Part Six.
Chapter 1. James Potter.
Is there a true limit of human strength? He was about to find out. There must come a moment when all the potions consumed to keep you standing no longer work, but still you have to keep moving, forgetting that you are also human, and that you barely slept for the past three days, ate without tasting the food, and spent most of that time in utter agony and despair.
He left Lily's hospital room, fuming. Later, as always, he would feel remorse, because his sister didn't deserve to be blamed for what was happening or to be yelled at; still, that would be later – when the brain switched back on and with it, the conscience. Although… he was so exhausted that it would take awhile.
Words were choking him up, and he could have said more to Lily, out of his pain. Yes, he was hurting – mostly for Scorpius Malfoy, in whose eyes he might never again see life. They seemed too lifeless as he left the hospital room and Lily – the girl who had so long ago changed his life once and for all.
Damn that Flint to hell!
James took a deep breath and headed for the fireplaces.
Where should he look for Malfoy? Not at his flat, which had been destroyed. Plus, this used to be his and Lily's home, and James remembered very well what their old house became to his father after his mother's death. He would hardly go to his parents', if only looking for a scapegoat, for which his father fit the bill nicely. Wouldn't be a big loss to society… Where would Scorpius go to assuage his pain? Not to avoid it – Scorpius never ran from pain. But to assuage, which is what he usually did.
The answer was plain and clear: while Flint-Devereaux was dead, there were still those who merited vengeance: if not Helene Devereaux (which James allowed in principle), then her uncle, of whom they read in such colorful detail in Flint's suicide note.
James rubbed his eyes hard and stepped into the fireplace, once again grateful to Merlin for Xenia being alright. She looks healthy and rested, and she has come to no harm. Both she and their baby must be well, or she wouldn't look so calm, so serene. Soon this madness will be over – James hoped it would be really soon – and they will return to their home, into their peaceful world of expectation.
The Gregory parlour was empty. Like a crypt, Potter snorted quietly, looking at the spot where Flint's dead body had lain so recently. Suicide, niffler take you! Could you have done this earlier, like five years ago…?
The Ministry chaps must have examined the place and took all witnesses with them for interrogation. It is a good thing that he and Malfoy vamoosed quickly. They can always pay a visit to the Aurors, after they have taken care of the important stuff. Like Malfoy, for instance.
His eyes did a doubletake towards the couch, where Scorpius had sat stock-still back then. What was it with him? Why did he look so odd, as though petrified? As if… James had trouble coming up with words to describe the dead-like statue Malfoy portrayed as Rose took charge and sorted everything out, demonstrating the red jet of light emitted by Scorpius' wand that then turned green. And it wasn't a Crutiatus – Rose was never wrong about these things. That was why his cousin looked so dumbfounded – as though she'd been told that she was closely related to the Minister of Magic himself. Or that she'd discovered a new spell that could resurrect the dead.
James smirked again, imagining Lily's reaction to this story, had she been herself: Malfoy hitting his mortal enemy with – forget Crutiatus, not even a Stunning Spell. Expelliarmus! Blimey, Harry Potter's successor, it is even a little funny…
And why did Malfoy react so oddly to his magically-harmless spell? A mystery, but who could understand Scorpius when he didn't even know himself yet?! James was certain that it was temporary – Malfoy would calm down, get a grip, return to Lily's hospital room, and make her remember. And if not remember, then to fall in love with him all over again. Scorpius can do anything.
"Don't overestimate me."
Potter started – both from realization that he'd said the last thought out loud and from the object of his musings appearing in the parlour. Well, he was clearly not out for revenge; otherwise, he would have gone somewhere already, in search of the first victims of his rage. What is he doing here?
Malfoy stood in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed over his chest. There was something unpleasant about him, even aside from the dead look in his eyes, the deathly, icy cold that made one shiver.
James watched warily as his friend walked over to the couch and sank onto it. In his hand was a wine glass half-filled with strangely-murky liquid.
"Have you decided to poison yourself?" he had a momentary impulse to knock the drink out of his mate's hand.
Scorpius raised one blonde eyebrow and casually drained the glass.
"I wish the idea occurred to me earlier," he smirked, avoiding Potter's eyes. "Such a simple solution to the problem…"
"I can't remember you ever liking simple solutions," James remarked carefully, trying to recall where he'd seen this liquid before and this Malfoy.
"Ha… That's what the problem is then," Scorpius said, as though speaking more to himself than to anyone else. "Yes, you might be right about that."
"Malfoy, she needs help," James decided that it was time to speak plainly, without all this entourage of coldness his friend was hiding behind. They can't avoid the painful topic forever.
"Does she?" the ice in his eyes sparkled briefly, like crystal catching a ray of sunshine. But only for an instant. "I thought that the best help is to leave her alone, is it not?"
"And you are the one telling me this?" James snorted, not buying for a moment this strange calm from the man who used to go insane if Lily was late for their date in Hogsmead. And this was when he realized what Malfoy was doing there. "You idiot! Liana told you not to take this potion anymore!"
"Since when have I begun to listen to MacLaggen, who could think of nothing better than to marry your sister's ex?"
He avoided saying her name, saying "Lily", and James thought that a bad sign.
"So, you are planning to leave things just as they are, aren't you? Just keep drinking potions, to drown out the monster inside that demands action?" James was ready to kick Malfoy. Never before had he given up so easily. But then again, he must never have felt such pain before. And he had no idea how to handle it. Yes, the lack of experience was clearly hard on Malfoy.
"So, that's how you see it…" Scorpius said, slowly and mockingly, staring right at his friend with icy shards of muted suffering. "Your brain, Potter, seems to be ignoring the fact that the moster whom you are so eager to see is hurting your sister… Haven't you got it? The farther I am from her, the better off she is," he almost smiled, looking away from James and towards the spot where Flint's body had lain. "Vengeance can take different forms, doesn't it? And he managed his just fine. And so, let's not complicate things unnecessarily."
Potter didn't pause to think before taking a step forward and punching his best mate right into his stony physiognomy, which he hadn't done since forever, probably since school.
"Impressive," Malfoy remarked, raising a hand to stroke the red mark from James' fist. Blood appeared in the corner of his mouth. Yet, Potter had no regrets. He had to bring Scorpius to his senses.
The sight of blood on his friend's pale – almost white – face was somehow soothing. If he had to be strong for both of them, he would be – just like Scorpius had done plenty of times before.
"What else do you want to do?" Malfoy asked indifferently, taking out a handkerchief and wiping off blood. The movement was mechanical, somehow… dead. The cursed potion! "I will even let you kill me, if you like. Only let me write a note. I shall be brief."
"You are an idiot!" exploded James, kicking Scorpius' leg. "You are even worse as a suicide than as a husband!"
Oh, yes, he hit a nerve there. Even this potion that should be poured down the john without a trace, with the recipe wiped out from existence, could not tone down the feelings reflecting on Malfoy's face. Well, if causing pain was required in order to bring back his feelings (which were clearly switched off, making Malfoy's cold reasoning alone impossible to bear), he was up for it.
"You promised to love and protect her always, and now simply throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble," James tossed into that pale face. "Malfoy, it turns out that you are a weakling… And a coward!"
Of course, this was a lie, and a stupid one at that – the dumbest fib he'd ever said. Malfoy was so strong that he was giving Lily up to give her peace of mind, to avoid causing her pain by a mere thought of him; he was willing to leave, taking his broken heart with him. No, not just the heart – his very essense, so closely intertwined with Lily's. This required the kind of strength James never had; and even Malfoy seemed to need this damn potion…
His friend kept quite, his jaw set firmly, his eyes staring past Potter.
"She is your wife."
"Except to her, I am a scoundrel, and the wicked friend of her brother's," Scorpius smirked, but the smirk looked painful. As though Malfoy could barely hold back his emotions.
"All this can still be fixed."
"How?" the icy calm still lingered in the glaciers of his eyes.
"She loves you, even if she doesn't remember it."
"Is that so?" the blonde eyebrows shot upwards. "I never thought that feelings could be erased along with memories," Scorpius said slowly. "The infatuation vanished when the memories were gone. And what remains?"
James almost chocked up, suddenly realizing what was happening with Scorpius. He doubted Lily's love for him. For the first time ever he seemed unsure of himself.
Merlin, Malfoy was feeling insecure!
Well, this problem we can fix…
"Don't talk rubbish, Malfoy. No girl can be infatuated for four years straight. You also flatter yourself, if you think that someone can stay around you for this long without harbouring strong feelings toward your spoiled rotten person. You are too wicked to hope for that."
"Is that your love confession?" Malfoy grinned, without commenting James' words any further.
"She won't survive without you."
"We'll see."
"Hippogriff take you!" James flared up. "You seduced my sister when she was only fifteen, you got what you wanted from her, and now you've decided to check out?!"
"Chill, Potter. Whatever I got from her is now irrelevant."
"What isn't irrelevant?!" the ire James was feeling was draining the last of his energy.
After a momentary hesitation, the silence rang together with the shards of the glass as it cracked in Malfoy's hand.
"She hates me."
In agony, James watched broken crystal stain with Scorpius' blood. The other chap didn't even wince, didn't make any move to stop the bleeding or relieve the physical pain.
"There is only a step from hatred to love – which my sister has already demonstrated once," Potter said quietly.
"But what a step it is!" Malfoy didn't look up, didn't move a muscle, as though afraid to stir. Blood trickled down his arm onto the floor.
James crouched down, taking a non-too-clean handkerchief out of his pocket and putting it against his friend's wrist. He wasn't too sure or skilled, but he wasn't Xenia, after all.
"Step over her pain," Potter said, knowing how excruciating this would be for all of them. "Don't let her forget… Blimey, Malfoy!"
"What?" the other chap looked up impassively, his eyes reflecting, as though in a mirror, the red spot that was spreading on the handkerchief.
"Say her name."
Consternation momentarily wiped the mask of the walking dead from Malfoy's pale face. Enough, he'd allowed himself an hour of wallowing in his suffering, now it was time to act, before it was too late.
"Last time this helped you to overcome the effect of this bloody potion," James explained. As silly as it seemed, but Scorpius' and Lily's feelings for each other seemed stronger than all MacLaggen and Gregory's concoctions. If "grandpa" Albus got wind of this thought of James' – why, he'd be so delighted, he would choke on his lemon drops.
Malfoy hesitated – he seemed to be reluctant to lift out of his abyss of indifference. James was on the verge of squeezing his wounded hand – just so he'd feel something!
"She needs your help, even if she herself is unaware of it… And I don't believe that some weakling, like this Flint, can break you."
"It isn't him, it's her," Malfoy's voice tapered off; he closed his eyes, as though finding it too painful to look and see.
"She would have never done it of her own accord, you know that. Just her name, Scorpius."
He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, driving the shards of glass deeper into the wounds. Ouch, Xenia would murder them… Still, the physical pain seemed to be nothing next to what was presently eating at Malfoy from the inside. If Flint was still alive, James would have killed him with his own bare hands – slowly.
"Lily."
Both of them started, the icy crystal of Malfoy's wide-open eyes trembled, ready to shatter like that wine glass, his shoulders shook, blood once again began to drip out of the corner of his mouth – as though he bit his lip to hold back a moan. As though blood from his wounded heart was seeping slowly out of his body.
An owl knocked on the window, making James start. He glanced at his friend, frozen with a blank stare, clearly trying to reign in his overwhelming emotions, and rose from his knees.
The owl had come from Hogwarts – the only place that kept such disheveled, slightly retarded, worn out birds. Potter took the scroll and quickly scanned it, once again amazed at how a human hand could produce such scribbles – a troll, should he be given a quill, would have drawn something like that, albeit with far less meaningful.
"Albus and Severus to the rescue," James snorted quietly and turned towards Malfoy. To his delighted surprise, Potter met with a fully cognizant gaze of his friend – although his face was still contorted and fists – clenched. "While you were suffering here, my little brother has been racking his brain – and a few others. Listen to this: "Scorpius, Lily is but a prisoner of the curse; you are able to free her, like fairy tale princes, who save princesses from tall towers. She must be placed inside (according to Uncle Severus). Come to Hogwarts; we have towers and magic rooms here. Waiting, Albus". What think you of this?"
Malfoy got to his feet, eyes narrowed.
"How much would I get for abducting a hospital patient?" he asked curtly, glancing at the clock. It was almost eleven o'clock.
"Ted got away with it, although he nicked Uncle Ron from there," James shrugged his shoulders, barely holding back a smile. So, all it took to bring Malfoy back to his senses was to put Albus into the mix. Cool dances of nifflers with hippogriffs… "Especially if Xenia or Mancilli are still there."
"So what are we waiting for?"
"This will hurt her," James remarked, more to test his friend than to stop him.
"More than me? Hardly," Malfoy uttered coldly, walking over to the fireplace.
"Time to be selfish?" Potter hemmed.
"To be myself," Scorpius parried, before disappearing in a green flash, reflected momentarily in the icy mirror of his eyes.