Chapter 11: Firecalls and Family
"Vincenza, baby, are you okay? Are you safe?" Smoke and a flash of bright flame licked the top of the high-vaulted fireplace in the Slytherin common room.
Scorpius craned his head as the room erupted into snickers and a few snorts. A crowd of students decked in green and silver pajamas huddled around a large, square head flickering in the fireplace's flame.
"Goyle! Where's Goyle?" The prefect stomped about the dormitory in silver sequin slippers with an air of annoyance. "Vincenza! It's your father fire-calling."
Goyle? The man my father used to call a friend?
Scorpius slapped his textbook shut and edged his way to the outskirts of the crowd. The combination of firelight and moonlight dancing through the water of the Black Lake cast an eerie, ever-moving pattern of light and shadow across the room.
Although never met Mr. Goyle before, he'd heard all about his father's former friends and quidditch teammates from school, Vincent and Gregory. He could tell his father felt conflicted anytime he talked about his childhood friends. Knowing Vincent died by his own spellwork at the battle of Hogwarts while trying to kill the famous Harry Potter always left a knot in his stomach. He couldn't imagine what his dad must feel. It always struck him as unfortunate that his father and Gregory had fallen out after the war. Granted, that hadn't stopped Mr. Goyle from still sending a Christmas and birthday card every year. Cards his father always promptly sent up in smoke and ash.
"Daddy! I'm here!" An older girl, clad in nothing but a long, dark green bathrobe and a goopy lime face-mask, jostled her way through the crowd. "Daddy! You know it's Tuesday, and on Tuesdays it's my evening to pamper myself. Plus, it's so embarrassing for you to fire-call!" She placed her hands on each hip and stepped closer to the fireplace.
"I'm sorry my princess, you know I wouldn't call you if it wasn't important. I just needed to make sure you were safe." The puffy head sputtered out ash as he spoke.
"Well, duh! I'm in the Slytherin common room. Of course I'm safe. We're all safe." Vincenza gestured to the crowd around her, flipping her long, dishwater-blond hair over her shoulder as it dripped into little puddles on the black marble floor. "What's got you so worried, daddy?"
Hoot hoo, hoot hoo!
Scorpius stumbled back as a dozen owls soared into the common room. A stunned student cowered against the floor as the Slytherin dungeon wall slid shut.
"What's that?" Mr. Goyle squeaked, smoke rising from his nostrils.
"It's just a bunch of owls daddy. Odd that they got in here all at once. That's unusual."
"I wager the owls bear the same news I do. There're others trying to push me off this fire-call, so I'll be quick. I needed to make sure you were safe because I don't trust McGonigal. St. Mungo's was just attacked. Along with some muggle public places or whatnot. Terrible casualties, apparently." The fire face puffed out embers nervously as a series of gasps erupted across the crowd.
His heart missed a beat upon hearing "St. Mungo's."
Was today actively trying to give him a heart attack?
Scorpius had received an owl from his father that morning about the dark mark tattoo throbbing. As soon as his first class was over, he had fire-called to Malfoy Manor, commanding his dad to get it checked out at St. Mungo's. The adrenaline rush he'd had from finding the Granger girl down in the hall had flooded back into his system with the news. His dad's dark mark hadn't so much as slithered or blinked all these years, rendering it barely more than a muggle tattoo since the Dark Lord died. Was there a chance his father was still at St. Mungo's? He hadn't received a word since this morning.
His heart sunk and throbbed in his pit of his stomach. A small, gray owl stretched out its long wings inches from his nose. A letter dropped into his hands and claws dug into his shoulder.
"Hi Apus," he stroked his grandmother's owl's head and quickly opened the letter with shaking hands.
Apus would peck his cheek if he didn't promptly read the contents. His grandmother's owl was too wise for its own good.
~.~
My darling Scorpius,
I just received word from Grandfather Lucius that your father has been apprehended and detained with him at Azkaban this evening. As I'm sure you will find out shortly, St. Mungo's has been attacked by an organized group of werewolves. Your father was present and fought off the attackers, singlehandedly I'm sure, though he did not say.
As far as your grandfather knows, the group killed a Medi-witch and seriously injured several visitors and patients, including children. Draco admits to using the killing curse and several other darker curses while trying to prevent harm from coming to the children's wing.
As you know, his light and defensive magic has always been weaker ever since he took the Dark Nark as a teenager. Not that the Ministry understands that. I will do everything in my power to ensure his release. The unforgivable curses were cast in the name of protecting children after all.
Speaking of the Dark Mark, your grandfather has informed me that his cursed mark began to hurt this morning as well, similar to Draco's. It appears this is the case for all the Death Eaters still alive at the prison. Treatment for the pain has naturally been denied. Will keep you informed as I learn more.
With all my affection,
Grandmother Narcissa
P.S. I am grieved to announce Astoria has decided to officially move out of the Manor and distance herself from "the damned Malfoy name." Two Malfoys imprisoned in Azkaban are simply too much of an embarrassment for her reputation.
~.~
The letter crinkled in his fists as his head reeled. The Slytherin common room didn't help. It was just short of pandemonium. Fire-calls carried out in quick succession and owls scratched the dark leather furniture as they bombarded the room.
Desperate parents and students broadcasted the message on repeat: St. Mungo's had been attacked. By whom? Accusations abounded, fingers pointing at werewolves, goblins, and even former Death Eaters.
Dad is in Azkaban.
The prison wouldn't be safe for him. As one of very few Death Eaters to only serve a year sentence and not be locked away for life, Draco Malfoy was despised.
Scorpius ran full speed out of the dungeons and across the castle, dodging other students racing about and shouting the news. Sighing with relief, he skidded across the last few slick, rain-splattered slate steps of the Owlery. Wings zipped right and left and a cacophony of "hoos" reverberated around the tower. Students clad in pajamas and wrapped in house robes jostled each other while seeking their owls. He slipped under arms and elbows, finally ascending a ladder at the far end of the room.
"Pyewacket!" Scorpius roared up to the parliament of agitated owls.
His little black owl sliced through the air and landed affectionately on his shoulder, gently nibbling at his ear. Grandmother Narcissa had promised him the fast, little bird was a hybrid owl when she'd surprised him with her gift. He suspected the gorgeous bird he bonded with over the summer was likely more peregrine falcon than owl. His grandmother really had a combination of exquisite tastes and little room for patience. She required the best that money could buy. He didn't argue.
He scrawled a note to his father and rolled it up, tucking the letter into Pyewacket's clutches.
"Azkaban," he requested, giving his bird's feathers a ruffle with his nose. "Full speed, please."
Pyewacket took off as fast as lightning striking a metal rod. Scorpius sighed with relief. A Ravenclaw prefect was already commanding the clamoring students to exit the Owlery and return to their dorms.
He quickly wrote a reply to his grandmother and attached it to the claw of Apus, still clinging to his shoulder.
"Rest and eat up, little owl. Then back to Malfoy Manor tonight."
Hospitals were not conducive to sleeping, Rose decided as her Medi-witch came in for the fourth time that night to check her vital signs. Not that she could sleep anyways. The story her grandfather had recounted managed to flip her world upside down.
She felt guilty.
She loved both her parents, no question. However, Hugo and she had always been a little bit closer and more comfortable around their dad. Their dad, who always told jokes and stories, instigated trouble with them, let them stay up late and play past bedtime. He was fun.
Her mum, on the other hand, was almost always rules and regiment. Safety first. She was also just always gone. Proud was one feeling Rose harbored for her mum's work in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Resentful was the other sentiment. Her mum's job took her away for most of the day, called her in at odd hours for "emergencies," and even sucked away her time from their family. There was always "more research" her mum had to complete at home.
Her dad had chosen to stay home to raise Hugo and her. On the side, Ron Weasley had dabbled in part-time jobs, working for Uncle George at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and carving figurines for wizard's chess boards. His current venture rested in a slow attempt to learn wandlore. Not so much to make wands, but rather to fix them. All were side hobbies compared to taking care of her and Hugo.
Her grandfather's version of her mum seemed utterly different and yet familiar. His Hermione wasn't just a girl with a bossy spark who loved to read and learn, who had difficulty making friends and fitting in growing up. His Hermione was someone brilliant, daring, ambitious, and above all, incredibly protective of those she loves.
His Hermione was dangerous.
Chills has soaked into Rose's skin when she learned her mother had not only wiped her grandfather and her grandmother's memories clean, but also replaced them with fabricated memories of the fictitious Wendell and Monica Wilkins. All to protect them during the war. She'd had no idea her grandfather still woke up in the morning feeling like Wendell. That it had taken him years of working with a Healer and squib psychologist just to accept that he was actually Mr. Granger, the dentist, who had a daughter who was a witch. His obliviated memories were gone forever. All he had were photo books, home videos, letters, and his daughter's and neighbors' memories. His stories were like a puzzle with missing pieces and sizes that didn't quite fit right.
Nevertheless, her grandfather had told her how his daughter had made her first friends at Hogwarts after being bullied by them. How Harry and her dad had saved her mother from a troll in the bathroom. How they'd had a penchant for getting in trouble and how on more than one occasion, her grandfather had written to the headmaster inquiring about his daughter's safety. He explained how Uncle Harry's parents had been killed by a dark wizard, Voldemort, who held warped ideas about blood purity and wizarding supremacy. How this Dark Lord attempted to kill Harry as a baby, but by some unusual sacrificial light magic, her uncle had survived. How his daughter, her dad, and Harry discovered the dark wizard had used Horcruxes to stay alive, and how his daughter and her friends hunted them down. How by doing so, they'd gained fame in the Wizarding World, only teenagers. How Uncle Harry, Aunt Ginny, and her father had decided they wanted her, Hugo, and her cousins to have a normal childhood without all the fame. How their daughter had been the only one against it, wanting her children to grow up knowing who their parents were and what kind of world she was still fighting to change.
After her grandparents left, her parents had bickered quietly in the corner of her hospital room.
Rose had pretended to fall asleep, listening to her dad defend himself, her aunt, and her uncle's decision to give her a "normal childhood." Over and over, her dad reminded her mum how she'd agreed to the decision. Turns out her mum had never agreed to any of it. Her mum was mostly silent and had finally ended the conversation by expressing that she didn't see the point in rehashing it, knowing what's done is done.
Rose's brain tired from listening. Comprehension was still a little tricky, especially when her parents talked fast, using long, run-out sentences, and jumping from topic to topic.
As the Medi-witch cast spells to check her blood pressure and temperature, Rose cast a glance over at her sleeping parents in the dim moonlight. Her dad lay sprawled out on a cot, lightly snoring. Her mum sat slumped in a chair next to her bed, fingers lightly entwined around her own hand. It was an odd sensation, as her fingers still felt a smidge numb. The sight still sent a surge of new admiration flooding over her. How many times had her mum saved her dad and uncle, not to mention the wizarding world and muggles? How much had her mum sacrificed?
Perhaps she'd been placed in Slytherin for a reason. Maybe, someday, she could have just as much ambition as her mum.
The thought of wearing dark green robes suddenly thrilled her.
A woman in a plumb gown and white apron cast spells over him, causing Will's body to light up in various colors while numbers and runes floated in the air, as if projected on an invisible screen.
"Good morning, Mr. Locksly," the witch called out, eyes still focused on the diagnostic figures floating above his head.
Will liked that the witch pronounced his last name correctly, with a hard "I" as in "sly" and not an "E" as in "Lee." It had driven him nuts to no end during primary school to correct all of his teachers.
The same witch had given him a potion last night that had knocked him out cold. He was still freezing, but somehow the Healer didn't look quite as serious and grim as she had last night. Will still didn't understand why he needed medical attention in the first place. He'd felt fine after drinking the Lightstorms's potion. More than fine really - he'd felt like he could run for miles and possibly still do jumping jacks after.
"Am I doing better?" Will asked, tucking his hair behind his ear and shuffling himself upright against the pillows.
"You are now. However, I really cannot fathom the intricacies of your miraculous recovery. That potion you took should have been deadly," the head matron jerked her eyes away from her floating diagnostics, gaze slamming into him like waves crashing against a cliff.
"I'm sorry, what?" Will laughed, pinching himself just in case he was still dreaming.
"You took an ice potion that had been tampered with," Madame Pomphrey explained, jotting down notes on her clipboard. "Normally, this potion does not do any harm. Allows one to walk through most fires unscathed. The one you took had been combined with mint tea and pumpkin soup. Oddly enough, the combination of mint and pumpkin along with the increased heat amplified the effects, causing your blood cells to slowly freeze over."
"Freeze over? I felt fine!" The glass of water he'd been sipping dropped from his hands, dampening the blankets on his lap.
"That may have been the lack of oxygen reaching your brain," the head matron cautioned, muttering a quick drying spell and swishing her wand towards the general direction of his lap. "I'm still riddling out why you don't appear to have any complications."
Will let out a small gasp, finding his blanket perfectly dry, as though nothing had happened.
"So, you're saying I was basically a walking, talking, breathing popsicle, but I enjoyed it?" he challenged, meeting Madame Pomfrey's no-nonsense gaze.
The head matron shoved her wand into her apron pocket and crossed her arms, glaring daggers at him.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean by a pop-si-cle," the Healer enunciated, each syllable as though she had caramel stuck between her teeth.
Will couldn't help but smile. Surely the Wizarding Word had popsicles? He tried to imagine the witch in front of him, currently clad head to toe in layers of petticoats and skirts, sunning herself on the beach wearing giant sunglasses and licking a popsicle.
As if sensing his lack of seriousness, Madame Pomfrey conjured a stool with a flick of her wand and took a moment to arrange her dress about the stone floor as she perched on the edge.
The Healer met his eyes dead-on. "Will, is there anything you'd like to tell me?"
"Well, this whole magic thing is rather new, I guess. Still learning how it all works really. One moment I think perhaps I've got it mostly figured out, but then someone conjures a stool out of thin air and I realize I still have room left to be surprised."
It wasn't the answer the Head Matron wanted, but it was still the truth.
"Indeed. What you're describing is culture shock. You may feel excited and then anxious before you begin to adjust. It takes time."
He felt himself nodding. And what if I'm feeling all that at once?
"But what I meant to ask was more about you. Is there anything you'd like to tell me about yourself? Your health? Or anything I should be aware of health-wise from your parents?" Madame Pomfrey leaned forward; quill poised in hand with her clipboard resting upon her knee.
That I have auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations sometimes? That I've been traumatized as a kid? That I'm hanging onto a thread here that Hogwarts isn't just some grand delusion and I'm not back in the juvenile psych ward? That my mum is a foster kid who doesn't know who her own parents are. That I know zip about my dad?
"I was raised by a single parent; my mum doesn't have magic. Honestly don't know anything about my dad. At all." Will wrapped his wand on his knee, concentrating on the minuscule sparks trickling out of the tip.
He counted his heartbeat as he waited for the matron to talk. Did she already know?
"I've run blood tests… to determine why the potion you took didn't have the effect it should've," Madame Pomfrey flicked her wand, bringing the glowing diagnostic charts floating into view.
Blood tests? His mouth felt dry as the Gobi Desert.
Madame Pomfrey stared at him with gentle blue eyes, slightly crinkled. Eyes full of pity. Now he felt cold.
"Genetics was the only answer left," Madame Pomfrey stood abruptly and walked towards a sunlit window.
As curious as he'd always been about his father, or even who his mum's biological parents were, he couldn't stop the dread and panic from crawling through his skin.
"There's an abnormality in your genetics. An alteration, as it were. I've never seen the exact pattern of it before. Though there is something similar in the genetic makeup of witches and wizards who've been, for a lack of a better word, - turned - by magical beings and creatures."
"Turned?" he tossed off the blanket laying across his lap and jumped to his feet, grabbing the head matron's arm.
"Sometimes we see genetic alterations such as yours in wizarding families who carry ancestry of some other magical being, such as veela… or even lycanthropy... toxin from a werewolf."
Surprising even himself, Will laughed. Not just a simple chuckle, but the kind of laugh the causes one's abdominal muscles to cramp and eyes to water. The kind of laugh that stretches the muscles tight to the point of pain. The empty glass sitting in the sunlight on his bedside table shattered like a falling icicle. The Head Matron jumped, casting a quick spell to repair the glass.
"Madame Pomfrey, I'm going to make us popsicles someday and we'll hang out more when I'm not your patient. You've got a sharp sense of humor." Will chuckled, falling back onto his cot while forcing himself to take deep breaths.
The healer stood straight, silhouetting herself against the morning light streaming through stained glass windows, designs of various herbs and plants gently swaying.
"What I'm saying is in earnest. I don't know what branch of magical being or creature is linked to your family. Could be multiple generations back, or just one. Whatever it is, the genetic alteration likely saved your life when you drank that potion, or it at least stemmed the effects, allowing me time to siphon the poison out of your system."
Will directed his attention back to the stained-glass window, watching a carefully constructed 2-D glass flower with a row of purple buds bloom.
"Locksly, I'd like to submit a sample of your DNA and blood to a Healer at St. Mungo's who specializes in magical genetics. She…"
"No," his torn fingernails dug into the palms of his hands as the word slipped out of his mouth. He tore his gaze away from the window and back to the head matron. The Healer stumbled a step backwards, pressing herself against the window.
"I was going to say she is an expert in her field. The testing would be confidential of course. It's important for me to know if common potions I use will be contraindicated for you. Also, there may be aspects of your magic that may develop just slightly different from the rest of your classmates."
The head matron tugged her cap into place and twirled her finger around her wand as Will breathed in and out slowly.
Maybe it was his mum's roaring silence over all these years to not let him know anything about his father or even her unwillingness to find out about her own biological parents that killed his curiosity. He felt a sudden sense of being honor-bound to respect his mother's wishes. Her persistence after all these years. If he ever were to find out anything about his father or his ancestry, he wanted it to be from his mum herself and no one else. Any other means felt like cheating.
He could wait.
"No, I don't consent," he calmly crossed his fingers in his lap.
Madame Pomfrey's eyebrows shot upwards and pink tinged her weathered cheeks.
"I don't want to know what my genetic ancestry is, not without my mum's consent. When the time's right, perhaps. But if you're worried I'm going to have adverse reactions to certain potions or ingredients or something, or if my magic is going to do weird things, I'll let you test me for that. Just not my genetics." Will squeezed his wand in his hand, feeling the tingly zap of current prickle his palm.
After several moments of the Healer's mouth opening and closing, the Head Matron simply nodded in affirmation.
"It's a date then." Will smiled, shoving his feet into his shoes and throwing his robe back around his shoulders. "I'll bring popsicles."
Madame Pomfrey blushed tomato red. "Next week, see me Wednesday after dinner."