A Long Way Back

Caly, Rose and Al were all discharged from the hospital wing the next day. They hadn't wanted to go back to lessons, of course, but Professor McGonagall had been adamant, along with Al and Rosie's parents that their lives should return to normality. Naturally when your best friends is slowly regaining life second by second in the hospital wing, so that every time you see him he looks like he's more alive but still completely unconscious, your life can hardly be called normal. They went to visit Scor every day without fail. They popped in in the morning before breakfast. They came by in lunch and break and then after school instead of retuning to their dormitories, they would sit in Hospital Wing and complete their work. It had been astounding that on Saturday they had been battling their Transfiguration teachers and then on Monday they were getting Transfiguration homework, Professor McGonagall was subbing the class. Most students didn't know what had happened and Caly and her friends wouldn't say but one common fact was that Scorpius Malfoy had died and come back to life for Rose Weasley.

They never left Scor alone though, Madame Pomfrey had said Scor would most likely be as mentally developed as he was when he was killed, it was just physically he needed to re-grow. Therefore he would know that his mother was most likely dead. She had said that if you gave him a reason to live he would come back faster. As a result there was always someone as his bedside talking to him. Victorie had quite a few free periods and spent them in the hospital discussing her career options and practising her interview with an unconscious boy. The rest, however, did not have study periods so looking after him in the day was generally left to an old women whose name was Andromeda. She was Teddy's grandmother and said she had nothing better to do now Teddy had moved out. Teddy came over and spent a lot of time, when ever he could get a break from training to be a dark wizard catcher. His reason was that it let him see Victoire who he was dating and he was bored.

It was two weeks before he started showing signs of waking. It was the first week in July and there was little school left. Caly wasn't looking forward to going back to the care home but Al had been dropping hints that she could spend some time at his, that sounded pretty cool and it would make her summer less boring. From what Al had told her all the children that were in Hogwarts invited over their closest friends for a week to stay at the Burrow, their grandparents house, in August and all hell broke lose. It sounded perfect, just like Hogwarts. It would be the last time that Vicotrie could invite anyone round because she graduated this year.

Caly was gently strumming her guitar which Madame Pomfrey greatly approved of, Al was reading the Quidditch results from the Prophet and Rose was sitting quietly, her eyes filled with tears. She always got like this. The thing was, Scor was now perfectly healthy but he was still completely unconscious. No one blamed Rose, it had been Scor's choice but she blamed herself. Caly honestly couldn't blame her. She blamed herself for both him being like this and his mother's death. His mother had been preserved because they all agreed that Scor should be at the funeral.

Scor let out a small groan and twitched his fingers. They all froze. Al dropped the Prophet and scurried to fetch Madame Pomfrey. She bustled over and began to examine him. She stood back on heels and smiled, it was the first time Caly had ever seen her do that. She summoned the house elf Winky and told her to fetch Professor McGonagall and Longbottom. She started humming some song to herself as she straightened the covers and Al coughed pointedly. She shushed and pointed at Scor. It was quite clear she was not about to explain until Professor McGonagall got there. Caly thought this was highly unfair, she had meant what she had said Scor was her brother. She huffed and crossed her arms and legs and watched as he squirmed and moaned a bit more. It looked like he was in pain but at the same time he was waking up, wasn't that good?

The hospital wing doors flew open and a in came, not just Professor McGonagall and Longbottom, but also Sprout, Flitwick, Hagrid and Slughorn. A few seconds later came the entire Weasley family. Caly blinked. It was the entire Weasley family, plus extensions. Obviously there were the children at Hogwarts; Vic, Freddie, Molly, Dom, Roxy and James. Then following behind was Mr Potter and his wife and daughter, Rose's family, Vic and Dom's parents and little brother, Fred and Roxy's parents and Molly's family. Also there was Teddy and Andromeda. She had a feeling that they were much more important than everyone had made out, she had not forgotten the look Harry had given Teddy before he had said 'he's not quite as family less as you may think.'

"He's waking up." said Madame Pomfrey in excitement, "He should be awake soon."

Scor had no experience in mountain climbing, he knew it was something muggles did for leisure, he had learnt these sort of things to annoy his father. He could still remember the time the main staircase had become 'Mount Everest' and he had been climbing it, he had been six. His father had shouted for hours. He had screamed at him for disgracing the family for playing muggle games, his father had then shoved him on his old nimbus 2001, it was much to big for him and forced him to fly round the garden. It was a strange way to discover a passion for something. He had tried hard not to fly to annoy father but the fact of the matter was the skies called to him. He had got his revenge by losing the snitch and therefore having to play chaser. His father had wanted him to be seeker of the Slytherin team. That had turned out so well. If he could laugh, which he couldn't, he would because he was now chaser for the Gryffindor team.

Anyway he would guess mountain climbing was something like what he was going through now. He knew that you had to really push to get to the top of a mountain. Scor wasn't stupid he knew exactly what was going on, well not exactly, he was a little confused but he knew he was trying to regain consciousness. He had to push up towards the, whatever was at the top. He had to push on, past the hurt and the pain. He had to move. He had to climb, on foot in front of the other. It wasn't easy. He knew the world hated him. He knew that no matter what he did that there would be people that would always hate him. The thing was Scor had found three people who felt the opposite and that was at the top of his mountain. His body was getting more battered and bruised, there was so much pain. So much fatigue. The noise level was increasing. He knew, because he was clever, he was regaining consciousness. He had been on this path for two weeks. At first his body not real, really, it was ethereal and painless. He just sort of floated along the path and didn't really get anywhere. Of course you can't walk if you have no feeling in your legs.

The top of the mountain, what did the muggles call it? The Summi, that was it. He was near the Summi. This meant that he was going to wake up. He wondered if anyone would care. He didn't actually know if they'd got out. He had hope. Merlin knows he didn't have much else. In fact he had nothing. Nothing but hope. The rational, logical part of his mind. The part that, since he had met them, sounded like Rose, told him that this wasn't enough. There needed to be concrete proof and evidence and facts. The part of his brain that got irritated by the logical part of his brain, it sounded like Al, told him, scathingly, that there was just as good a chance that they were alive as dead. Then the final part, the part that sounded like Caly, the part that was his instinct, his emotional side. This was the one that kept up the mantra of irrational hope.

He had reached the top of his mountain. The arduous climb was over. He gazed at the sky and as he did, he noticed it became whiter, lighter. The sun multiplied out into four and changed colour. There were two green suns and two brown suns. The two green ones were next to each other and the two green ones were next to each other. He blinked. The sky was white with two brown suns and two green suns. What was happening? He'd thought he was waking up. He tried to think but the pain was increasing as it had been for the entirety of the climb. What would be the same colour and next to each other? What was even coloured? He thought it over. Hard as he started to float up towards them, the pain climbing up a notch as he rose. Then suddenly it made sense. The pain reached it's climax. They were eyes!

Caly, Al, Rose watched as Scor half opened his eyes his face contorted with pain. His whole body was tense and he was sweating. His brow was furrowed, in a the way it was when he tried to solve a particularly hard puzzle or last longer than 5 minutes in a chess game with Caly. Then his eyes snapped open. For a moment his gaze was confused and he didn't seem to focus on anyone but then his eyes slid onto Al and Caly, he looked them right in the eyes and frowned. Caly could feel the tears in her eyes. She felt like collapsing, with relief. He was back! After all this time Scor was back with them!
"Al, Caly, you're alive."
"Of course we weren't hurt." said Al. Caly nodded biting her lip. Scor opened his mouth to say something else but was interrupted by Rose who, unable to contain herself any longer, threw her arms around him and burst into tears. Scor looked thoroughly taken aback and Caly couldn't blame him. Though Rose had come close to tears several times in the past couple of weeks she hadn't actually cried. Rose wasn't really the emotional sort though. No one really expected her to start crying. Scor looked at Al and Caly for direction who just shrugged. Scor tried to raise an arm to pat her on the back but it took till the third go for him to actually do it.

"Hey it's ok Rosie. I'm fine."
"I know you stupid…" whatever the rest of her sentence was it was muffled by her tears as she continued to cry. Scor sent Caly a bemused look who couldn't help but laugh at the look on his face. Both her and Al felt good about finally being able to laugh again, two weeks of silence had been very trying for them so, even though there wasn't anything funny. They ended up leaning on each other for support because they laughed so hard. Scor stared at them sure the world had gone mad. It was then he noticed the congregation he had around his bed.

His mouth dropped and Al and Caly got the giggles again at this. Rose had stopped crying by now and was laughing at the look of shock on his face. He looked like he'd been frozen. Scor hadn't been expecting any of these people to be here. Okay maybe James, Roxy and Fred because he had played Quidditch with Roxy and Fred and James had somehow ended up in the dungeons but the rest. He suddenly realised these were all the voices he had heard whilst he had been walking his path, all the words of encouragement and the…

"Victorie." he said at last.
"Please call me Vic."
"Err Vic, were you practising your job interview on me?" Vic went red and then nodded.
"Err yes I was, you remember."
"Not everything but you did it like once a day."
"Yeah well I had one free period a day so. Do you mind?"
"No I am just confused as to why." Vic rolled her eyes.
"And I thought Rosie said you were intelligent. The same reason Rosie started crying when you woke up, the same reason we're all here today. You're saying you don't know what that is." Scor thought for a moment.
"Because I saved Rose."
"And Al and probably James too, but yeah. You did something incredible down there. We're all really sorry for the way we treated you, earlier." Scor watched the rounds of nods and smiles and the sorrys. He couldn't help but smile as he lent back into his pillows he felt incredibly relaxed, a huge weight had been lifted.
"Thank you."
"For what?" piped up a blonde eight year old. Scor frowned at him.
"You're Louis, right?"
"Correct."
"I'm thankful that you all have finally excepted me for who I am and that I am not my father."
"Don't you want to be like your father?" asked Louis "I love my father, I want to be just like him, though maybe without the scars." Everyone tensed a little but Scor was too tired and happy to be offended.
"Well you father is always a good man and he's never done anything bad. My father has done some bad things. If I wanted to be like him than I would want to be like a bad person and that's well, why would I want that?" Louis thought it over.
"That makes sense."
"Of course it does." Louis laughed and Scor managed a weak sort of smile but it was clear he was in loads of pain.

"Madame Pomfrey." he said
"Yes dear."
"Can I have anything for the pain?"
"I'm afraid not, best to keep you awake now that we've got you back." Scor looked alarmed at the prospect of no more sleep "Until night." she hurriedly amended.

"What happened though?" asked Scor "After the rocks came down." Caly sat down on his bed and James sighed, he was getting tired of recounting it.
"Well he wanted he wanted my wand." she said.
"Your wand!" he said, then he hit himself on the head. "Scor!" they all admonished "Sorry, we should have guessed.""What?"
"It was on the door, you told us the story, it was obviously special."
"Oh my god, of course. God we're stupid."
"Now that's something Rose doesn't say everyday."
"Fred!"
"Sorry mum."

"But you didn't give it to them." said Scor. There was a pause. "Oh please tell me you didn't give it to them."
"Well I thought you three were dead and they were threatening your mother, so yeah I gave it to them."
"Oh Caly!"
"What would you have done? I was trapped in a dungeon, the rocks had blocked my exit, I had no escape! I didn't have a choice! And then they." She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, they killed your mother." Scor looked down.
"I know."
"How?"
"I'll tell you later."
"Yeah and James turns up."
"How did you get there?"
"I saw Al vanish on the Marauders map."
"The Marauders made a map?"
"Yeah it shows where everyone is in Hogwarts. Anyway I saw Al vanish and the rest of you weren't on it so I went to investigate."

They gave a pretty quick outline of events from then on and Scor was surprised by how Caly had got away. When she'd set the part about the stunner and he'd opened his mouth she'd held up her hands like she knew he'd interrupt so he let it slide until the end. Scor had a sneaking suspicion that something had happened in McGonagall's office because James kept glancing at Caly who was rubbing her neck, something she only did when she wanted to change the subject.

"So I don't get it." he said when they finished. "How come your spell knocked his off course."
"It didn't I disarmed the spell not the person." said Caly.
"You what?"
"Look this is really hard to explain but try and understand. I disarmed the spell it's like sometimes when you use expelliarmus on people you can knock them off their feet. I didn't aim at the wand I didn't have time. We both had our wands pointing at the same thing so the were going to collide. Mine was just more powerful."
"Yours was more powerful." Scor said in disbelief
"I know it's shocking." said Caly.
"Okay so what was different?"
"I have no idea, my recollection is foggy at best I was knocked out seconds later."
"Oh."
Scor collapsed backwards again all the colour gone from his face. He had become increasingly excited as Caly and James had told their story, now he looked dead.

"Scorpius." Harry stepped forward.
"Yes Mr Potter."
"Harry, anyway, you do have family."
"What are you talking about?"
"You have a blood family that want you."
"No I don't my mothers family are all dead and my father hates me." He sighed "How did you know what I was thinking about?"
"It's written all over your face. I do understand."
"Of course you do." his tone made it very clear he didn't want any pity or sympathy.
"But I can assure you that you have blood relatives." Scorpius frowned at him
"And I can assure I don't."
"What can you tell me about your grandmother Narcissa's family." Caly's gaze travelled onto two different people and it all clicked into place inside her head.
"Ohhh." she said.
"What?" said Scor
"You have a family, now answer his question." Scor huffed, but Caly didn't lie about things like this so he turned back to Harry.
"She had a sister called…." he trailed off and examined the bead sheets "Called Bellatrix" Neville stiffened. "She was a death eater and she was cruel and violent and she tortured and killed for fun. She's dead."
"So you don't know about her other sister."
"Other sister?" Scor looked up, his curiosity piqued. Then he shook his head. "No I would have heard of her."
"Not if she had been blasted off the family tree for marrying a muggle." Scor paused.
"Can you just tell me."
"This is your great aunt Andromeda Tonks and your second cousin Teddy Lupin."

It was quite amusing to watch Scor gaze open mouthed at the two people who Harry had just introduced and splutter incoherently. Scor always prided himself on being able to throw out a witty, in his opinion, remark at any point and never be left with nothing to say. However it was quite clear to Caly that right now Scor could not think of a single thing, intelligent or otherwise, to say to his great aunt and second cousin. He opened and closed his mouth several more times then said.

"So your related to grandmother Narcissa." he said as if he was trying to get this right inside his head.

"Yes, she was sister but as Harry said I was blasted off the family tree when I married a muggle Ted Tonks. Teddy here is my daughters son."
"Of course, Nymphadora and Remus Lupin, the memorial." Teddy nodded gravely. "Are you related to this lot then?" he asked waving at the predominantly ginger family.
"No Harry is my godfather."
"My father, does he know about this?"
"I believe not. He has made no move to ask how you are or anything of the sort. You don't have to go stay with him because Andromeda is more than willing to offer you a home." Scor nodded. "I think it's best if you get some rest. This is a lot to take in. You don't have to say yes but um well think about it. I think it would be good for you." Scor nodded. The crowd began to disperse.

"Wait." he said. "Harry, Andromeda, Teddy can you stay there's something I need to tell you."

Caly sat on the edge of Scor's bed next to Al. Andromeda and Harry sat in the chairs and Teddy stood behind them, leaning on his grandmothers chair. Rose was sitting at the bottom of Scor's bed, curled up at his feet. He seemed to think before speaking as if he wanted to chose his words very carefully.

"I need to tell you what happened when I died. I asked you to stay because you're my family and you, Harry, have experienced something similar." They just nodded and waited for him to continue with whatever he was going to say.

"When I died I woke up in Kings Cross." Harry nodded and sat forward. "I was alone for a while." he said. "I was there and there was no one else but Al had told me what this place was, he told me what had happened to you so I presumed I was here for a reason. Then my mother came." Scor looked down his eyes filled with tears and Caly reached over and hugged him.

"She told me that she was dead, she was going to go on. She told me that I did have a choice though. I go back."
"How?"
"Because your parents saved my fathers life, twice. My father owes his life and therefore I owe mine to you. However one of those debts was paid when Grandmother Narcissa saved your life, Harry, in the forest." Harry nodded. "I fulfilled the other debt tonight, I saved Rose."

"Okay, so how did you come back to life."
"I don't really understand but it was something to do with the fact that now the debt was paid my life is just mine. It's like 2-1=1, kind of thing. I still live for just me." Harry tilted his head to the side.
"What?"
"It's like when you had a part of Voldermorts soul in you that died and so you lived. Well the debt was paid and so now I'm free to live my life."
"I didn't think it works like that." said Harry "Well not in my experience; the man died."
"Yeah but did you call it in?"
"Yes."
"I gave mine willingly. I got a second one."
"So you don't have to save their lives anymore."
"No but I would."
"Yeah but be careful you won't come back to life." Scor shrugged.
"Not the point of a sacrifice." Harry inclined his head.

"Wait. Wait. Wait." said Teddy. "I'm confused. Did you know about this?"
"About what?"
"That you'd live if you sacrificed yourself."
"No. I only heard about this from my mother, in Kings Cross. It took me ages to get my head around it."
"It took you a day to understand that."
"What?"
"You died for like a day."
"Oh, yeah well I was never going to see my mother again excuse me for taking a day out of my time to say to goodbye to her." said Scor loudly. Then he started crying. Caly shot Teddy a 'you moron' look before turning to comfort her best friend. Harry leant back in his chair and beckoned Teddy down to his level.

"Teddy I thought you might understand how hard this is."
"Yeah, I know but I've been you know looking forward to it and then he dies."
"Yeah, just be gentle."
"Sorry."

When Scor's tears subsided he looked even more pale and a few minutes later he collapsed back onto his pillows and fell asleep. Harry, Teddy and Andromeda got up to take their leave.

"I think he's good hands for now." she heard Harry say as they left the hospital wing. "You may be blood relatives but if they're all not 'brother' and 'sister' I don't know who is."