Harry Potter: Dark Lord, Loving Father
Chapter 3: Reasons Why
"Well," Draco echoed, a wide smirk spreading across his pale lips as he looked down at the old, broken heirloom in his hand, "are you going to fix it, or not?"
Realizing what Draco meant, Harry pulled out the Elder Wand and cast a simple, "Reparo," at the rusted thing. They both watched, fascinated as the pieces knitted themselves back together and the rust and tarnish vanished almost just as quickly, making the Slytherin ring appear to be newly wrought.
"So, all that rubbish you were going on about before, while you were avoiding that Gryffindor wife of yours... wasn't all just a bunch of shite, then, after all," the Malfoy commented, grinning at Harry's reaction concerning the mention of his wife.
"Ginny's just jealous," he rationalized to Draco, scowling, as he remembered all those fights he had over the summer with Ginny after he'd told her of his decision to teach. Of course, it didn't help that he'd already been hired by the time he thought to even mention the whole thing to her, which just made things progressively worse between the two of them.
"Sure, Potter, you keep telling yourself that -- that and that you're still the Light's hero," Draco retorted, rolling his eyes at the other wizard's childish behaviour in ignoring his glaring marriage problems.
Harry shook his head and snatched the repaired ring out of the blonde's long-fingered hands. "Well," he continued, changing the tone of the conversation as he wiggled the plain gold band that symbolized his union with Ginny and replaced it with the Slytherin ring after assessing the best finger to put the bloody thing on. "It's the only on that it'll fit on," Harry told Draco, depositing the wedding ring in his robe pocket. "Are we going to find something to torture and maim, or what?" the green-eyed wizard questioned, with a slightly crazed smile plastered in his face.
Draco was too stunned by the display at first to say anything clever. But soon enough, though, he started walked pasted the ex-Gryffindor, pausing when he realized Harry wasn't following him, looking over his shoulder, "I'm waiting on you, now, Potter. Hurry up, or you're going to get your arse lost... again."
---------
Scorpius, on the other hand, was coughing his lungs out, as he grabbed a hold of Albus' robes, unable to go any further at the pace they were jogging. "Al," he panted, gasping for breath. The Potter nearly tripped when Scorpius stopped so abruptly and turned around, watching his friend, concerned.
"You coughing up a hairball, Scorp? Should I go get Dad?" Al asked, a thin eyebrow raised as he squatted down next to the Malfoy, smirking as Slytherins so often seemed to do.
"No, you arse!" he wheezed, clutching his chest. "How on earth... do manage to... run like that?"
"Years of experience from running from Dad and your father, of course," Al returned with a shrug, nonchalantly.
"Besides," the blonde retorted, managing to gain control of his breathing once more, standing up once more, "I'm not a cat -- maybe you are, but I'm a snake," he boasted, smirking. The image was soon ruined by another coughing fit.
"Merlin, man, you need to get into better shape--!"
Albus was interrupted by Scorpius, who clapped his hand over Al's mouth, hissing for him to be quiet. "We better get back to the castle, unless someone else finds us, other than our fathers. They'll be relentless against us -- after all, we're Slytherins, no matter who your father might be," Scorpius reminded in a whisper.
Nodding, Albus followed Scorpius as they slipped back into the castle, unnoticed, so far. Clinging to the walls, the two made it almost to the dungeons before they saw a lit wand, forcing them to hide behind a statue, uncomfortably close to one another.
"Bloody Percy... think he'll find us?" Al asked, his voice merely a breath.
"Shh!" Scorpius hissed at Albus once more, pushing the shorter boy closer up against the wall, so the shadow would hide them better.
The two teens held their breath as the felt the beam of light pass over the statue, around them, slowly moving away. After a few minutes, they relaxed, Scorpius sticking his head around the statue to make sure the coast was clear.
"Is he gone?" Al asked in a shushed voice, looking up at Scorpius, who was still too close to him for his own personal comfort.
"Yeah, let's go," Scorpius replied, not daring to speak in a voice any louder than a whisper.
Once they got safely into the Slytherin common rooms, the two fifth years hurriedly changed and slipped into Scorpius' bed, shutting the curtains behind them, the Malfoy casting a silencing spell on the curtains. They looked at each other for a long silence, then broke into equally wide grins.
"Well, do you think your father's finally convinced Dad to follow the code?" Albus polled the pale boy, who eagerly nodded in agreement.
"What else would they be doing out in the Forbidden Forrest, so late at night-- after all, there's no Dark Lord to worry about storming the castle. So, the teachers really only need to worry about the students, not an external threat; anything that would be found in the forest coming into Hogwarts wouldn't be any students... See what I mean?" Scorpius explained his reasoning to his pal, ending with a shrug.
"Yeah," Al agreed, nodding, as he thought a little deeper on the subject. "But wouldn't that mean that the next potential Dark Lord is already inside the castle? I just can't wait until that stupid brother of min, James, and his Gryffindor buddies find out -- just to see those horrified expressions, of course."
"After all that stuff about the 'Great' Harry Potter never turning his back on the Wizarding world and such... to think that your father is really the Heir of Slytherin," Scorpius whispered, wondering if it was just the magic that caused Al's father to turn his back on the Wizarding world, or if there was something deeper that was at work.
"I never thought that I'd be in Slytherin, but I suppose it's because Dad's the Heir, now that I do know more. Before, though, I was nearly terrified that if I was a Slytherin, then Dad would hate me -- do you know that he told me before I got on the train, though?" Al paused for a second for a more dramatic effect. "He told me that the hat had wanted to sort him into Slytherin, but he had to practically beg for it not to."
While this didn't complete surprise Scorpius, he was certainly shocked upon hearing this piece of information. "Whoa," he muttered, his mouth hanging open, not unlike a fish.
"If that's not enough," the black haired teen continued, smirking, his dark green eyes glittering behind his glasses, "Dad told me that even if I was sorted into Slytherin, they'd have gained an excellent student, or something along those lines." With that, Al shrugged, covering his mouth with his hand as he yawned. "We should probably get to bed -- don't want to get detention for falling asleep in Percy's bloody class, again, do we?" he asked the blonde, winking at him as he slipped out of the bed and went to his own bed.
Scorpius remembered the number of times when the two of them had gotten punished for sleeping in Weasley's class, especially. Not only were points deducted, but detention for a month, on top of that! The Malfoy swore that the man was the harshest against the Slytherin students, even if it was the son of Harry Potter and his best friend.
Maybe if he found out the reasoning behind why Percy Weasley had such a grudge against Slytherins.... No, that wouldn't make any difference, unfortunately, at least, to why he got the detention, other than saving the information for blackmail, perhaps? That was reason enough for Scorpius to be interested enough to find out for himself.
There wasn't much he could do about it now, so he slithered himself under his green and silver sheets, realizing in the warmth they provided.
Upon being forced awake, Scorpius Malfoy pulled the covers back over his head -- he most certainly wasn't ready to be woken up, to be honest. "Leave me alone, Al," the Slytherin grumbled.
"Too bad, we've already missed much of breakfast, already," he announced, pulling the sheets off of the thinner boy forcefully. "If you take too much longer, you'll be late to Charms."
"Ugh," the blonde responded, rubbing his eyes, groping around for his own glasses, ignoring Albus for the moment, putting the frames on his face.
Once he sat up and the words were processed, Scorpius became suddenly more alert. "What do you mean that I'll be late?!" he demanded, glaring at his supposed best friend.
"I'm too ruddy tired of you dragging me down with you when you get into all sorts of trouble with the anti-Slytherin professors," Al explained, not looking at Scorpius, but, instead, at the door.
"Fine, fine -- just let me get dressed," he muttered, running his hands through his shoulder-length locks, getting out of bed.
"I'll meet you down in the common room," Al called over his shoulder, now strangely cheerful, grinning.
When the pair finally sat down next to each other in Charms, in the back, textbooks, parchment and quills ready on the table, Scorpius turned his gaze to Al. "Hey, do you know why that Weasley uncle of yours is so biased against Slytherin?" he inquired, in a soft voice.
"Apparently, in the war against the previous Dark Lord, Dad says that one of his brothers was killed in the fight here," the Potter responded, looking straight ahead, his eyes slightly dim. "I suspect that there's more than just that though. You know about how Dad and my Mum have filed for divorce? Well, I suspect that Uncle Percy's a bit peeved that Dad pissed his sister off enough for her to hate him. Honestly, I don't know if Dad really wants to get divorced -- he says he loves Mum still..."
"That's not the reasoning for the previous years of hatred, though..." Scorpius murmured, looking up as the teacher walked into the room.
"Good morning, class," Professor Smith greeted the class, setting the tone for his class. The man was about the same age as Harry and Scorpius's father, but seemed to act much less mature. It was a wonder that the man was a teacher, eve, in Scorpius' opinion.
If it weren't for Smith's younger son, Kaleb, being the Prefect for Slytherin, Scorpius wouldn't even bother with Charms. At least, the Hufflepuff head wasn't nearly as biased against Slytherin as the other professors were. Draco had told him that the House of Slytherin was once in better standing than it was in his son's school years. But, it seemed that those days were going to be long gone, once Potter, senior came to his senses.
Scorpius took notes half-heartedly on the rather dull lecture on the history of a charm he already forgot the name of. After long enough, class was dismissed and he got up to leave, catching Al talking in the hall with Kaleb "Raphael" Smith, who was coming into the classroom for the sixth year class.
The Malfoy waited, knowing that his friend wouldn't be too long in talking to the Prefect, whatever they were talking about. He sighed as he shifted the weight of the books to the books for his other classes before lunch in his arms, wishing Al would hurry up. He only had so much patience. After another few minutes, Scorpius gave up waiting and was off to Arithmacy with Professor Greengrass, his deceased mother's older sister.
As always, for this class, he sat in the front, well-prepared -- he'd rather not have his Aunt report to his father that he wasn't paying proper attention in her class. He would only go through that torture once in his life, thank you very much.
"Welcome back, Scorpius," Daphne Greengrass said by way of greeting him as he sat down. "How was your summer? You didn't have too much homework, did you?" she asked with a delightful laugh.
"Summer was just fine," he began telling her, barely noticing it as someone took the seat next to him. "My father and Harry Potter shared some stories about their school days and the war. Al came over and practically lived with us, as always," the blonde described, a small, polite smile gracing his lips as he spoke.
"'Lived' there?" Al retorted, his voice sounding skeptical. "If you'd noticed, my mum kicked Dad out, and I wasn't just about to subject myself to a bunch of Gryffindors' whims for another summer without Dad there," he replied, sneering slightly at Scorpius.
"Ah, that's right," Scorpius drawled, pretending as if he'd just recalled those rather important pieces of information. "But, I'm sure that you'd just rather stay with my father and me anyway, right?"
"Whatever you want to think, Malfoy," Al snapped back, a wide grin spreading over his lips.
"Boys, please control yourselves in from of the other students," Professor Greengrass reprimanded them for their banter, somewhat jokingly. "Now, Scorpius, I'd like to speak with you after class -- alone, if you will," she told him, looking at Albus as she did.
And, a few more minutes later, class began. The two Slytherin fifth years were as attentive as always, and of course, handed in their summer homework, as always. While Scorpius wondered what his Aunt was going to talk to him about alone, he had not even the beginnings of any good ideas on the topic, other than the fact that she didn't want Al to hear it.
"Scorpius, please stay -- class dismissed. Be sure to have pages 170 to 190 read for the next class," the blue-eyed Professor called to the class upon the bell ringing.
Once they were alone, Daphne spelled the doors locked and cast some anti-spying charms on the door, not putting it past the students to not spy on her and the Malfoy. "I wanted to know if you've heard of the rumours of why Ginny Potter is leaving her husband, your friend's father," she questioned, her voice gentle and almost motherly.
"No, I haven't the slightest," Scorpius told her, honestly, curious to why she wasn't talking to Albus about this, but to him.
"It seems that the most popular rumour," the professor began slowly, seeming to be reviled of the mere thought of the rumour being true. "Is that Ginny found out what was going on between Potter and your father. Do you have any idea what this might be about?"
The Malfoy couldn't help but laughing at the ridiculousness of the issue. Sure, there was that incident in the forest, but he and Albus had both some suspicions regarding that situation and what it was all about. "My father and professor Potter do tend to spend a good deal of time together, but I don't think that I have any reason to believe that they're gay together, Professor," he replied hotly, rather annoyed.
Honestly! This woman just hoped that his father was still available, most likely -- she'd always asked him a thousand questions every year about how his father was doing.
"I see," she returned, going into deep thought, "you may go."
Scorpius breathed a sigh of relief once he stepped out of the doors to the Arithmacy classroom, looking around to spot his friend... wait until Al heard about that bloody rumour, then the two of them would come under suspicion, too. Great, Scorpius thought to himself, raking his hand through his hair, frustrated.
---------
Thank you to Grae, again, for the ideas, and to Moogle for some inspiration.
My dear readers, I would appreciate it greatly to hear what you think about all of this.