Chapter Seven

Rose took her time getting back to her dorm, thinking worrying thoughts. The one at the forefront of her mind was, How could I have hated this guy? They were very different, yes, but they were also very alike in ways she hadn't cared to notice before. The most striking parallel was obviously Demetri and Bella. But she shoved that hurriedly out of her head. It's not like that, he doesn't know, what I did wasn't right, but that doesn't mean it was entirely wrong either, he needed to be taken down a peg…

It was always a slippery slope that way, she thought. She still wasn't sure whether she wanted to tell Scorpius the full story or whether she wanted to scream at him to stay out of her business. To be fair, he had let her dig deeper into the Bella stuff than she had let him dig into her and Demetri, but she was also just getting used to not thinking of Scorpius as the enemy. It might help her get the whole thing off her chest, but she had confided in Albus, and she was pretty sure that for now, that should be enough. Someday when she felt ready, perhaps she'd offer him a trade. Bella for Demetri.

She shook her head. Scorpius Malfoy never failed to leave her out of sorts with each conversation, especially these days. It was frustrating, but she found that she didn't really mind it as much as she expected to.

That was worrying. That was really worrying.

She looked up when she heard voices, relaxed when she saw Albus and James grinning at her. "Ah, dear Rosie. Always the pensive one," Albus said with a smile. "So where have you been?"

"With your roommate." Rose didn't miss James's slight frown.

"Scorpius? And what have you been up to? This crazy case of yours?" Albus asked, teasing in his tone.

"It's not crazy."

James snorted. "Nah. You're crazy if you think you're going to get anything out of investigating it."

"Oh, have faith. Scorp's not as dumb as he looks."

"Only sometimes," Rose countered with a slight grin. "You're certainly in high spirits."

"Always, when there's pumpkin pie for dessert. And of course there's the Slytherin versus Gryffindor game tomorrow."

"We'll beat the shit out of you," James said flatly, but his grin took the edge off of his words.

"I don't know about that," Albus countered, "We've got a top-flight team this year."

"Top-flight team? That's not worth shit. Red beats green, always."

Albus raised an eyebrow. "That's what you think."

Rose cleared her throat, deciding it was best to escape while she could. "Goodnight, guys."

"Night, Rosie," her cousins chorused, then went back to arguing as she walked away.

Once she got back to her room, Rose felt ill at ease. She tried to read and do some homework that wasn't due for a while, but she felt restless. Her mind had moved to plaguing her about the Ella thing.

Why weren't there more attacks? What was the point of attacking just Ella Rhees, who never hurt anyone? Maybe Scorpius and I were jumping to conclusions when we saw the Dark Mark, but it's very coincidental, isn't it? Insecure Muggleborn witch, Dark Mark. That's not something someone does for a bit of a laugh.

Rose ran her hands through her hair, looked at the clock. Ten-thirty. She'd been driving herself to distraction for a little over two hours. She sighed, stood, stretched. She looked over at her roommates, who had come in an hour or so ago and hadn't bothered to disturb her, and who were also soundly asleep. She smiled. I think I'll go for a walk.

Much as her family and Scorpius liked to tease her about her conscientious observance of most of Hogwarts' rules and regulations, even ones that other students ignored or even publicly flouted, it wasn't really that she always obeyed them so much as that she didn't get caught on the irregular occasions that she disobeyed them. The rule she most frequently disobeyed was curfew, despite her prefect status.

Rose had always been a fitful sleeper, and when she couldn't sleep she liked to walk. She never left the house when she was at home, but oftentimes she would walk through the garden, maybe bring a book and sit out in the night air. Her first year was unbearable. Finally near the end of it she borrowed the Invisibility Cloak from Albus, who held it for safekeeping, and felt a whole lot happier. During Fourth Year she started going out without the Cloak, having learned more intimately the many secret passageways of Hogwarts, and of course how not to make noise. When she had been made prefect in Fifth Year she stopped again for a little while, feeling guilty about her near-nightly breaches. Then, of course, she almost didn't get top marks on one of her OWLs, and started up again.

She opened the door quietly, softly in that practiced way she had, and looked both ways. Then, wand up, she crept out of her room and down the stairs. Finally, she bypassed the Fat Lady, who was by this point so familiar with Rose's nightly jaunts that she barely shifted.

Rose peered through the gloom halfheartedly. If there was someone there, it was probably a housemate, who wouldn't turn her in out of loyalty, or a Slytherin, whom she could probably hex and not feel bad abou—

And then she remembered Scorpius earlier today. The Madam Pince incident. And she remembered how sometimes Albus would come sit with her at lunch, and people would actually glare at him, despite the fact that his father was the Savior of the wizarding world. She stopped herself from banging on the wall, but only just. Goddammit, just how bad has your life gotten if you're a Gryffindor who can't hex Slytherins?

She started to walk, softly but furiously, at the speed Scorpius had complained about. She looked about the familiar scene, comforted. Hogwarts in the day was her school, flooded with other students and teachers and problems. But Hogwarts in the night was silent, tranquil—hers. She chose to conveniently forget that Ella had been attacked during the night.

Rose breathed the night air and got progressively calmer as she walked the shifting stairs and twisting corridors. That's it, don't think. Give yourself some time off. She followed her feet, and eventually, obviously, came to the corridor where this had all started, where she and Scorpius had found Ella. She ran her fingers along the now-bare wall. Her blood was gone, thank Merlin, and so was the Dark Mark. Ella's form hung spectrally before her eyes, just on the cusp of seeing, but Rose turned away, forcing herself to count each stone on the floor beneath her feet.

And then she felt a hand snake around her waist. And then she tried to scream.

There was a chuckle in her ear. "You freak out so easily, Rose."

Her eyes went wide and she turned in the very familiar intruder's grasp. "Scorpius?" she hissed incredulously. Of course she couldn't see him; he had probably taken the Cloak from Al. But she was too incensed to care which part of him she was enthusiastically attempting to bash in.

And of course, the git was laughing. "Shh, shh, calm down, we'll get caught," he said with the few breaths he could snatch in between bouts of hysteria. She continued hissing curses and variegated epithets at him, not noticing his arm still around her waist. "I don't give a shit about getting caught, you asshole! You scared the shit out of me—"

"That was rather the intention."

"It shouldn't have been! You're one to talk. 'You'll get us caught.' Have you any idea how wrong that could have gone—"

"Shh, shh. Seriously."

"And then you did the hand over my mouth thing again! What are you, some kind of rapist? Just because half the female population of Hogwarts has had an extremely misguided crush on you at some point does not give you the right to—"

"All right, all right, I'm sorry!" He was still laughing, but by this time he had somehow drawn her under the Invisibility Cloak as well, a remarkable display of foresight on his part.

"And get your bloody hands off me!"

He smirked. "This whole working-together thing has not diluted the joy of making you ridiculously angry at all. I hope you know that." He did, however, get his bloody hands off her. "What are you doing up, anyway?"

"I might ask you the same," she countered, too quickly and defensively. Well fuck him, she thought furiously, using every iota of her self-control to stop herself from punching the lingering smirk off of his face, it's none of his business.

"No, you mightn't. I'm a Slytherin. I'm obviously planning something evil. You, however, are Miss Perfect Prefect, who should be soundly asleep in her bed—"

"Don't start with me." She warned, a threatening hand on his chest, fingertips poised to jump up and fasten around his neck.

"All right, all right. An eye for an eye. I couldn't sleep, and so I'm trying to catch Greg Goyle in the act," he said, only a slight hint of humor in his tone.

She sighed, backing up, anger cooling. "I couldn't sleep either. I was taking a walk."

He blinked at her. "A walk?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Yes, a walk. Got a problem?"

He shook his head incredulously. "A walk. Fine." He sighed. "And obviously your feet dragged you here."

"As did yours." They stared at each other thoughtfully for a while. Rose noticed that Scorpius's skin was even paler than usual, and that the bruises of the shadows underneath his eyes were more pronounced than your average Hogwarts student's. His usually immaculate or at least dashingly disheveled hair was truly messy. He looked exhausted. Too many ghosts, she thought suddenly. Both of us. Perhaps that's why I hated him in the first place—because he reminds me of myself, or maybe what I might have been.

Rose suddenly felt a strong connection to this boy she'd hated for so long, almost a literal physical pull toward him, like an industrial-strength magnet. Impulsively, she took his hand, studied it so she didn't have to see his reaction. Eventually he put his other hand over their joined ones. They stood like that for a minute.

Then he said, "What is it with you and me and standing around in silence?"

Her mouth quirked. "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

He laughed, a chuckle from somewhere deep in his throat. "You know, not to kill the moment or anything, but I've been wondering—why the hell hasn't something else happened yet?"

Rose nodded. "I've been thinking something similar. Why would someone just attack Ella? I mean, did you see the girl? And now it's getting to look more like a one-off, but it doesn't make sense for it to be. It's a sick, sick person who bothers with the Dark Mark for a one-off."

"Maybe they chickened out."

She looked up into his eyes, dark with ill humor. "Again, who chickens out of that? To do something so drastic and then—" she didn't finish, shrugging helplessly.

"I don't know, Rose. I don't know." He sighed. "Lulling us into a false sense of security?"

Rose was quiet for a minute, thinking. The perpetrators would have to know that she and Scorpius were poking around. If they did… "Do you think they know?" It wasn't as though they had been making a secret of what they were doing, but it wasn't exactly widespread knowledge, either.

He gripped her hand tighter. "I don't know. If they do, we may be in deep, deep shit."

Rose tensed up slightly, chewing the inside of her cheek, agitated. Her eyes snapped up to his face. "Walk with me."

"Cloak's not big enough to cover both of us by now," he pointed out.

She waved a hand dismissively. "I don't need it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Cocky, aren't we?"

She shrugged. "I've never been much of a sleeper. I always take walks when I can't sleep."

He snorted. "Not much of a sleeper. Only you, Rose, only you."

She shrugged again and slipped out from under the Cloak, and they began to walk. They did not speak much out of necessity—they needed to be able to hear footsteps. There were a few close calls—Filch again, and some scheming Ravenclaws that they hid from out of caution and on principle. But mostly their walk was peaceful. Although she was not going to admit it even to herself, Rose enjoyed Scorpius's presence. During the first few minutes, she reached out a hand to check that he was still there beside her, but after that he made intermittent remarks, seeing her insecurity, and even later she just trusted he was there.

By the time they swung back around towards the Gryffindor dorms, it was a little after midnight. Scorpius had been quiet for a while, so Rose volunteered, "You know, I enjoyed this. Thanks for walking with me."

"Sure." His voice came through the dark as if it were coming out from behind a curtain. "You do this a lot, you said?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I… I just don't sleep well. Never have."

There was a slightly uncomfortable silence. "You should get that checked out."

Rose laughed lightly. "I don't need a Healer to tell me I'm an insomniac. Believe me, I know. It's how I get all my homework done."

Scorpius snorted. "Yes, well, that's everybody above Fourth Year. You should still have it seen to."

"Certainly, Mother," she quipped. What does he care? Well, I'm not being fair, but so?

He laughed a bit. "I suppose you'll tell me next I should have my lechery seen to."

She cocked her head. "Well… you're not half so bad as you make yourself out to be. At least you know what you are."

"I'm sticking my tongue out at you. Just so you know."

She laughed, then got quiet. They were approaching a corner now, and she always got most paranoid before turning corners. She stopped to listen. Years of practice allowed her to detect the slight susurrus. She frowned. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Rose stopped him from turning the corner by flinging an arm in the general direction of his chest. "Peek around there for me, will you," she whispered. Voices. Animated voices.

Scorpius did so, and abruptly tugged her under the Cloak. She glowered. "Will you stop—"

"Shut up." Startled, she complied. She had only heard that certain tone in his voice a few times in all the time she'd known him, and it had never been good. He looked again. "Fucking Merlin. Fuck fuck fuck."

"Professors?"

He turned his face to her, and his eyes were wide and pale with fear, as was the rest of him. "Much worse." His voice rasped in his throat. She looked at him concernedly. What— "They, um. They even went to the trouble of copying the cowls."

A violent shiver ran down Rose's spine, and she clutched his sleeve. "You're not serious."

"Do you honestly think," and she knew by the tense way he bit this out, even before he had finished the sentence she knew, "that I would be stupid enough or cruel enough to make it up?"

Adrenaline raced through her veins, adrenaline and fear. Blood pounded in her ears, and she was sweating cold bullets. She trembled and clutched Scorpius, her knuckles snow-capped and sharp against her skin. "I'm not ready for this," she rasped.

"Should we wait them out—"

"No." Her heart was ravaging her ribcage, and she could feel Scorpius's doing the same to his against the hand with which she now gripped his shirtfront.

"You're not suggesting we—I mean, we're so vastly outnumbered—" he looked at her and said, "Oh god, Rose. No. Please. Don't do this. You don't know what they'll do to us—to you—"

"But if, before they did it, if I saw just one face, immobilized just one—"

"The chances are miniscule! You could get seriously hurt!"

"I don't give a shit! What they did to Ella—"

It was about then that they realized that the hall had gone quiet. "Who's there," called a voice neither of them recognized. "Come on out. We won't hurt you." The words were contradicted by the snickering following them.

"You have your wand?" she whispered.

Scorpius scoffed, wand slipping out from his sleeve and into his hand. "Stupid question, darling."

Rose already had her own wand out. "We have to stay under the Cloak for as long as we can."

"Come on! Come out, guys. We need to see who you are," said the same voice as before, sweet as poisoned honey.

"Ready?"

"No. I just realized I like you a lot more than I thought I did." Scorpius reached over and squeezed her hand. "Please don't get killed."

Rose squeezed back. "Ditto. And if you die, I will be so, so angry with you."

They took a simultaneous deep breath, turned the corner, and started hexing like mad.

It took about five minutes for their attackers to catch on to where they were based on the direction their hexes were coming from, and one more to notice their shoes poking out from under the Cloak. Without warning him, Rose ran out from under the Cloak and to the other side of the hall.

"Weasley! I should've known," one growled. "Petrificus Totalus!"

Rose deflected it and disarmed him, then quickly turned and threw a Bat-Bogey Hex at someone else. She could hear virulent swearing from Scorpius across the hall.

There were only ten of them, but it felt like so much more. Rose was deflecting hexes furiously, casting faster than she could get the proper incantations off her tongue. She tried to keep track of Scorpius, but he was moving about constantly, now here, now there, and eventually she decided to keep her mind on her attackers.

She turned just in time to be hit by a jet of red light—only to have it be deflected by Scorpius, who had emerged beside her. "As soon as this is over," he panted, "Confundo! We will have words, Miss Weasley."

She smiled and cursed someone so forcefully that he (she?) audibly hit the wall.

"I'm serious. You ever—Petrificus Totalus!—pull that shit on me again, I'll kill you myself!"

One of the would-be Death Eaters was staring. "Scorpius Malfoy?"

"The one and only," said Scorpius, "Furnunculus!"

Rose laughed. "I'm glad I brought you along. Expelliarmus!"

"You ought to be."

There were now four attackers still standing, and one of them was beginning to resuscitate the others. Scorpius swore and sent several curses Rose wasn't sure were entirely legal towards him, but the others deflected all of them, forming a protective semicircle around him.

Rose was still cursing and hexing as quickly as possible, but she was also scanning the fallen and those still standing. Listening to the curses, trying to identify voices, hoping for a ripped cloth or something through which she could see a snatch of recognizable face. Suddenly an idea came to her. I can make my own rips!

"Diffindo!" she cried, aiming at someone aiming his or her wand at Scorpius. The hood ripped, but she couldn't see anything of note. She cast the spell again at someone else.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Trying to unmask them!"

"Well, can you cast curses too? They're getting back up!"

"Fine. Flipendo!" She continued casting curses and at intervals Diffindo, but never got anything more than a flash of hair, maybe an eye color. She was getting increasingly worried. How long could they hold them off?

"Stupefy!" said someone, and the red jet almost hit Scorpius. Rose countered it with a quick "Protego!" and in so doing did not see the curse headed her way.

The pain was stunning. Overriding. Rose fell to the floor, unable to bear it. She coughed, and her vision blurred when she saw that the fluid that came up was red. She thought she heard Scorpius yelling her name, footsteps, more curses. She tried to speak, to tell Scorpius that she was all right, don't do anything stupid, but the pain was too much. Too much. I'm sorry, she tried to say, but then her vision dimmed, and she remembered nothing after that.

#

Rose slept for a long time after that, longer than she had in years. She had strange dreams full of blood and blinding meteors that must have been spells, but did not wake for what seemed like an eternity. When finally she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was James and Scorpius arguing.

"Why didn't you protect her?"

"I did the best I could! I told you a thousand times, there was nothing I could have done, and if you believe that I'm not ready to jump off the Astronomy Tower over this, then you've got another think coming!"

"Scorp, Scorp, don't be so dramatic," Albus pleaded, standing between his brother and his friend. "And James, let him alone."

"I won't! Son of a bitch probably cursed Rosie himself!"

"How dare you," Scorpius growled, and leapt at James, Albus barely restraining them both, saying, "Guys, guys! Stop!"

Rose tried to sit up and failed, hitting her already smarting head against the headboard. At least the thump got their attention. Scorpius was the first one at her bedside by dint of being the closest and immediately was beside her, grabbing her shoulders and saying, "Are you all right? Sweet Merlin, you're awake! Is your head hurting? Do you want water?"

When she assured him that she was fine, and that she wasn't thirsty, he sighed and turned a powerful glare on her. "Do you have any idea how terribly you scared me?" he said quietly, dangerously. "You have been in bed for three days. Three fucking days! And not only that, but you had to get hit while protecting me. Fucking Merlin's testicles, Rose, I don't matter! And then there was the business with you running out from under the Invisibility Cloak. What the fuck possessed you?"

"I had to distract—"

"No fucking excuses! I do not want excuses from you, missy."

Well, Rose had to start laughing then. "Missy?" she said between giggles. "Are you serious?"

"No—yes—listen to my bloody lecture, you stupid, brave, stupid bint!"

The laughter hurt, so she stopped, but she was still grinning widely. Scorpius stared at her for a moment, a strange look in his eyes.

Suddenly he pulled her to him, fingers threading in her hair as he said, "I am so, so fucking grateful you're alive."

Then James shoved roughly at Scorpius's shoulder. "All right, that's enough, Malfoy. I only let you talk because you were expressing my sentiments exactly." Scorpius flipped him off but moved aside. Then Rose's family descended on her with all their might, hugs and tears and kisses and laughter and yelling. From the cacophony and general disorder, Rose was able to discern that Scorpius had flown into a rage when she'd been knocked unconscious, or possibly that her attacker had realized the gravity of what he had done and fled, taking the others with him and casting Mobilicorpus on the ones who were still unconscious. She was also told that her injuries had mostly been flesh wounds, but that she had gone into a coma for three days due to blood loss and shock. Most of them came to visit whenever they could, but James, Albus, Hugo, and, surprisingly, Scorpius refused to move from her bedside.

She looked at them all with tears in her eyes. "I love you all so much."

"And we love you," James said in his rare fond tones.

"Are you in pain at all?" Scorpius asked worriedly. "It's Mrs. Quince's lunch break right now, but I could find you pain-relieving potion—" Mrs. Quince was the resident nurse.

"I hurt a little bit, Scorpius—don't get up!—but it's not that bad. What I would really like is some food."

"What do you want? Your wish is my command," Scorpius said with a grin and a bow, which caused James to roll his eyes.

Rose laughed, ignoring the pain. "You pompous prat! Let's see, I want—"

"Before you say anything, Miss Weasley, you should know that you're on a diet for a bit. Upsetting your stomach right now would be a very bad idea," said Mrs. Quince as she briskly entered the room and pointed her wand at Rose, who flinched involuntarily. "Oh, dear, don't be afraid! I'm just going to run some standard tests," the woman said, sympathetic and slightly surprised.

Rose smiled awkwardly, sheepish. "Sorry, I—it's just—"

"No one blames you, dear. Just relax. Mr. Malfoy, get the girl some pumpkin juice and something light to eat."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Light?"

"Fruits. Salad. Something like that," Quince said dismissively, flicking her wand about in front of Rose. Scorpius left.

Finally Quince finished. "All right, Miss Weasley. You are mostly healed, but I'm going to keep you here for another two days just in case. You had a few internal injuries, and I think it would be best if you got some extra rest."

Rose nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Quince."

The witch smiled. "My pleasure. You're much more polite than most of my patients, who whine that I'm keeping them from Quidditch or somesuch nonsense," she said with a look toward James and Albus, who had the decency to color slightly. "Now, will the rest of you leave? Please? Miss Weasley needs as much rest as she can get."

Grumbling and muttering, her family filed out, everyone giving her goodbye hugs. Scorpius soon returned with fruit salad and pumpkin juice for her, as well as a chocolate frog. He told her to hide the latter, just in case. "Well, surely she can't forbid me chocolate," Rose said jokingly.

"Oh, that woman can and will do anything." They laughed, and then lapsed into awkward silence. Suddenly Scorpius said, "Thank you. I owe you. But you shouldn't have protected me. It was only a stun. What he did to you—"

But Rose was shaking her head. "Just be grateful. Or—better—thank me and forget about it. I don't have any permanent injuries, so don't worry."

"But—"

"If you don't stop, I'll call Quince and tell her you're disturbing my rest," Rose said frankly.

Scorpius laughed, sitting on her bed. "That's just cruel."

Rose nodded slightly to show that she conceded his point, but said, "Don't underestimate me, Scorpius."

He took her hand. "I never will again."

Rose sighed. "You really are a pompous prat."

He grinned. "I know. Are you going to sleep for once? I'm always available for walking, but Quince would probably have a conniption."

She smiled back. "I think I'll try to sleep. But when classes finish, come back and bring me books."

"Yes, your highness."

She shoved him playfully. "Oh, just go. Perhaps you'll learn something useful. Or maybe some manners."

"By that wording you imply that manners aren't useful." She rolled her eyes and opened her mouth but he said, "Good night, Rose," pulled her into a slightly clumsy one-armed hug, and left. She sighed and shook her head, then lay down and segued into sleep with unprecedented ease.