CHAPTER 15

THE SYMBOL ON THE STONE

"Come on, Al, this is all just stupid. We're literally making this up as we go along," Rose groaned, setting her quill down on the library desk.

"Exactly. It's an easy O. Let's keep going."

"Why can't we do it later?" she asked.

"Well, Scorpius has an O, and I think you're close to slipping into an E so…"

"Fine," Rose said quickly. "What's your prediction then?"

"Er… let's say I had a dream about…I dunno, what sounds ominous? She likes that stuff, I think. Let's go with a run down shack."

Rose sighed and flipped through the Divination textbook. "Was the shack yours, or just a shack?"

"Mine."

"Well, that means that something isn't going to turn out the way you thought it would. Also, dreaming about your own house at all means someone in your family is ill or going to be doing rather poorly, so that's not good either. Maybe cousins count, she thinks I'm going to drop dead, right?"

Al sighed. "Rose, I don't think she actually thinks—"

"No, I know, she's just crazy," Rose said. "But let's predict something really dark for mine. What means death?"

Al took the book and looked through it, frowning. "Well, a coffin means fear of death, but apparently it could also mean you're… going to lose a pregnancy, so let's not do that one."

"Right."

"Er…let's go with a tomb. It's similar and creepy."

"What does it mean?"

"It means that… either you're just plain going to die, or if you're opening the tomb, it means that you're about to uncover something you thought was dead? That's really literal, wait a minute… no, it just means something will be uncovered. Something dark, probably. I don't know. Just write it down."

Rose shrugged and scribbled a short entry about a tomb in her dream journal. "I can't take much more of this. I'm going to drop some of my books off, I'll meet you at dinner, okay?"

"Sure," Al said, and Rose set off for the common room on her own. When she walked through the portrait hole, she noticed that more than a few people looked at her as she passed them and felt like rolling her eyes. Ever since the rest of the school found out about their father from the article in the Daily Prophet two weeks ago, people had been talking about it a bit too much for Rose's liking. While she knew from her mother that he was doing well and had been awake since only a few hours after she and Hugo left, the rest of the school didn't, and the rumors were gaining popularity quickly. Whatever the theory was today, it had caused more than a couple people to grow silent when she walked through the common room, and Rose was a little too hungry and tired to think much about it right then. So she continued up the girls' stairs to her room. However, she was nearly knocked off her feet the second she reached her bed, and found herself planted firmly against the wall by Ana Krum, who looked inexplicably furious.

"What are you trying to do? What does it do?" she asked, shouting, and Rose saw Emma Drake sitting on her bed, looking too shocked to speak.

"I—what are you talking about?" Rose exclaimed, and Ana removed one of her hands from Rose's shoulders to reach into her bag and pull out the stone. Rose's heart dropped into her stomach as Ana held it up.

"This. What are you doing with it?"

"What do you mean? I'm not doing anything with it! I just found it!"

"You expect me to believe that you just found a stone with his symbol on it and—"

"Who? Whose symbol? Who's 'he'?" Rose asked, a flicker of curiosity sparked inside of her notwithstanding the situation.

Ana glared at her evenly. "Don't play dumb, you know who I mean."

"Ana, I promise, I really, really don't."

Ana hesitated, than said, "Grindelwald. He carved it into the walls at Durmstrang and …the people who use that symbol there are the reason my dad made me leave."

"It's… Grindelwald's symbol?"

"It's on the doors to Nurmengard."

"What does it mean?" Rose asked. Ana scoffed.

"It doesn't matter what it meant before, now it means Dark magic, and I know you know that, so tell me what you're doing with it!"

"Do you honestly believe that I'm using Dark magic?" Rose asked incredulously.

"I… I don't know," Ana said. "I'm not taking any chances."

"I need it back, at any rate," Rose said. Ana backed away from her.

"No, I won't give it to you, not until you tell me what's going on."

"Nothing's going on, I just found it. I'll… I'll take it to Professor Rudomin, all right?" Rose said, trying to think quickly, and Ana looked at her hesitantly. "Look, it's still mine, no matter what you think I mean by whatever's on it. Give it back."

Ana hesitated, then let go of her other shoulder and threw the stone at her. Rose caught it as she turned away. "Just get out," she said.

Rose took no issue with that and was quite keen to leave before she remembered the people staring at her when she walked in. "Did you tell anyone about this?" Ana rolled her eyes and shrugged. Rose nodded. "Right." She walked quickly out of the room and down the stairs. When she got into the common room she was met with even more stares, this time more obviously unkind. She saw Scorpius sitting in a chair nearby the portrait hole and he stood up immediately when he saw her. "I'm sure you've heard," Rose muttered.

"Come on," he said quietly, and Rose walked stiffly out of the portrait hole with Scorpius following her. "Have you eaten yet?" he asked.

"No, but I'm not going to the Great Hall now," she said. He nodded and turned to walk the other way.

"Okay, then, you need to eat though," he said, and she followed him, a little confused until they reached the familiar staircase down to the kitchens.

"Really? The elves will be working right now, we can't just go down there," she exclaimed, and he shook his head.

"It's okay, Holly works here now, we'll be fine," he said, and led the way down the staircase. Rose followed halfheartedly as he walked down the narrow corridor and opened the portrait to the kitchens, where a multitude of elves were quickly running desserts from counters onto tables where they quickly disappeared up to the Great Hall. One small elf carrying a cake much too large for her nearly ran into the edge of the Slytherin table and Scorpius ran over just in time to steady the other end of the cake. The elf, who Rose could now see was Holly, grinned widely when she saw who it was.

"Master Malfoy! It's so wonderful to see you! And Miss Weasley!" she added when she saw Rose walk up behind him.

"Hi, Holly, how have you been?" he asked, and she smiled again.

"It's lovely to work here, Master Malfoy, they pay me and they don't punish me for making mistakes like… oh, I shouldn't—"

"No, it's fine, it's true. Hey, Holly, do you have any of the dinner left? Rose and I didn't eat yet, and we'd really rather stay down here right now."

"Oh, yes, of course! I'll go get some now," she said, and scurried away to a hidden part of the kitchens. Scorpius sat down at the table and Rose sat across from him.

"This is nice and all, but you can go and eat with Al," she said. "I'll be fine here."

"No, I'm okay here. Besides, all your cousins really only tolerate me because you do. Al's not as assertive about including me, so it usually doesn't happen when you're not there."

Rose rolled her eyes. "They're all so annoying."

"It's fine."

"No, it's not."

"Yeah, well. It's not fine what Ana's doing, either."

"She's scared. I would be too if I saw the Dark Mark in a foreign country on my friend's bed. That's basically what this is for her."

"Still, though. Was she just not paying attention last year? You're probably the last person that would go Dark in the whole school."

Rose smiled a little. "Tell her that."

"I will." Scorpius sighed. "So… that's what the symbol is? Grindelwald's mark? Does that mean Nott's following Grindelwald's vision or something now?"

Rose shrugged. "Maybe. But I have a feeling he didn't just invent the symbol. Madam Babbling said it was medieval."

Scorpius frowned. "How do you know the Runes teacher?"

Rose shook her head quickly, panicking a little. "I—I don't, I just thought she'd be a good person to ask, so I just— went to her office. It was a little awkward, but she talked to me about it. She didn't really know anything either though."

"Well… even if it's not Grindelwald's it can't be good. I don't like this, Rose. This whole thing."

"Me neither. It's got to be dark no matter what it meant before. I think it would be better to just get rid of it."

He nodded. "We should. We could just… put it back in the forest, right? I mean… bury it?"

"Maybe." Rose thought for a minute as Holly returned with their food, and nodded. "Yeah. As soon as possible. Wait… I told Ana I would take it to Rudomin. Do you think I should? Maybe she's wrong, or maybe he can tell us why it… brings people back."

Scorpius hesitated. "I don't know, Rose. He'd probably have to tell McGonagall, and he'd never let you take it back."

"What about one of the Aurors? Or Barton?"

"Are you mental? All they'll do is interrogate us about how we found it."

"Yeah, I suppose. And James would kill us if we got his cave closed off. All right, we'll bury it. But we have to tell Al first."

"I'll talk to him later." They ate in silence for a minute before he paused. "You're okay, right? I mean, you'll be okay? With your dad, and now this…"

"I'm fine," Rose said, but she knew how unconvincing she sounded.

"You can talk to me," he said quietly. "I know what it's like, you know. For everyone to be talking about you. I know you're sort of used to that, but it's awful when it's not good things."

"Yeah. I suppose you do," she said. "I'll be fine, though."

"Good. Then eat so we can go hide from everyone somewhere warmer, it's freezing in here."

Rose laughed a little and ate. She shook her head a little when she felt the stone in her pocket, as if she couldn't quite shake the feeling that she needed to know what it was. The sooner they buried it, the better off they'd all be, she was sure of it.