PART ONE:
THE BEGINNING
In the small wizarding village of Dorse Doran, if one were to follow the cobblestone street that led right down the middle of town, past Madame Molly's Sweet Shoppe and the Barrish & Vicktor Pub – famous for creating the taste-bud tingling Butterbeer beverage wizards everywhere loved – they would find, set back from the road a large, old, Queen Anne style house.
Upon this house they would see dark vines winding their way up the side of it's exterior, as if in an attempt to reach the sky. They would see a garden with well tended rose bushes and a waist-high black fence, with a gate that opened to a grey gravel path, leading right up to the front door.
Standing at this gate would be a woman and her son, and no one would look twice at them. No one would think twice of their sudden appearance at the front of this house, and that was something Patricia counted on.
Scorpius pushed open the front gate and moved up the gravel path without hesitation, past the rose-bushes and their pink flowers and up the four steps onto the porch. She watched as he became more animated, the discomfort he had felt at the Weasely's was evident, his demeanor now drastically different than it was only moments ago.
He waited, rocking back and forth on his feet impatiently as she produced the key and unlocked the door. Scorpius dashed through the door and up the stairs, taking them two at a time, towards his room on the second floor.
Within a few minutes he had reappeared, preceded by a slight golden glint in the air that lasted for hardly a second and then disappeared again. She cast him a warning look as he zipped off after it on his broomstick, any other time she would have told him to take it outside. She shook her head and settled down into the couch, the daily prophet that had been left at the doorstep, no doubt by the same owl that always delivered it, taken up in her hands. It was good to be home, she thought as she read, the wooshing sound of Scorpius chasing the snitch (that had been given to him by the greatest seeker of today's game, as he liked to boast to nearly anyone that would listen) in the background, a comforting sound.
There was a loud thump that came from the kitchen twenty minutes later and Patricia looked up from the daily prophet in front of her. She looked towards the kitchen to see Scorpius, hair wind blown, eyes alight and a smile plastered to his face, triumphantly holding the snitch in his hand. "I got it this time Mum! In record time too!" She smiled.
"Keep practicing and you'll surely be competing in the Quidditch World Cup in no time!" She assured him. His stomach grumbled and she remembered that he had never eaten his breakfast. "How would you like to go to The Dragon's Bay for lunch?" He quickly agreed, leaning his broom up in the corner and shoving the snitch in his pocket, rather than putting both the items away. She rolled her eyes slightly but got up and proceeded to put on a thick purple woolen sweater and made Scorpius go find a sweater of his own, to which he greatly protested.
The little village was generally a quiet place, few people mingled around on the streets and many just kept to themselves. Of course there was many odd people in Dorse Doran, some of which she knew from Draco, were much shadier characters than she had expected. She also knew that there was a particular knack for the odd Muggle to stumble into the village, generally lost as it was remotely tucked away, no roads in or out and never be seen again. It had been an ongoing investigation she had been working on at the Ministry, of course, she had her theories.
They quickly came to stand under the dark purple sign that read 'The Dragon's Bay' in a flashy, gold script. She pushed open the tinted glass doors and entered the restaurant, taking in it's lavish décor as a young witch greeted them. "Why, you're Draco Malfoy's son aren't you?" the lady asked, looking down at Scorpius, he slowly nodded, his face returning as it had earlier that morning, to an unreadable, confident state. "Well, tell your father Angelina Rosewood says hi!" She said cheerily, taking them to their seat.
They sat at the table and Scorpius watched in awe as a miniature green dragon scurried across the table, crawling over the salt and pepper shakers. Shortly after, another one joined the table, small and red, with gold flecks across it's scales, this one seemed to provoke the other and soon they were both spouting small streams of fire from their mouths.
"Come now Scorpius, you can watch them after you decide what you're going to eat." He hesitantly looked away from the two quarreling dragons and brought his eyes back to the menu, a hard thing she had to admit, the light bouncing off their scales, catching the corner of her eye with every movement.
A plump lady approached the table, dressed in the same deep violet robes as the young witch that had greeted them. She didn't seem all that happy, the smile on her face, clearly forced, but she held up the part all the same and took their order.
The two sat quietly as they waited for their food to arrive, Scorpius now poking the miniature dragons with his finger, irritating them even more. It wasn't all that long before their table became home to a whole flock of dragons, Scorpius quickly withdrawing his fingers as they started to nip at him.
It wasn't long before their food arrived and Scorpius threw all his precisely taught Malfoy manners out the window and began happily scarfing his 'Dragon Breath Stew'. She laughed as he took giant mouthfuls of food, just waiting for his reaction. "Hot! Hot! Hot! Water! Water!" he exclaimed, gulping down his glass of water, his eyes nearly watering. The plump lady quickly returned to the table, another glass in hand, laughing at his expression as she placed it in front of him. As he recovered from his burning mouth he began to eat again, slower this time, as Patricia dug into her own dish.
A high-pitched scream echoed through the air, sending shivers up her spine. Her hand immediately flew to her wand, and her eyes flew towards the frosted glass door where the sound seemed to come from. "Stay here." She whispered, giving him a warning look. The look he had the night he appeared on the Weasley's doorstep was on his face now.
Patricia slowly rose and quietly moved towards the door, gripping her wand tightly as she neared the door, the employees cowering under tables and behind walls and chairs.
The screaming continued as she approached the door. She could feel herself cringing the louder it got. She took a deep breath as she put her hand on the door and slowly pushed it open a crack, just enough to look outside. Her eyes cautiously moved across the landscape, as if whatever was out there would see them moving. Sometimes she wondered if she'd be better off holding one of those Muggle firearms rather than her wand.
A woman floated in the air, her auburn hair waving like tentacles around her. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, and her face frozen in a look of terror, the high-pitched wail passing through her unmoving lips. Her grey robes flowed like she was underwater and her body didn't move. She knew right away who would cause this, but her brain refused to register it.
Suddenly, the persistent scream stopped and the woman, whose body was frozen in suspension only moments ago, wriggled and twisted unnaturally in the air. "Where is the woman?" a man's voice demanded from somewhere outside the range of her limited view.
"I don't know what woman you're talking about!" she screamed, her sobs echoing through the street.
"Yes, you do!" he yelled, and the woman's screams grew louder as her body twisted more violently. "Where is the Fontaine woman?!" He yelled. She froze, so the attacks hadn't been coincidental, they were planned. The Death Eaters were searching for her.
"She lives down the lane!" The woman screamed. Patricia panicked and let the door fall shut, a bang and the jingle of bells resounding through the air as she did so. She could hear a commotion outside and she immediately ran back to Scorpius.
"We have to go." She said urgently, grabbing his arm and practically lifting him from the chair herself. He stumbled at first and then regained his footing, quickly moving alongside her as she headed towards the back of the restaurant, through the kitchen, past the House Elves and scared looking witches and wizards and out the back door.
They rounded the building carefully, hearing crashing in the restaurant behind them. The woman lay weeping on the ground now, a man in a black cloak standing over her. Before Patricia could register what was happening it was too late. "Avada Kedavra!" The man shouted, a green flash emitted from the end of his wand, lighting up the street in an eerie glow.
Scorpius sat frozen, a mortified look on his face as the woman lay motionless in the street. There were footsteps behind them now and she knew they had no choice but to move. "Scorpius! Scorpius!" he didn't react, and she knew he wasn't going to. Patricia grabbed his arm and felt the familiar feeling of being shoved through a tube beginning at her toes.
Rain poured down around them as they stood in the middle of the forest. Scorpius hadn't said anything since they left the gruesome scene. Upon arriving in the forest he had spent a good few minutes puking but she wasn't sure whether that was due to the apparating or what they had just witnessed.
Goosebumps crawled on her skin as she replayed the moment in her mind, seeing the life in the woman's eyes fade and she felt like she might be sick herself.
"She's dead." Scorpius finally spoke, his voice cracking as he did so.
"I know, I'm sorry you had to see that-"
"Not her," She was silent now, knowing what must lie next "Mother- I mean, Astoria, she's dead." It all made sense now, why Draco left Scorpius with her without the fear of her finding out. Though she had been suspect of it from the start, the words hitting her now made her stop dead in her tracks.
"But… Wha-… Do you know how?" she finally managed to say, hoping with all her might that he wasn't about to tell her he witnessed that too.
"Dad found her, dead in the dining hall. Says he thinks it was the killing curse. There wasn't a scratch on her or anything." She listened horrified as he described what happened. "At first we thought it might have been her drinking, you know, finally caught up to her. Was a bottle of whiskey there, there was, Dad says it was the killing curse though, I don't think so."
It was true, Astoria had been a raging drunk, the scent of alcohol always on her breath, as a result, she knew Scorpius tried to keep his interactions with her to a minimum, she trusted Draco's judgment though, he had seen it many times. Of course, there could have been more to the incident that he never disclosed to Scorpius. "I think your father knows what he's talking about and you'd be best to trust his judgment."
The silence that had pressed on them before returned as Patricia continued to lead the way through the forest. The water now rolled off the trees in fat drops, dampening the ground and the both of them, making it harder to walk through the thick woods. "Mum, where are we going?" Scorpius asked, struggling to keep up with her.
"Somewhere they won't find us." She responded. He frowned but continued to follow her, as the trees slowly became less dense, and the unleveled ground covered in trees and roots that stuck out on weird angles, tripping most those who try to cross them began to turn into stepping stones.
Patricia heard a gasp from behind her and spun on her heel, wand out and ready for whatever was there, only to find Scorpius staring, mouth open at a black creature. She felt relief wash over her and she almost had to laugh at the expression that was on his face as the creature moved out of the cover of the trees and into the light.
The creature was black, it's skin was tight and looked like slick leather. The horse like animal that looked little more than a skeleton with the odd ink black skin pulled taught around it's frame also had large bat-like wings. It was an odd looking thing, it's joints coming together at weird, sharp angles unlike that of any other animal he had seen.
"They're called Thestrals." Came a voice from behind them. Scorpius jumped and spun around, recovering from the surprise. A pale woman with a warm smile stood there.
The strange woman wore an odd outfit, consisting of flowered rubber boots, a large knit sweater with a Hippogriff on it. Her jeans that had been cut off just below the knees, one leg slightly longer than the other and a bright yellow hat from a raincoat ensemble covered her long, pale blonde hair. Scorpius stood taking in the woman with a look of confusion. Patricia smiled and embraced her.
"Luna!" she exclaimed, relieved that she had managed to get them where they needed to be.
"So glad you were able to find your way back. Why don't you come in and have some tea?"
Though she had visited Luna many times, she had yet to get used to finding the curious place. She was getting better she realised as the stone house appeared about twenty feet ahead of them. She always thought it was fascinating, the way the house seemed to just appear out of thin air.
"So you got my message then?" Patricia asked, as the entered the grey stone house.
"Oh, of course!" She responded, pulling a galleon out of her pocket. Upon close inspection it looked like any other galleon, it was one of the coins Hermione had so cleverly enchanted during the original days of Dumbledore's Army, this time, Patricia took a little bit of creative liberty and managed to get the message through that there was an emergency and she would be arriving at Luna's shortly. She was glad that she understood.
The house was odd, there were curious things all around which immediately caught Scorpius' attention. After knowing Luna so long, it was rare that something Luna brought forth struck her as odd.
As she sat down on the antique looking sofa, the cup of hot tea in her hand, she felt the day's events finally sink in. The Death Eaters were hunting her down, they were hunting her down and people were dying as a result of her running. She momentarily contemplated turning herself over, hopefully to stop the deaths. As she looked over to son, who was currently looking at some odd glasses she remembered why she was running in the first place, she couldn't leave him alone in this, not after everything he had already been through.
A/N - So, if you've stuck with this story this far, you're awesome! Reviews are loved, so feel free to R&R and just press that button! The next chapter picks up, promise!