The Sky Is Falling

Chapter 3

Three

Are we fools and cowards all

To let them cover up their lies?

Cause we all watched the buildings fall

Watched the scales fall from our eyes

In the Wizarding world, there simply weren't very many places that he could go without being noticed. That was one of the many reasons why he enjoyed coming to muggle-ran restaurants, especially Lexington.

Sure, the place is considered - by most - pricey, but the twilit atmosphere and good food and alcohol made it one of the favorite places Head Auror Harry Potter liked to visit. Another good reason is that it wasn't very far from his home, even though the secret use of Apparation or broomsticks easily solved problems such as those.

He took a sip of his beer that Joel, the almost-nightly bartender served him. He didn't think it was up-to-par with a wizard's butterbeer, but it got the job done. He glanced at the two empty seats next to him - with a glass of wine in one spot and another beer at the other - wondering what was taking his expected company so long. He asked them to meet him at 10, and it was already 15 minutes after.

It wasn't too much longer before the door at Lexington opened, and a woman with bushy-brown hair and a man with shorter ginger hair walked through. They immediately saw the Head Auror and approached his seat.

"You know, I hate to hate it," Harry said before the other two could get a word out. "But tardiness has been becoming a habit between the two of you."

The couple laughed as the reached the spot on the bar where Harry was sitting.

"Now you, I get," Harry continued as he used the hand already occupied with a beer to point to the red-head. "But I expected more out of you, Mrs. Weasley,"

"Oh, enough," said Hermione quickly after rolling her eyes. "I was so wrapped up in the Doheny case, I could probably fall asleep right here."

Harry then turned to her husband and gave him a look that said: "Well? What's your excuse?"

"What?" asked Ron upon successfully reading the look on his face. "Did we not already establish that you 'get' it?"

Harry let out a laugh as he pointed to the two seats to his left, with the drinks firmly on the table waiting for the married couple.

"Oh, thanks Harry," Hermione said as she took the seat at the bar right next to him and picking up her favorite glass of Cabernet.

"We got the next round, mate," Ron said just before taking a sip of his beer. The former-auror was at the age of 24 when he tried his first muggle beer. After insisting for hours that he wouldn't like it, he not so surprisingly grew quite fond of it, making his family one of the few Wizarding families that keep muggle-made beer in their house.

"So, where's Ginny?" asked Hermione after taking her second sip of wine.

The Weasley's both focused their attention on the lone Potter's face, and immediately recognized the look. It was a mixture of a guilty-child-caught-in-the-act and the deep exhale. As previously mentioned, the couple understood immediately.

"Oh," Hermione exhaled. "It's one of these…"

One of these, as the brilliant witch so humbly put it, was referring to the trio's little habit of having private meetings with one another at this very bar. The topics ranged from work - Ron as a successful businessman, Hermione as a world-class attorney, and Harry being Head-Auror called for a lot of conversation - all the way to reminiscing about times in school; whether they be good or bad times was merely the luck of the draw.

"Afraid so," Harry admitted just after taking a sip. "Ginny's working late tonight anyway,"

Sure, Ginny Potter has made her presence well known within the little group enough for them to be called a quartet; but sometimes, there were just certain topics the three have found appropriate to just leave between them. Harry often felt quite guilty for leaving his wife out of such conversations. In fact, the only real reason that any of them have for it is a "force of habit", however, that never stopped Ginny and Harry from having a good row or two about it.

"So what's the deal, then?" Ron asked Harry.

"Let me guess," Hermione spoke before Harry could. "The Malfoy case?"

"It's eating me alive!" exclaimed Harry after a giant exhale. "I mean, there is just nothing there!"

"You've had cases like this before," Hermione reminded her friend. "Maybe you're worrying for nothing."

"If it was a 20-something-year-old drop-out who's had prior mixers with dark magic, then I'd probably agree with you," Harry informed the well-known attorney. "But he's just a normal Hogwarts student who happens to have a soft spot for magical creatures."

Hermione couldn't help but smirk a bit upon hearing Harry's last comment.

There was a grim silence as the two contemplated that fact. He was just a kid, so what would anybody want with him? Was this a planned out event or was it totally random? All three of them had a feeling that it was not random.

"What about Malfoy?" Ron asked, who was responded with a pair of raised eyebrows. "I mean Draco Malfoy?"

"What about him?" Hermione asked her husband.

"He mentioned checking out his enemies," Ron explained, pointing to the auror. "It's no secret that many people still hold a grudge against him."

"Enough to capture his son?" Hermione asked, turning to Harry.

"Or worse," admitted Harry with a sip of his beer. "But nothing came from that idea."

"God," Hermione sighed as she began to focused her brown eyes on her half-drunken glass of wine. "They're just children."

"Well, so were we, weren't we?" Ron admitted in a grim tone, recalling obvious previous experiences. "Weren't there enough people who wanted us dead when we were 16? Or before?"

There was another grim silence after that. The three have put so many years between then and their time in Hogwarts they that constantly forgot that they were face-to-face with death on a yearly basis. Of course, one would argue that times were very different back then, but another will quickly state that just because Voldemort is gone, doesn't mean that evil is as well.

"What about Kunsler?" asked Ron spoke up once again. "That would be an obvious suspect, eh? After all, he wanted Scorpius dead two years ago."

"How could a Hogwarts drop out hope to control a pack of vampires?" Harry responded with a question after almost finishing his bottle. "Besides, we can't find him anywhere. In fact, he was no where to be found since his case was dismissed."

Ron hit the bar softly in annoyance.

"I still can't believe the bastard got to walk," the red-head said under his breath.

"Well, it was carefully planned," Hermione recalled that case all to well: as a member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she was apart of that case. "I don't know who his parents - guardians, rather - were, but them and their lawyers worked with such grace and coldness, I wouldn't be surprised if they were among the Daeth Eaters who got away. Thanks to them, the court would have never technically found him guilty of anything. "

"How about the attempt of killing a student?" asked Ron, although he'd been told the answers time and time again. "Or using an unforgivable?"

"Well," Harry said to his friend. "Technically it wasn't him who did all of that, was it?"

It killed Harry to say that.

"My point, exactly," Hermione agreed. "I know Albus had no intention to use an unforgivable - let alone on his best friend - but that's irrelevant. If Kunsler were to be charged, so would Albus; and if that were to happen, Albus would most likely have a worse sentence since it was his wand in question. It was a risk we couldn't take."

"I know," Ron admitted as he hit the bar softly once again. "That's one of the reason I left the force, you know?" He turned to Harry. "20-some-odd years of me seeing darkness walk free just because of technicalities…it just became too much."

Harry exhaled after he finished his bottle.

"Honestly mate," Ron continued, with a slightly lowered voice. "I don't know how you keep doing it."

Another silence.

Ron ordered another rounds of the three's same respective drinks, and they each took their first sip without a word. They were all thinking the same thing: the war against Voldemort may have been over for over 25 years, but the war against darkness will never be won. Sure, the trio have known this for years, but it seems to be harder and harder to digest as the years go by.

"It almost seems like the Ministry didn't change much since the Battle of Hogwarts, does it?" asked Harry out of the blue, immediately catching the attention of the married Weasley's.

"Harry, you know that's not true," Hermione responded with a bit of shock in her voice. "You know of the good we had done since the Battle."

"Not to mention before and during," Ron snuck in with a smile.

Harry turned to his best friend and couldn't help but wished he had not left the auror department, as he so often does.

"It's been tough since you left, you know," Harry gave another random comment, but this time it was directed to Ron. "I understand your reasons, though. I also feel the emptiness and the worthlessness when a criminal goes free just because they have the money or the connections." He paused for a second. "I guess sometimes, you always being there to back me up gave me strength to keep going, you know?"

"While I am flattered," Ron responded to Harry's comment. "You don't need me Harry. You never needed me."

"Oh, bollocks," Harry replied, almost interrupting his friend. "You think I'd be sitting here right now if it wasn't for both of you?"

Hermione and Ron took a quick glance at each other, both thinking the same thing. They both knew that Harry had a habit of going off an a tangent just before making his point, and the couple knew that it would be coming shortly.

"I just…" Harry trailed off before continuing. "You know how my son and your daughter are both very vague about their friendship with young Malfoy?"

The couple nodded as Harry continued.

"It's sad," he spoke softly as he eye-balled his second half-drunken beer. "I mean, I understand why'd they'd be secretive. 'Malfoy' wasn't always exactly a pleasant name to hear." He paused again for a moment. "But in those rare times that I see those 3 together, they just…"

"-Remind you of us?"

Harry turned to Hermione, who had said what he had been thinking for months. She wanted to smile at him - which is something she often did when she finished one of the boys' sentences - but she couldn't. She, as well as her husband, felt the same way as the Head Auror.

"God help me, it does," Harry responded as he dove into another sip of beer. "It's strange. Our friendship began in 1st year-" he paused and glanced at Ron "- more or less. They've only been good friends for 2 years, and it seems like it's been…"

"Forever," Hermione finished Harry's sentence once again. "And it's been happening right under our noses."

"This is wrong, you know," Ron said after hearing Harry make is point. "Our children shouldn't be keeping their best friends from us."

"Well," Hermione spoke up. "You two did have the habit of telling them horror stories about the Malfoys, didn't you?"

And there it was: Hermione dropped the one line that other two-thirds of the trio dreaded hearing for years. The two fathers looked at each other with guilt written looks, and Hermione couldn't help but feel guilty for saying it. But she shouldn't, the two men decided, for she was right.

All three of them couldn't help but wonder how different things would have been if all those "horror stories" of the Malfoy clan did not reach the ears of their children. Sure, the three reframed from telling their children everything about the war, but it simply wasn't enough. They didn't even once take into account that - of all the many children in Hogwarts - their children would find a best friend in a Malfoy. It was so ironic it was almost poetry.

"That we did, mate," Ron said as he looked towards Harry with his guilt-written face still intact.

It was poetry.

"That we did," repeated Harry.

We licked our wounds and mourn the dead

Swallow the story hook and sinker

Is that what we meant when we said

That we never would forget?

"Are we bloody crazy?"

"What?"

Al was too busy focusing - on things such as keeping his cousin and himself alive - that he didn't comprehend what his cousin had said to him.

She was probably complaining, he realized; however, he could hardly blame her. When he fed her the idea of going into the Great Forest at night, he knew that she was not for that idea. In fact, he knew that it would she though he was crazy for merely suggesting it. At first, he just though she was just being a wimp, but the longer they spend in the forest - not to mention without exact knowledge of where to look - the more Al realizes that his cousin's fear was not misplaced.

The forest was different at night, Al decided. Very different. The sounds of crickets and random movements were enough to make the two Hogwarts students jump. The almost-insufficient amount of light the Lumos charm provided revealed the dampness and the ghastly features of the forest. Every once and a while, Rose or Al would see a living creature out of the corner of their eye flea, also causing the two to jump.

Although he had learn his lesson about how dangerous the dark arts can be two years ago, Al had continued to find solace in learning about it. Even when his interest sparked during his second year, his original intention was to learn how to defend himself, just his father did: he was so desperate to please him after not being sorted into Gryffindor. However - as fate would have it - all it did was cause him to drift away from his family, and closer to the then-7th year Slytherin (and dark arts extraordinaire) Charles Kunsler.

Thank God for his cousin, Dominique. Although Teddy Lupin was normally the good voice in Al's head, it was she who fully saw what was happening. Niki was at the time 7th year as well, so she knew full well what Charles Kunsler was about and what he wanted out of Al. Therefore, after a long pep-talk with her younger Slytherin cousin during- she always took pride in being the guilt-trip expert - Al came to his senses and had his hand in taking down Kunsler and his little club of neo-death eaters, which could have resulted in the death of Scorpius .

However, even after all this experience under his belt, Al still understood that he simply wasn't prepared for this dark forest.

"I said, are we bloody crazy?" Rose asked as fear leaked from her voice like blood from a flesh wound.

"I'm glad you put both of us in that equation," Al admitted, after realizing he had no answer that she would like to hear.

"It's bloody suicide to be doing this at night," Rose exclaimed. She did not realize that her cousin actually agreed with her. "Even if we did find the Centaurs, they'd carry us back to the castle themselves."

"I don't plan on finding the Centaurs," admitted Al softly.

He heard his cousin's footsteps stop in their tracks behind him. She knew that she was wearing her furious face.

"What the hell do you mean!?" she almost screamed.

Suddenly, another disturbance came from the bushes, only this time it was much loud. And closer.

Rose rushed to Al, grabbing his arm in fear. He withdrew his wand and kept it downward, doing his best to look brave. However, he could not fool himself. In fact, he was almost to the point of shivering - Rose would have normally say "your certainly no Gryffindor".

It jumped out from the bushes cousins the cousins to fall flat on their backsides. The size of the creature alone was enough to leave them in awe; not to mention the fact that it was a human body with 4 horse legs.

The two continued staring at the Centaur as they remained panted on the floor. Al and Rose have never seen one before - though Al has seen many pictures of them - so they were naturally awestruck. What made things more intimidating was the weapon (which looked like a crossbow) on a strap over his (its?) shoulder. Rose felt like she was going to pass out, as Al felt the strangest mixture of fear and accomplishment.

There was an awkward silence as the Centaur stared at the two with it's arms crossed, so Al said the first think he could think of to break the silence.

"Hi."

"Hogwarts students?" asked the Centaur with a deep (almost demonic) voice immediately after Al spoke.

"We can exlai-"

"No speaking," the Centaur interrupted before Al could finish his sentence. Rose did not feel like speaking anytime soon. "I'm taking you back to the castle," he said as he slowly walked towards the two.

The Centaur grabbed Al and Rose with one arm each and pulled them to their feet with ease. Rose felt like she was going to collapse.

"Don't you want to know what we're doing here?" asked Al.

"It is no concern of mine," the Centaur responded. "We'll let your headmaster deal with such things,"

"Please," Al tried once more. "Just let us explain, we're looking for-"

"I said no speaking," the Centaur rose it's voice. "Come, for I do not wish to force you."

"Let them speak, Nuka," came another voice from behind the Rose and Al.

The two students turned there heads quickly to see where the voice was coming from; it was another Centaur. Although the size of this one was rightfully inhuman, it was not as big as Nuka. It was much thinner and he had a very warm and welcoming face, unlike the other who's face seemed as vicious as the weapon in his hand.

"Two students such as these would not wonder into our forest at night without a reason," commented the newly-arrived Centaur.

Nuka focused his attention away from his counterpart and towards Rose and Al. Rose was shivering with fear, and Al wasn't too far behind her. They waited rather impatiently for the giant Centaur to say something.

"You have 30 seconds," said Nuka firmly with his arms still crossed.

Rose immediately nudged her cousin with her elbow and gave him a look that would say: "go on". He shot a look back at her before he slowly approached the large cross-armed Centaur. With each step, he felt his cowardice rise, yet he decided that this had to be done.

"We're looking for a friend," were the only words that found it's way out of the young Slytherin's mouth.

"In the forest?" asked Nuka upon realizing Al wasn't saying anymore. "In the hours of the night?"

"Well," began Al. "We think…"

He trailed off. He didn't really know how to say it without loosing the attention of the Centaurs. Hogwarts is known for having their fair-share of false story-tellers; therefore, Al was doing his best to find the right words.

"Yes?" asked Nuka.

"We think he may be a vampire."

Al turned to Rose upon hearing the words from her mouth. Before he could say anything, the Centaur spoke up.

"Some friend, is he?" he said with a sarcastic tone. "Never even told you what he is?"

"Nuka," said the smaller Centaur softly as he slowly approached his counterpart. "They must be looking for him."

"Quiet, Vetano," snapped Nuka.

"They match the descriptions," the other Centaur - apparently named Vetano - kept speaking. "They must be his friends."

The two students were suddenly filled with hope.

"You…you've seen him?" asked Al with a sense of relief in his voice. "You know him?"

"Vetano," Nuka turned to the other Centaur. "Are you prepared for the repercussions?"

"What repercussions?" Vetano responded. "If these are his friends, what can it do besides good?"

Nuka turned back to the to humans, who although their hope was rekindled, they still sported scared faces. Al and Rose studied the large Centaurs face with no success. For are they know, they could be on their way back to the castle already.

However, the their surprise, Nuka took a step back, as if to say: "go ahead".

"Follow me," said Vetano as he began to walk that was paved for him by the larger Centaur.

Rose and Al both felt emotions they couldn't identify as they followed Vetano through the dark forest. Was it excitement? Anxiousness? Fear? Perhaps a mixture of all three.

"I must apologize for Nuka," began Vetano as they continued their stroll through the forest. "However, he was right." He came to a stop as he turned around to face the students, who subsequently stopped as well. "Although I truthfully believe you are his friends, coming here at night without a guide was not smart. You will be wise not do so again."

The students felt a wave of guilt and gratitude.

"Before we continue, I must ask," continued the smaller - yet still big - Centaur. "He spoke nothing but virtue of his two best friends, yet he chose not to confront you. Are you sure you are ready for what you might see?"

It was him. It had to be him. There was almost no doubt in Al's mind that the Centaur was leading him to Scorpius. Although Rose was thinking the same thing, another thought gravely entered her head: What had he really become that made him hide from his two best friends? Could Al be right?

"Yes," spoke up Al next to a silent Rose.

"I hope so," Vetano spoke as he continued to walk through the forest. "He should be feeding now."

"Feeding?" Rose whispered to herself as she followed closely.

Rose heart was racing a million beats per second. Although Al claimed he was ready to see Scorpius, she wasn't. Not until she understood what had happened to him. Not until she understood where he had been. Not until she understood what he had seen. Not until she understood what he is.

They suddenly stopped in the heart of the forest.

The two cousins followed the index finger the Centaur suddenly cast. It pointed to an animal. A dead animal - which from a distance looked like a stag - however, it was what was next to the animal which really tightened the stomachs of the two students.

His mouth was attached to the carcass' midsection. The sounds of slurping and gulping cursed their ears like an awfulhex. They noticed the creature's stomach moving up and down, in taking and digesting his meal. They saw his long blonde hair dance with the winter breeze.

Rose felt her eyes water. She couldn't move. She couldn't think. She just stared her Scorpius.

It was Al who made the move. He slowly walked away from his cousin and the Centaur and towards the creature feeding on the animal.

Suddenly, the predator shot his head up and let out a sound. Although the sound he made wasn't human, it also wasn't quite a growl. It was more like a grunt a wolf would make while investigating a smell. However, this creature was no wolf, although he certainly had the teeth of one.

He focused his golden eyes on the very last two faces he expected to see, one of which was slowly approaching.

A tear dropped from Rose's right eye upon the sight of him. His golden eyes pierced her more violently and swiftly than his teeth ever could. He sniffed the air, and seemed intrigued wit the smell. His demon-like face and the crimson liquid embracing his lips only confirmed her worse fear, and all she could do was cry.

Al continued to approach his best friend, all the way until the two were face to face. He watched as Scorpius' face transformed back into the face he once remembered, complete with his silver eyes.

The look Scorpius gave him was one of guilt and sorrow, which seemed to act as a plague towards the four beings present.

Still we breathe with broken lungs

We act like none of this matters

Is that what we meant when we said

That we'd sing what must be sung?

Knock Knock Knock

Knock Knock Knock

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

"Alrigh' alrigh', I'm comin'!"

He opened his front door said, and feasted his eyes on three young faces.

"Albus?" he asked just after checking his watch. "It's almost lights out! What are yer…"

He froze at the sight of Rose and who was standing next to him.

"Scorpius?" he asked, feeling both relieved upon the return of his best student, and confused upon why the kids showed up at this hour.

"Professor," began Al. "We have a problem. A big one."