It became a tradition that on Saturday nights, when the castle was asleep, Scorpius would sneak out of his dorm, and Rose would sneak out of hers. Neither could sleep in those hours, and so, they would sit in the Gryffindor common room, playing chess. Rose taught Scorpius how to play, and he was becoming rather good at it, which annoyed her greatly.
The Saturday evening before their Winter Holiday would start, Scorpius sat up in bed at ten. Everyone else was fast asleep, tired out from the Quidditch Match they had seen earlier. Scorpius quietly slicked back his hair, slipped from his dormitory, and crept down the stairs to the common room. Rose was already sitting at the table they usually occupied. But tonight was different. She hadn't brought the chessboard with her. Instead, sitting on the table was a silvery heap of material.
"What's that?" Scorpius asked, hopping off the bottom stair. She started, but grinned when she recognized it was Scorpius.
"Invisibility Cloak," she replied eagerly. "I know we had planned on playing chess, but I thought we might go for an adventure."
"Oh yeah?" Scorpius walked over to the table and picked up the cloak. It slipped through his hands like water. "I thought James had this. Did you nick it?"
"No," Rose admitted. "It turns out, James was quite understanding when I asked to borrow it. He told me I couldn't take Al along, because Harry would kill James if Al got caught…but it will be different if I get caught." She stood up and took the cloak from Scorpius's hands. "Besides, Al hates staying up late. I knew you don't mind."
"I have an idea," Scorpius said suddenly. Rose threw the cloak over them. The two shuffled out of the Portrait hole and into the hallway. "So," Scorpius whispered as they took a shortcut. "Why an adventure? Why tonight?"
Rose shrugged. "It's our last weekend before the Holiday. I felt like it was appropriate to study the castle before I leave it for a while. I feel like there's many things I've never seen but I would like to…things my parents have let slip over the past few years."
Scorpius remembered that his father had let something slip to, when he was younger. He had told Scorpius of a room where your heart's desire would be known and granted. But that wasn't what Scorpius was searching for tonight. It was as if Rose had read his mind, because as they entered the third floor, she hissed:
"Where are you taking me? Do you know where you're going?"
"Yes," Scorpius replied. "I saw something curious in this corridor once, and I intend to find out exactly what was so curious."
"Something curious," Rose mused, and then quickly quieted as a ghost floated past. Immediately, Scorpius recognized the ghost. It was the ghost of the man he had seen in Professor McGonagall's office; it was the man named Snape.
"Follow him," he told Rose, and the two waited a moment before scurrying after the ghost. They turned corners and squeezed through a barely-open door, passed Cedric Diggory's slumbering portrait, and then turned another corner where they came face to face with a large, gold-studded door.
"Wait," Rose said, throwing out an arm before Scorpius reached for the handle. "That ghost, he went in here. What if he hears us come in? Should we go in?" She glanced up at the door. "I must say, I'm curious what's behind such a door, but at the same time, it makes me extremely apprehensive."
"I think," Scorpius said slowly, remembering his last meeting with the man. "That we'll be alright. Trust me." Rose swallowed, but then put her arm down. Scorpius turned the elaborate gold handle and pushed open the door. At first, he thought the room must be empty. It was full of columns here and there, and one side of the wall was all windows. But that seemed to be all. That is, until Scorpius thought he heard a small, wounded cry.
"What was that?" Rose murmured, sounding panicked. Suddenly, the noise stopped. Scorpius grabbed Rose's elbow, yanked her inside the room, and flattened himself against the wall. Rose stood next to him, quaking.
"Who's there?" The ghost of Snape floated out a column, looking terrifying. His mouth was set in a grim line, and those small, beady eyes combed the room, looking for the culprit of the noise. "Reveal yourself at once, or I shall go to the headmaster." Scorpius reached for the cloak, intending to pull it off, but Rose grabbed his arm and shook her head, her eyes wide. Scorpius shook her off and pulled the cloak over his head.
"It's me, Professor." Scorpius stepped down a stair. Snape stared into the shadows, directly at Scorpius, and then recognition crossed his face.
"What are you doing out of bed, Malfoy?"
"I'm sorry, sir," Scorpius said slickly. "I couldn't sleep. I had to deliver a message to my parents, but I got a bit distracted on my way." Scorpius pulled a piece of paper from within his pocket and held it up. Snape stared at him, but didn't say a word.
"Make sure you get to the owlry before the castle closes," Snape finally replied, and floated out of the wall opposite. Rose immediately took off the cloak.
"That was brilliant, Scorpius," she said, slapping him on the back. He winced; she really was too strong. He wondered if she had left a handprint on his back.
"Of course it was." Scorpius smirked and pulled the paper from his pocket. "The parchment's blank." He winked at Rose, and then immediately scrambled down the last two stairs and weaved his way through the columns, to where Snape had been. There, in between two columns, stood a mirror. It didn't look extraordinary to Scorpius. The glass was dirty, and the gold that framed the mirror was dirtied.
"What's that?" Rose asked, looping an arm around the nearest column and swinging around it. Scorpius stood in front of the mirror, his hands by his sides. All of a sudden, he saw his reflection. But he wasn't the person who stood in front of him. The boy who stared back at Scorpius looked the same, for sure, but he held himself differently. He was taller, Scorpius realized. As Scorpius watched, the boy straightened his tie, which was not gold and yellow, but green and silver. In Scorpius's left hand was a broomstick, which he tossed back and forth easily. He was on the Slytherin Quidditch Team.
"I…" Scorpius shook his head. "This isn't right, this can't be."
"What?" Rose stopped spinning. She stepped forward, pulled Scorpius out of the way, and stood in his place. For a moment, Scorpius waited for her to tell him what he expected her to. He wanted her to say she saw herself as a Ravenclaw. Maybe this mirror revealed the houses they were truly supposed to be in. "Am I supposed to be looking at something?"
"Don't you see it?" Scorpius asked, incredulous. He stepped in front of Rose. She disappeared from behind him, and he could see himself, dressed as a Slytherin once more.
"I didn't see anything but me." Rose sounded worried. "What do you see, Scorpius? Tell me."
"I'm dressed as a Slytherin," he told her quietly. "I play Quidditch for them."
Rose was silent for a moment. She looked up at the mirror, and then ran her hand up the side of it. Words were carved on the top of it, and immediately, Rose drew back.
"Give me that parchment," she commanded of Scorpius. He handed her the blank paper, and she drew her wand from her pocket. She traced the tip of the wand over the paper, and the markings on the mirror were imprinted on the paper. Scorpius didn't like that. He didn't care what the inscriptions meant. He just wondered why he saw himself the way he did, and how Rose didn't see anything at all.
"Come on," he said after a moment, in which she stared at the words, trying to decipher them. "Let's go. This place creeps me out." And so, they ducked back under the cloak and went back up to the Gryffindor common room. Scorpius immediately went to bed, however, Rose went on to sit up in bed, under the covers, with her wand lit, trying to understand the markings from the mirror.
The day before Winter Holiday began, Al and Scorpius were packing up their trunks along with the rest of the boys in their level.
"Everyone going home?" Avery asked in his thick Irish accent, stuffing an extra pair of socks into his trunk with venom. "Me family's so big, I doubt they'll even notice if I show up."
"Going home tomorrow, but then we're going to America on Holiday." Travis glanced at Scorpius nervously. He had been nervously polite to Scorpius ever since their first meeting, and for that Scorpius felt somewhat guilty. "What about you, Scorpius?"
"Home," Scorpius said shortly. "My mum always has the family over, and some of my parent's friends. It's not bad, really."
Albus snorted through his nostrils. He had gotten good at being able to decipher Scorpius's lies from truths. Scorpius threw a book at Albus's head, but missed.
"Here," Albus said, and chucked a small, wrapped package at Scorpius. "It's your Christmas present. Don't open it here, I don't want to get all emotional…"
"Oh ha ha," Scorpius laughed dryly. Albus grinned, and Scorpius ripped open the wrapping. Inside was a spinning top, which lay motionless in his palm.
"It's a sneakscope," Al said. "My dad used to have one just like it. They tell you when someone's up to no good."
"Thanks, mate," Scorpius replied, genuinely pleased. "I have something for you." He felt guilty as he passed Albus his present, which was just a large package of chocolate frogs. But Al looked pleased all the same.
Suddenly, a knock came at the door. Travis opened the door, and everyone turned to see Rose standing there, a paper and a small package in her hand.
"Hi, Rose," Travis said. His voice got a bit higher when he saw her, and Scorpius and Al glanced at each other, smothering the instinct to laugh.
"Hey, Travis." Rose peered inside the room. "Could I have a word with Scorpius for a moment? In private?" The boys stared at Rose, and then at Scorpius. Nash gave him a mischievous smile, and Avery winked as they exited the room. Al just looked confused.
"What's up?" Scorpius asked as Rose closed the door behind her. She rushed to his side and held the paper out in front of him, so he could read her words.
I show not your face, but your heart's desire.
"Okay…?"
"The mirror," Rose explained. "It shows what you want most in the world." Scorpius took the paper from her hands and sunk down on the edge of his bed. Rose perched on his trunk. "You saw yourself as a Slytherin because that's who you want to be. You want to follow in your parent's footsteps." Scorpius turned the paper over in his hand, folded it up, and stuck it in his trunk.
"Thanks for figuring that out," he said to Rose. "I mean it. It bothered me."
"I noticed that you were distracted," she admitted. She sighed, and then handed him the parcel in her hand. "It's not much. But I thought maybe, it would make you feel a bit more…adapted."
Scorpius pulled from the wrapping a photograph. It was a small, framed photo, and it was slightly blurry. It had been taken at the second Quidditch Match of the Year. Rose and Albus stood on either side of Scorpius, and all three smiled brightly at the camera.
"I don't even remember taking this," Scorpius laughed. But all the same, he placed it on his nightstand.
"I think James took it," Rose said. "Well, I know he was with the person who did, because I had to get him to bully them into printing it for me. I know it's not much, and it's not an acceptance into Slytherin. But it's an acceptance here, in Gryffindor, with friends who love you dearly."
That, what Rose had just said, made Scorpius completely, utterly happy. He let those words sink in, and as they did, he realized that he wouldn't want to be placed anywhere other than Gryffindor. Because if he had, he wouldn't have met Rose or Albus. Rose seemed to see this in his face, and she hugged him tightly. Scorpius cleared his throat, but hugged her back.
"Can I ask you something?" He asked as Rose pulled away. Scorpius looked back at the picture of the three of them. "Why didn't you see yourself in the mirror? I mean, I know you did, but why didn't you see yourself as a Ravenclaw? That's where you wanted to be, right?"
"It was. At first." Rose smiled softly. Sunlight filtered through the window and caught the strands of her copper hair. "But when I met you, I realized I wasn't the only one who didn't want to be here. So…I let my dreams go. I cast them aside. I've never been happier, really. There isn't anything I could ask for that could make my life better right now."
"I feel like you're always saying things that make me feel stupid," Scorpius laughed.
"My wit is wasted," Rose giggled. "But you know you're better at potions, so we're even. Come on. I need to give Al his present. I bought him chocolate frogs, his favorite. I know if he doesn't eat soon, he'll have a heart attack."