Chapter Two
Usually Hogwarts students were given leave to trickle into breakfast at their leisure, or even to skip it altogether in favor of cramming or sleeping in. However, this morning the Heads of House and other teachers they recruited woke up each and every student and escorted all of each House to the Great Hall. Being in the same House, Albus and a very tight-faced Scorpius went down together, accompanied by Slughorn. Albus noted his friend's strained expression and asked, "Scor? Do you know what's going on here?"
"Er—you'll—you'll see soon enough, Al. I can't talk about it."
Albus frowned. "What's that supposed to mean? Are you okay?"
Scorpius let out a gusty sigh. "Yeah, somehow. And—I—Albus, look, you'll hear it at announcements this morning."
Albus's frown grew deeper. He put his hand on Scorpius's arm. "Are you sure—"
"Al, for the love of god, shut up. Thanks for your concern, but I—I just can't…"
Albus was quiet, but he didn't take his eyes off his friend the whole way to the Great Hall. Slytherin House was the second House to arrive, Gryffindor of course being the first. Scorpius looked up and met brown eyes across the room. They stared agitatedly into his for about a minute before being torn away. Scorpius frowned slightly. What are you doing, Rose?
She rummaged in her bag, coming up with a quill and a small piece of scrap parchment. She scribbled an efficient note, brought the parchment to her mouth, whispered a charm, and blew. Scorpius raised his eyebrows, catching her eye again. She grimaced slightly, eyes flicking to the note now resting in front of him. Scorpius smiled slightly and picked it up. His smile grew a bit wider. She has really bloody terrible handwriting. The note said:
Malfoy, do you know what they're going to do?
Scorpius hummed slightly in thought. He absently reached into his school bag, finding a quill of his own. He thought a bit more, then wrote, No, but if they've any sense at all they won't name us. He paused. They've got to bring the Ministry in. This is too big for them to sort out. Scorpius repeated Rose's motion and charm, sending the parchment flapping over to her in the shape of a paper bird.
Rose rolled her eyes at his showing off, but snatched the note out of the air, reading it quickly. She started to write an answer, but Scorpius noticed that McGonagall was up on stage, standing before the podium. He waved at Rose, eyes boring into her in order to get her attention. She looked up at him questioningly, and his eyes flicked to where McGonagall was apparently making an elaborate occasion out of clearing her throat.
Rose's eyes followed his, and both of their attentions turned to the Headmistress.
"You have all been called here this morning due to a most disturbing incident that occurred last night. Miss Ella Rhees of Hufflepuff was done an act of violence that can only be described as horrific." She stopped. "The perpetrators will come forward. And if they do not, we will just remove privileges and interrogate any suspects until we find the culprits."
Scorpius met Rose's eyes again, seeing his own expression and thoughts mirrored there: What?
Rose's head bent again, and soon enough Scorpius felt a piece of parchment nudging his hand.
Why the bloody hell didn't they say they'd involve the Ministry?
Scorpius smiled a wry, hopeless smile and jotted, Well, either they are stupid and don't think things are quite that dire yet, or they don't plan on involving the Ministry, which is quite simply mental. He sent her the note, saw her nod as she read it. She poised her quill to write a response, but her eyes lost focus for a second, no doubt reminded of something. Then her face grew hard, and she scrawled a simple response, sending the note shooting towards his face with the force of a bullet. He had to clap his hands over the note to stop it from cutting up his face. He read it.
I want to know who did this.
He looked at her, confused. By now he was giving up all pretense of listening to McGonagall. After all, he knew what had happened. Rose's brown eyes hadn't lost their dangerous edge. He drummed a light, short pattern on the table, disturbed. He carefully wrote out, We all do.
He watched her face as she read it, giving a little exasperated sigh and scratching out something in reply. His eyebrows shot up when he saw it: But it's obvious Hogwarts is not going to go about this the way it needs to. I think we need to take matters into our own hands.
Scorpius let out a slow breath. Can we discuss after breakfast? I'm a fast eater, so I should be done by eight-thirty, provided McGonagall stops yammering.
Instead of writing him a note back, Rose just caught his eye and nodded. Scorpius gave her a final nod of his own, acknowledging that he'd seen. Then Albus tugged his sleeve and began interrogating Scorpius. He tried to answer his friend's questions as best he could, but even the memory of Ella, just—hanging there… He shuddered violently, provoking another worried stare from Albus.
"Mate…"
Scorpius swallowed hard. "I'll be all right. It's just—you don't know what it was like, especially when I saw the—the Dark Mark…"
Albus was looking at him like he was insane. "Dark Mark? What?"
Scorpius stared back. "McGonagall didn't tell you lot about it?"
"No, she never said anything about a Dark Mark," said Albus carefully. "Was—was there one?"
Scorpius looked around. No one was paying attention, so he leaned closer and murmured, "If you tell anyone, you're worse than dead."
Albus nodded shortly. "Got it."
Scorpius sighed. "When we found Ella, someone had drawn a Dark Mark on a piece of paper and stuck it above her head. It—it was really disturbing."
Albus was silent for a moment. "That is the fucking understatement of the year," he said quietly. "Disturbing? Bloody hell, Scorpius."
But Scorpius was getting up, having locked eyes with a certain Gryffindor across the Hall and noting wryly in his thoughts that he and she had become masters of nonverbal communication.
Albus looked amused. "Since when are you so chummy with my cousin?"
Scorpius sighed. "Since she's decided to drag me even deeper into this damn mess," he muttered cryptically, and started off after Rose's impatient, fast-retreating form.
#
"So," said Rose, sitting across from him at a bare mahogany table in the Room of Requirement, "I think that if they won't bring the Ministry into this, we have to do something."
Scorpius looked at her, eyebrows arched. "You are not seriously Gryffindoring out and expecting me to join in?"
Rose raised an eyebrow of her own. "I'm not Gryffindoring out. And anyway, who do you think is going to get blamed if we don't find out who really did it soon?"
Scorpius paled slightly, gripping the edge of the table. "Slytherin House, I know. I know, damn you." He raked a hand through his hair. "But… what makes you think we could find things out the teachers couldn't?"
Rose grinned. "The teachers don't have my uncle's invisibility cloak."
Scorpius's eyes snapped to her face, studying her. "And we do?"
The grin widened. "And some other useful items."
"Plus your bevy of cousins at our disposal." Scorpius stopped, realizing what he'd just said. "Oh fuck. Damn it. I really am going to do this with you, aren't I?"
Rose shrugged. "If you want. It will be dangerous, and probably time-consuming and difficult. Who am I to consign you to anything, let alone something as arduous as this?" She paused. "But—whatever happens, I'm going to find out what's going on here. Who did this. And you're intelligent when you want to be, Scorpius. I could use your help."
Scorpius snorted. "Intelligent when I want to be. Really, you shouldn't dote on me so, Rose." His face turned serious and he laced his fingers together, thinking. Finally he looked up at her. He smiled slightly and offered a hand. "I'll go along with your crazy scheme, if only for the honor of Slytherin House—although it probably was one of us. And of course for the rare experience of having a Malfoy come out the hero." He grinned sardonically.
Rose shook her head, but she was smiling and did not hesitate to take his hand. "Excuses, excuses," she quipped, and they were truly allies.