albus noticed his voice was drastically different now. He'd adopted a cool, lazy drawl and half-a-sneer that Albus just didn't like. "It's exhausting."
"Well, I do mean it, for what it's worth," Pansy said. "I'm sorry."
"It's not like you had anything to do with it," Draco said coolly. Albus noticed Pansy didn't respond, and she didn't move.
Draco leaned forward, pressing his hands together.
"A lot of people call you a blood traitor now," Pansy said. "That's what they think, and that Scorpius is even worse."
"He's a child," Draco said. "It's a phase."
Albus raised his eyebrows. He clutched the handle of his wand tightly.
"I suppose that could be true," Pansy said. "We all have phases around that age."
Draco turned in her direction, but didn't look at her.
"For what it's worth, I do regret my actions."
"It was a long time ago," Pansy said, staring into the fire. "There's no need."
"Still," Draco pressed. "I am sorry."
"So am I."
Albus watched as they looked at one another, and he was certain that some forgiveness - for what, he didn't know - passed between them.
"Do you have any idea who might have taken my son?"
Pansy shook her head.
"None at all?"
"I read what was in the Prophet," she said. "It must have been one of the old families."
Draco paused. "Must have been."
Albus could see the color rising in her neck as she pressed her lips together, uncomfortable, looking into the fire.
"Maybe you should check all of the ancestral homes," she said slowly. "Maybe that's where he's been taken."
"I just think about him all alone out there," Draco said. "He's the last Malfoy. Without him..."
Draco shook his head and looked down.
"He's different. I'm not sure how long he'll last out there on his own, wherever he is. And whether or not he's the grandson my father wanted, he's what I have."
Albus listened, horrified. He knew exactly what Draco was doing, but hearing the words was more difficult than he'd imagined.
"I'd keep looking, Draco," she said finally, her voice bordering on something like sympathy. "He must be out there somewhere."
"What the hell was that?"
Albus threw off the invisibility cloak once they'd apparated. He'd expected to find himself back in the Malfoy Manor, but instead he was outside his parent's front door.
"I was appealing to the little prat child she remembered," Draco said. He knocked on the Potters' front door, and Albus balled up the cloak quickly and shoved it under Scorpius' sweater, folding his arms over the bulk.
"And all that about Scorpius being weak?"
"Scorpius is far from weak, Albus," Draco assured him. "I was appealing to her sense of pure-blood pride."
Still, Albus couldn't look him in the eye just yet, and when his mother opened the door, she found the two men pointedly avoiding looking at each other.
"And where the hell have you both been?" Ginny grabbed Albus by the arm and pulled him inside. "I've been worried sick about you."
"I'm sorry, Ginny," Draco said. "It's my fault. He was helping me go through some documents."
Albus raised his eyebrows at him behind Ginny's back as she turned and looked at him.
"I sincerely hope that's all it was and that you weren't doing anything dangerous."
Draco shook his head.
"No. I did go talk to Pansy Parkinson. I heard she and Daphne Greengrass were still close, and I think she might be involved."
"Come in, Draco."
Albus entered the house to find his family around the table, eating a much smaller version of their usual family feast. Harry had clearly just arrived, and he was still windswept and tired looking. The rest of the family had finished their meal, and he'd only begun.
"Albus? Draco?"
"Pansy Parkinson is involved," Draco said.
"How so?" Harry asked, getting up from the table. He and Draco moved into the sitting room as Draco began telling him about the conversation, and Albus slipped off to rid himself of the invisibility cloak. When he returned, Draco was explaining that Pansy referenced the old families and their ancestral homes.
"We kept the 'blood traitor' and 'family duty' bits out of the Prophet," Harry said, "as a part of an ongoing investigation."
"Exactly," Draco said. "So she knows more than she's letting on. Maybe she can't tell us. Maybe she's scared, and I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt -"
"Why?" Harry asked.
"I just am," Draco responded. "She's not as awful as everyone, including me, made her out to be. She's just... very easy to manipulate."
"So what do we do now?"
Harry looked at Albus when he spoke.
"First, we get the Ministry Pansy Parkinson as discretely as possible," said Harry. "Without concrete evidence, there's only so much we can do -"
Albus felt a hand on his shoulder.
"But having the Minister as an aunt doesn't hurt," Hermione said. "I'll divert what I can within the law."
"And then?" Albus asked.
"And then we shake down every house we haven't gotten to yet, and we keep going further down the list until we run out of places to go.
Scorpius hadn't heard a single sound from upstairs for a while. He had worked out that there was only one occupant of the house at all times, but whoever was keeping an eye on him - or at least the dungeon door - wasn't moving around a whole lot.
He'd been sitting against the pillar for hours now - exhausted and sore. He'd been given plenty of water, but little food, since he refused to sit down and recite Daphne's pure-blood doctrine for the last few days.
"Magic is might," were three words he wasn't interested in believing.
He'd stopped feeling hungry days ago, and now he was just tired all the time. When they cuffed him and threw him back downstairs, he felt like ants were crawling all over his skin as the nervous energy that was keeping him going bottled up.
They're coming for me, he told himself. He pictured his father and Albus with Mr. Potter yelling at law enforcement officers and threatening witches and wizards across England with death if they didn't give them information.
He heard footsteps and looked up but didn't move. He didn't have the energy or the will, but when he saw that his visitor was Pansy, brandishing a lantern and a plate, he perked up.
"It's Christmas Eve," she told him. "Everyone deserves a decent meal on Christmas Eve."
She crouched down and set the plate on the floor for him, along with a large bottle of water.
Scorpius had endured a lot of silent hours in the dungeon, giving him time to think. He knew Pansy Parkinson was his father's Hogwarts girlfriend, and he decided that it was time he used that to his advantage.
"Have you seen my dad?" he asked.
She didn't say anything, but she didn't look at him either. That didn't seem to be something she enjoyed.
"So you have."
"He's worried about you," she said.
"Is he okay? Did you tell him where I am?" he asked as he started picking at the food. Cold ham and a potato could get him through at least two days.
"No," she said. "I didn't."
"Can you tell me why you're helping her, at least?" Scorpius said. "I know my father cared about you when he was my age."
Pansy looked at him, and Scorpius could only imagine how gaunt and dirty his appearance was. He knew how awful he'd looked when he and Albus had broken up, and that was with regular showers and three meals a day.
"I lost everything in the war," she told him. "And Daphne... she makes big promises."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Scorpius said. "There were a lot of innocent people who suffered because of the war, and a lot of pure-bloods lost everything."
"They did," she agreed. "And I think Daphne might be able to lead us back to where we were. And if she says you're a crucial part of this plan's success, then I believe her."
"Do you really think that her torturing me is the best way?"
"She's making you stronger," Pansy said. "Something your father never did. With your mother gone, she feels personally responsible."
Pansy stood up abruptly and walked back to the door, but paused and looked back before leaving.
"I hope someday you'll understand."
The door shut again and Scorpius hung his head. His father was spending Christmas alone, he knew, and the thought was unbearable. It frustrated him, and his skin crawled and the energy bottled up inside him until he couldn't think, and then Albus' face came into his mind and he felt the tears coming down his face, wishing he could do something - anything.
And when he opened his eyes, all the dust and pebbles on the floor and the food Pansy had brought and his threadbare blanket were levitating a few inches off the floor in an orbit around him. Scorpius tugged at the restraints and found that they were secure.
Scorpius looked around at the magic he was doing through the cursed cuffs, and his arms burned, but it was still working.
He got to his feet, marveling through the pain. He had work to do.
