A/n: Before you start reading this chapter, I want to ask you to pay very careful attention to anything related to Albus from henceforth. Especially certain details that pique your curiosity. I won't say why, of course, only that it would make everything that occurs much easier to understand. Oh and light swearing in this chapter.

Thank you for all the love!

Chapter 7

Clueless

"Do you ever listen when someone's talking to you?"

Rose rolled her eyes at Albus without looking at him. "Scorpius said he could do it, so I didn't think there would be a problem."

Albus groaned and rolled his neck. "This again? Rose, how many years has it been?"

She finally looked at him and frowned. "What?"

He gave her a patient, yet annoyed look. Something – it seemed – only Albus could manage to do simultaneously. "How many years have you known each other?"

Rose shrugged a shoulder, knowing it was more likely a rhetorical question. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"That has everything to do with everything!"

Rose eyed her cousin wearily and shook her head. "You're making less and less sense even as this conversation progresses."

Albus laid his hands palm down on the tabletop and leaned his weight on it like he needed support to keep himself upright. He shook his bowed head and muttered, "I swear to Merlin, you geniuses are the least aware of everything happening around you."

He picked up his wand and strode off to where Scorpius was sitting with his back to Hugo – who was undoing the blond's bandages. Rose stared after Albus, her frown still in place. Sometimes Albus said things that seemed to hold a very deep meaning, but she couldn't make head or tail of it for the life of her.

Albus stared at his friend's back for a whole minute before saying, "Ever thought about vanishing those scars?"

The very air in the small room seemed to instantly freeze, and Albus looked from Hugo to Rose and back to Scorpius's head with a look of confusion on his face. "What? Did I just step on a landmine?"

So much for us geniuses being clueless.

Rose sighed and walked up to stand close to Scorpius. She tried not to notice the way he was clutching his hands together so hard that his biceps were bulging. She unconsciously stepped forward, suddenly feeling like a mother protecting a vulnerable child.

"Al, why don't you just take a look at those gashes and make sure the remnants of the protective spells didn't get into them?"

She gave Albus a pointed look and the latter shrugged, motioning to Scorpius's back. "Since they aren't very deep, I don't think there's much danger from the spells having gotten mixed in his bloodstream, but I'd like to check all the same. You said this happened about an hour or so ago?" he asked Rose, as he raised his arms and began muttering incantations under his breath.

She nodded and realizing he wasn't looking at her, said, "Yeah."

"Hugo, can you come with me?" Albus asked, as he placed a small vial of some potion in Scorpius's palm and gestured for him to drink it.

Hugo looked up from where he was fiddling with his wand and asked, "What? Me? Why?"

Albus raised his eyebrows at the younger male. "Because I said so. It might have sounded like I was asking, but I was really only being polite."

Hugo frowned but didn't argue. Albus seemed to have gotten much better at convincing people to do as he wanted ever since becoming a healer. Must be the quirks of the job, Rose thought. The Potter looked at Rose over his shoulder and tilted his head to the side, motioning for her to follow him. Curious, she followed.

"Did he tell you anything about them?"

"Them? You mean the scars?"

Albus nodded, eyeing Scorpius's broad back with a thoughtful scowl on his face - as though he was having trouble recollecting something. Rose touched his arm to get his attention back. "Why? Are they bad? They look pretty old, though."

"They only seem that way because whoever sewed them magically shut wasn't very proficient with healing magic. Those scars are the end result of a very hurried or a very badly performed combination of healing spells. Those scars can't be older than a decade, and considering a wizard's life span, that's hardly long enough."

Rose was about to ask how Albus could tell so much from just a glance at them, but she knew he'd spent years studying healing magic even before he actually got his license. Albus looked back at her and his emerald eyes were dark and brooding.

"I want you to see if you can convince him to talk to you about them. There's no rush. Even badly performed healing spells still do their basic job, but I want to make sure there are no lingering effects like the spells from your wards."

"Oi, are you going to just stand there chatting, or can we actually go," Hugo called irritatedly from near the door and Albus nodded at Rose. She grabbed his arm and shook her head hurriedly.

"Why do you think he'd tell me something like that? He didn't even seem to want me standing close to his scars or touching them, when I tried to bandage his wounds, so what makes you think he would confide in me about something so important?"

Albus actually looked more agitated than Rose had seen him in a long time. He came close to her and hissed, "Rose, you are a fucking genius, for Merlin's sake, figure it out!"

She heard him mutter a rather loud, 'For fuck's sake,' as he strode toward Hugo, his shoulders tight with anger and a menacing aura beginning to form around him. Hugo's eyes widened and he threw Rose a look that demanded what the hell she'd said to make him so mad. She sighed and Hugo hurried after Albus. Everyone knew that despite all the Weasleys' flaring tempers, it was the scariest when a Potter was seriously pissed off.

Unnerved, she walked back to where Scorpius was still sitting hunched over and pulled another stool to the one he was sitting on. She watched him bounce his knee for a few moments before placing her hand on it to still the agitated movement. He snapped his head up at her, as though demanding why she thought she could interrupt his brooding, but she shot him a smile and his anxiety seemed to dissipate ever so slightly.

He sighed and his shoulders relaxed. She suddenly noticed that he was buffer than she remembered, his muscles rippling under his skin as he flexed his arms. He didn't look muscular or meaty, like those body builders did; his physique was still slim and lean, just… more taut and firm.

"Enjoying the view, Miss Weasley?"

She jerked her eyes towards his, her face flushing as she spluttered and tried to cover her embarrassment at being caught red-handed while she stared at him. "I-It's not—I was just—"

Scorpius chuckled and she found herself relaxing slightly as he grinned at her. "There's nothing wrong in admiring something eye-catching," he said teasingly and she could feel her flush etch itself into her cheeks and neck and remain there as he smirked at her.

"I was not staring," she snapped adamantly, although she knew that they both knew that was a pointless attempt at a lie.

"Oh really?" he said and sat back. "My mistake then."

She glowered at the way his eyes twinkled. Bloody nuisance of a man. Did he go to Peru to do research, or so he could come back looking like someone had chiseled him out from marble? She cleared her throat, making to say something, but he suddenly leaned forward, surprising her – once again – into silence.

"Wh-What," she gasped, as he stared at her as though he was trying to figure out if she was real or a figment of his imagination. He hummed lowly and gave her a lop-sided grin, even as his eyes began drooping shut.

"Oh no," she said, as he began swaying on the stool. "No no no no no."

She stood up and tried to steady him, but he simply placed his forehead against her stomach and nuzzled against her. She felt her panic rising along with the flush that she had just started to get over.

"Scorpius," she groaned, as she tried to push him back into a sitting position. His lips were parted and he was looking at her through his lashes and she felt her resolve fade away. She let him fall back against her and tensed when she felt his arms creep around her waist. She cleared her throat just to keep her wavering thoughts in place, and left her hands on his shoulders.

She was debating on whether to try to wrestle out of his surprisingly tight grip, when the door opened, and in came Albus and Hugo, their arms laden with random objects that were probably medical in nature. Albus didn't even pause when he saw them and turned to dump the contents in his arms on a pre-spelled Cushioning charm.

Hugo, on the other hand, stopped abruptly at the door and goggled at his sister; who was standing with Scorpius's arms around her and hugging her like you would something warm and cuddly. She turned desperate wide eyes to Albus – who only chuckled – and made his way toward her with an amused smile playing on his face. She could recognize that smile from even a mile away.

"You set this up!" she screeched, and Albus winced at the volume of her voice.

"And of course you didn't even see it coming. Tell me I'm a genius," he replied, as he came to stand behind Scorpius and placed his hands in the pockets of his robes. Rose's jaw dropped.

"Albus Severus, stop this right now and get him off of me!"

"Why? He seems to like it there and I'm sure, below that extremely scandalized expression, you do too."

She just stared back at her cousin slack-jawed, completely speechless at his tasteless prank. Albus twisted his head around, a hand to his chin, as he said, "Did I just render the one and only Rose Weasley speechless? Give the man an award, I say!"

"Al."

Rose turned her gaze to her brother's pale face and thanked Merlin that Hugo's dislike for Scorpius would at least come in handy in a situation like this.

"Yes?" Albus asked, thoroughly unfazed by the other's intimidating glare.

"What the hell did you do?"

Albus was the perfect picture of innocence as he looked between the two siblings and then pointing to Scorpius, said, "What, this? Oh come now, you don't think I actually drugged him or something, did you?"

When he got matching glares from the siblings that said that was exactly what they thought, Albus chuckled and picked Scorpius's ponytail up, turning it around in his palm. "I only cast a relaxing spell on him, that's all. It's something like the Calming Draught, but can be administered verbally, as a spell, and its effects don't send the recipients into a complete state of relaxation, but rather gives them the feeling of floating on a cloud and having the time of their life. That, and I did give him a pint of diluted Calming Draught, simply because he seemed too uptight. You should have seen the look on the other healers' faces when I performed it on the patients that refused to drink any potions, and it had a much better result than any Calming Draught could, because the recipients are far more compliant afterward."

"You created it?"

"Isn't that illegal?"

Albus looked between Rose and Hugo with the same look of extreme amusement. Rose was starting to feel annoyance replace her previous fluster and embarrassment. "You're enjoying this way too much, Albus."

"I cannot lie," Albus replied with a little bow and Hugo all but growled beside Rose.

"Enough of this nonsense. I don't know how the Ministry is letting you get away with recreating the likes of the Imperius Curse, but I won't stand for it. Take it off of him immediately!"

Albus turned to look at the length of Scorpius's blond hair in his hand and said in a musing voice, "My dear fellow, the Imperius Curse places the other person under a spell so strong, that it breaks their power of will and gives the caster the ability to manipulate them in any way they so please. Much like a puppet-master controlling his puppet with strings."

He paused, as though trying to build up on the suspense for whatever he was going to say next.

"But the spell I created is nothing of that sort. It just puts the recipient in a sort of daze and lets them fully access their happy place."

"Their happy place?" Hugo asked with an air of disdain and Albus's eyes seemed to sharpen ever so slightly.

"Yes, their happy place. It's sort of similar to the feeling of being high. The person voluntarily does whatever he wants to do, free from any restriction others or he/she has placed on themselves."

Albus's words seemed to strike a blow straight to Rose's stomach, and she asked in a strangled voice, "Allows them to do whatever they want to do?"

Albus nodded, clasping his hands behind his back and swaying back and forth on the balls of his feet. "It's sort of like removing any constraint; social, physical, ethical or anything else, and allows the person to voice his innermost desires and thoughts. It's never been performed on anybody but patients, though, and only ones that really seem to need it. Like, for instance, a patient who is dying but is too scared to confess his life-long undying love to the woman who was somebody else's wife. It lets them leave us without any regrets, see?"

Rose, being the person she was and having the job she did, found several flaws in the very concept the spell was based on, and she vowed to tell her cousin exactly what she thought of it - as soon as he removed both the effect of the spell and Scorpius from her. When she demanded the same, Albus simply shot her a million-galleon smile and said,

"The best part about this spell is that the person it's been cast on can choose to undo the effects of it on them when-so-ever they may please."

Another blow to her stomach. She could literally hear Hugo's teeth grinding against each other beside her, as her brother stared down at Scorpius like all he wanted to do was break his arms off and whisk Rose away so he could cleanse her of his evilness. And, although she would rather die than admit it, Albus's words had caused more than just the feeling of being struck in the gut. There was a seemingly innocuous fluttering in the pit of her stomach that seemed to have something to do with the shortness of her breath and warmth in her cheeks.

"If you tried to convince him gently, he should listen," Albus told her softly and she stared down at Scorpius's blond head. She swallowed and nodded, feeling the weight of Hugo's intense gaze on her.

"Scorpius," she said slowly as she moved her hands from his shoulders to place them against the sides of his face; shocked by how gentle and soothing her voice had come out sounding. Hugo stiffened beside her.

"Scorpius," she said again and he stirred, as though being pulled out of a dream. He slowly raised his head and squinted up at Rose, his face full of confusion.

"Why," he rasped and cleared his throat. "What," he said, pulling back to finally sit straight on the stool. Rose belatedly realized his arms were still around her and for some reason, she didn't seem to want to remind him of that yet. Let him figure it out on his own.

"What," he said again, his eyes glancing around. He reminded her of a lost puppy who had run too far and abruptly stopped to find himself in a completely unknown place. He was starting to panic.

"Shh," Rose said gently, as the hair on the back of Scorpius's neck rose and his eyes widened like he'd suddenly realized he must have done something terrible.

"Rose?" he asked, and his voice was rough from the temporary disuse. Her insides clenched at the sound of it.

"Yes, I'm here. It's me."

He shook his head slightly, gazing up at her with what she could only describe as awe. "What did you do?" he breathed, and she looked down at him dumbly.

"Nothing," she said blankly, but he laughed airily and said,

"No, you definitely did something. I suddenly feel so much lighter, as though a heavy burden was lifted off my shoulders."

His laughter grew into a chuckle as he saw the expression on her face. "I know it sounds corny, but that's the only description that seems adept to describe what I feel at the moment."

"Oh," Rose said, because her mind was too fuzzy to think of anything clever to say. Behind Scorpius, Albus had turned his face away and his shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.

Hugo made an enraged sound that was half way between a whine and a growl and both Rose and Scorpius snapped wide-eyes toward him. His face had gone red and he looked exactly like their dad did when he was furious about something.

"I don't understand you," he spat at Rose and she flinched from the power of his voice. Hugo's eyes flickered toward Scorpius, but instantly came back and fixed themselves on Rose again.

"When you figure out exactly what it is that you want, come and talk to me."

And so saying, he spun on his heel and stormed out, leaving Rose and Scorpius to stare after him with thoroughly baffled expressions on their faces.

"Is it just me," Scorpius murmured, and Rose looked back at him. He frowned at the door. "Or am I really missing something very important here?"

Rose sighed. She was exhausted as it was, and her brain seemed to have decided that it needed to take a break just then; because when he looked up with wide-eyes that were like quicksilver and said, "And I don't remotely remember you voluntarily being so close with me before," she didn't know what he was talking about, until he tilted his head and grazed his mouth against her palm - which was still caressing his face - his eyes fixed on her.

She swallowed thickly and jerked her hands away. She had been so preoccupied by the fact that he had his arms around her, that she seemed to have forgotten to register that her own hands were still holding his face.

"Not that I'm complaining," he began, and she shivered as his voice dropped a notch, "it's not always that I can have Rose Weasley caressing my face."

She wanted to yell at him that what she had been doing wasn't remotely close to caressing, but she knew it was a lost cause, because he had that look in his eyes that Rose recognized from whenever he had locked onto something; and nothing she said or did would make him think otherwise. She was breathing through her mouth, because her nostrils seemed incapable of giving her lungs the air they needed, and when Albus guffawed loudly, doubling over and literally trembling from fits of laughter, she jumped back and out of Scorpius's arms.

She hoped her mild disappointment at not feeling his firm forearms pressed against the curve of her body didn't show on her face, because she was dispelling the venomous thought as soon as it surfaced. She was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to notice that he seemed to feel the same way, before the emotion flickered away from his face.

Albus clapped a hand on Scorpius's shoulder as he steadied himself and wiped tears from his eyes. He shook his head and said, "Oh Merlin, this turned out to be so much more fun than I had imagined, when the idea first came to me."

Scorpius turned curious eyes to his best mate and Albus simply grinned down at the blond, clapping him on the shoulder again.

"I swear, for a pair of geniuses, you both are like two birds dancing around each other and fleeing the second they sense danger."

Rose stiffened and shot him an affronted look before saying, "I think your patient is in good hands, so good day," and striding away as gracefully as she could in an oversized hoodie and tights. She could swear she heard Albus's ringing laughter follow her till the entrance of St. Mungo's.

Cofounded men and their bloody ability to understand things she was utterly clueless about.

A/n: And there you have it! I find Rose's cluelessness really adorable, to be honest, and I just had to get Al to play the role of match-maker.

Thoughts?