For the Love of Fiction

[loveoffiction]

The Rarest Type of Seer

 The Rarest Type of Seer

“Mom, why is it so beautiful, but so deadly at the same time?”

~Life questions from Ginger

 Chapter 12

How to Save a Life

 It was a veritable snowy wonderland.  And it was cold.  How, he wondered, did he not realize how cold it was out here?  He had been walking the extensive grounds of the Weasley’s property for the better part of fifteen minutes and the cold had gradually crept in over him.  He had to wonder how it was that he hadn’t felt it when he made his rather impressive (Albus’ voice in his head countered with dramatic) exit.

 Different thoughts flitted through his mind.  Everything from ‘what is Rose playing at?! No. No. Don’t think about that!’ To ‘how does Lily do that?!’ To ‘Wow! The Weasley’s have a lot of land to explore! I wonder if Father ever realized how wrong he was about these people?’ To ‘Wow. It is really cold out here!’  His thoughts went in circles, over and over, but they were more like a background hum instead of a constant stream.  In a way, it was nice to be away from all of the hustle and loud of the Weasley clan and their extended family.  Even if he was considered a part of that extended family.

 He was so deep in his mind that he didn’t hear someone calling out to him in warning, nor did he notice the brook with the thin sheet of ice over it that he was about to step foot on.  And then he heard the cracking and everything slowed down and blurred.  He could feel himself falling into the murkiness of the icy water, the darkness rising up to surround him, the coldness enveloping him in a freezing hug.  His thoughts, as muddled as they were to begin with, became even more so, and he knew without a doubt that he was fast losing consciousness, but just before he did, he felt himself being pulled, as if he had been summoned.  That couldn’t be right though, could it?   A summoning spell only worked on inanimate objects, not people.  And that was his last conscious thought.

 ~SL~SL~SL~SL~

 (“Scorpius.”  Someone was whispering in his ear.)

 “It’s a good job we were there, yeah?”

 “I didn’t know the summoning spell worked on humans.”

The voices that washed over him were indistinguishable at best, but they were definitely not whispers.

 “I don’t think anyone knew mate…”

 “Why d’ya think he was so close – “

 “Look! He’s shivering!   And he’s BLUE!  Where is his coat?”

 (“Scorpius…”  Or maybe it wasn’t his ear…)

 He knew those voices. Lily’s friends.

 “Really, s’bit stupid, don’t ya think?”

 “Shut up Lys.”

 “Bloody hell! Why haven’t you guys at least used a warming charm!?

 (“Ah. Albus.  It’s always lovely when you join the party”)

 “It’s too far to the house.”

 “Well we have to get him out of the cold!”

 “Oh! I know somewhere we can go!”

 (“Dominique, Scorpius.  Always the most level headed.  Don’t ever forget that.  It could save your life.”)

 What the hell? Was someone talking to him? In his mind?

 He had the distinct impression of a grinning face.

 “I don’t think that would be wise Dom.  She may not like us invading her space.”

 (“That would be Molly.  She’s such a clever little duck.  But really, I don’t mind.  You should probably let them know that you’re coming around though.  They are getting a bit worried.  And Albus is never fun to deal with when he’s upset.”)

 Scorpius groaned as he felt someone try to lift him up.

 “Oh good!  He’s coming around.  Even if only a little!  That’s a good sign, Albus!”

 The overly excited vice of Cham broke through some of the fog in his mind.  He opened his eyes just enough to realize that it was one of the Scamander twins that had him.  He wanted to protest.  He wanted to wrap himself up in all of his Malfoy dignity and pride and tell the damn twin to put him down.

 As if reading the blonde’s thoughts, Lysander said with a tone of amusement, “I would put you down, Mate. Except I’m pretty sure you would just fall on your head and end up colder than what you are already.  Let’s not tempt fate – or Albus’ wrath.  He can be scary.”  He said the last bit as if it were a secret, only he made sure that everyone could hear him.

 “This is not funny!” Albus snapped proving Lysander’s point.  “He could have died, what with how you guys were screwing around and not realizing what was going on!”

 Molly put a comforting hand on her cousin’s shoulder.  “But we did realize.  And we got him out and he’s fine.”  Her voice was soothing, much like what Scorpius thought the Weasley matriarch’s voice would be like when tending to a sick family member.

 But Albus was having none of it.  He roughly shrugged her hand away and stalked off in front of the group.

 “He’ll be fine,” Dominique’s voice said from beside him.  “Besides.  How long do you think it will take him to realize he has no idea where we are going?”

 “Neither do we,” Lysander threw in.

 Lorcan snorted from the other side, and Cham giggled.  Molly gave a wan smile.  

 “That is, of course, if she’ll even let us find her,” said the latter.

 “Oh. She will.”  Cham was very sure of herself when she spoke, and everyone gave her dubious looks.  She huffed out a breath at them.  “She already knows about the situation and she’ll help in any way that she can.”

 They all looked skeptical at her and she glared in response.  “It’s not like you guys don’t know how this works.  She probably knew all about it the second he stormed out of the tent.  That’s probably why she left so quickly after.”

 “If she knew what was going to happen to him, then why let him do it in the first place?”  Molly asked.

 Cham shrugged.  “Some things have to happen.  Whether we want them to or not.  It’s the way it is.  She doesn’t like it any more than you do.  Especially in regards to him.”

 The group fell into silence and continued their trek through the winter woods.  Scorpius clung to consciousness by threads and begged all the deities that he didn’t believe in for warmth.  The others kept a steady stream of warming charms on him and that calming voice in his head kept talking to him and making him stay awake.  He wanted to swat that voice away as if it were a fly.

 He got a distinct feeling of amusement from the other consciousness that was invading his mind. He hated that.

 Albus had rejoined them after a couple of minutes of sulking.  “I don’t know where we’re going,” was his mumbled response to his smirking cousins and friends.

 They seemed to be walking in a general straight forward direction, following the little brook that Scorpius had inadvertently tried to go swimming in.  After another ten minutes of walking they found themselves in a clearing that could only be described as a fairy glen.  

 Snow covered logs and branches were scattered about everywhere.  Winter wild flowers grew randomly between the trees.  The few birds that hadn’t flown away for the season were heard up in the trees.  In the middle of it all was the most fantastic tree that they had ever seen.

 There was a collective breath amongst the group.

 “Wow,” breathed Cham. “Ginny’s tree.”

 “What?” Albus asked.

 “It’s Ginny’s tree. Lily only ever told me about it once. She said it was her mum’s hideaway when she was small.  She gifted it to Lily one afternoon when things got rough with Rose and…”  Cham trailed off and gave a small shrug to Albus. He knew what she meant.  They all did.  

 “You know,” Lysander spoke up breaking the tension, “As many times as I’ve been out here - ”

 Lorcan snorted and hid a grin.  Molly and Dominique giggled.

 “And it has been plenty,” he continued.  “I have never seen this place.  At. All. Ever.”

 “That’s because I didn’t want it to be found.”  The voice that had been whispering in his mind became a reality and Scorpius finally succumbed to sleep.

 ~SL~SL~SL~SL~

 It was an old oak tree that housed Ginny Potter neé Weasley’s greatest childhood secret.  The tree itself had to be at least two centuries. It was encased with charms that kept it hidden from the common wizard’s eye.  Nothing so strong as a secret keeper needed to be kept, but nothing so flimsy as a disillusionment charm.  Some of the charms were so old that witches and wizards of today wouldn’t even know how to use them correctly.  

 It had been a particularly bad day for Lily.  She didn’t want to be home for the summer, and Rose was making it rather well known what her feelings on the matter was. Albus wasn’t making anything known. Whatever Rose said, it was assumed that Albus agreed.  

 Lily didn’t remember exactly what was said that caused her outburst on that fine summer day.  (If one can call quietly hexing your brother an outburst.)  She was certain though that Rose had referred to Lily’s freakishness.  Again.  Probably. And she, Lily had finally had enough. Again.  (This was, after all, an ongoing thing for the three of them.) There was a snarky retort from Lily, to which Albus most likely replied, and Lily hexed him.  But this time Lily’s hex actually held some spite to it and she had almost broke her brother’s arm.  

 There was a lot of overdramatic screaming from Rose, and the whole lot of the family came bursting into the family room that the three of them were occupying.  Rose continued ranting about Lily, Albus was trying valiantly to not show tears in front of his family, but it HURT! And Lily was silently crying.  She never meant to hurt her brother.  But why did they have to be so mean all the time?

 Ginny was the first to notice her daughter’s distress and before anyone could say a word to her, rushed the scared child out of the room.  The older red head took her daughter out into the woods that day and showed her the best hidden secret of her childhood.  

 “None of the others know about this place,” she whispered, as if trying to not disturb the wild magic that surrounded the area.  “Well,” she corrected herself, “I take it back.  Your grandfather knows.  Your father too, but he won’t say anything about it.  Your grandfather is the one that showed it to me, but nobody else knows, and none of them will, unless you tell them how to get to it.  And the best part of it all, is that even if you show them how to get here, and even let them in, the only way that they will ever find it again is if you magically key their signature into it.”

 Her mother performed some ritual that was ancient and beautiful and made Lily feel as if she was actually one with nature and a part of the grand scheme of everything.  She was a part of the brook that quietly babbled in the distance, the scent of the wild flowers became her very essence and the thoughts of the oldest tree in the area became her very own.  Her mother swore that she had never seen the ritual take to another human in the way that it took to her daughter.  Then again, her mother had only ever seen it done twice before. Still.  It was something worth pondering.  Later.

 The old oak tree became her place of hiding when the people in her family became too stupid (in her opinion) to be around.  She loved Lysander, Lorcan, Dominique, Molly, and James to pieces.  They could be a lot to handle at the best of times.  And some times (more often than not) they were just too much.  It was the place that she (unashamedly) hid from Rose, Albus, and Hugo when it was just the four of them at their grandparent’s house.

 It was where all of her dreams and ideas were thought on.  It was where she secretly mooned over one, Scorpius Malfoy.  It was where she allowed her emotions to come freely to the forefront.  She had many canvas paintings there, a whole library of ancient texts and books and novels.

 The entrance was a large squirrel’s hole.  Lily fit into it perfectly.  She supposed that she would have to enlarge it so the larger ones of this crowd could fit through it.  

 The inside of the tree, like so many other things within the wizarding world, was much different than what one might think.  It was divided into multiple rooms with a main hallway connecting them.  There was a small kitchen with a just as small stove and refrigerator.  There was a menagerie where animals that wanted to find warmth in the winter months, but didn’t want to leave, had made themselves at home.  There was a room that had summer flowers growing in them, and there were multiple guest rooms and bathrooms.  

 It was a wonder that Lily ever left here.  

 Most importantly though, it was warm.

 ~SL~SL~SL~SL~

 “Put him in there. It’s the warmest room here.”  Lily pointed to one of the rooms on the left side of the hallway.  The bed was a queen with pillows all over it.  The blankets and quilts were in blues and silvers and the walls of the room were painted in a quiet blue.  Silver streaks were painted randomly all over the walls, and there was a fluffy light silver and white rug on the floor in front of the bed.  The bed curtains were in the same shade of blue and silver as the walls.

 “You’ll have to get him out of those wet clothes before you actually put him in the bed.”  Albus eyebrows shot to the roof of his head at Lily’s quiet pronouncement.

 “What?  The girls and I can leave the room while you guys help him get into the bed.  It’s the only way to really warm him up. Don’t be such a prude, Albus.”  She left them to it and dragged Cham and her cousins to wait in the hallway.

 “Do you think he’ll be ok?” Molly asked.  She was the closest to Lily in their little group and the one that worried the most about her.  She was able to keep a level head during all of the excitement, but once everyone was relatively safe, all of her worries kicked in.  The biggest one being that Scorpius would be okay.  Even if no one else realized it, Molly just knew that he had to be okay for Lily’s sake.

 “He’ll be fine,” Dominique answered with a wave of her hand, as if it was nothing that they found the blonde Malfoy freezing outside in a stream.

 “He was blue, Dom! How can you be so… so… calm about it?”

 Dominique shrugged. “He was a bit conscious when we found him, so that tells me that he will be all right.  She looked over at Lily and Molly followed her gaze.  

 Lily was pacing through the hallway with a deep look of concentration on her face.  Cham leaned against the wall across from them, her arms were crossed over her chest as she watched her friend.  “He’ll be all right.”  The blonde said it so quietly that it almost went unheard.  

 Molly and Dominique were not sure if she were only talking to Lily or encompassing all of them in her quiet platitude, but it was Lily who answered.

 Unconsciously mirroring her cousin’s waved hand, she said, “Oh. I have no doubt that he’ll be just fine. I’ve already seen to that.”

 Cham snorted, and with strained amusement replied, “of course you have.”

 They fell back into that uncomfortable silence for another moment. Lily continued to pace.

 It was Dominique who surprisingly broke the silence again.  “Lily, please stop pacing!  If you have already seen to his well-being – how have you already seen to his well-being?” She added as an aside.  “Then what is wrong?  Why are you so agitated?”

 Lily did stop.  Rather abruptly in Molly’s opinion, and then she turned and stared at Dominique.  She had seen Lily do it before, stare at someone as if they were looking through their very soul.  (Usually at Rose, and probably more often than not, Molly thought with some misplaced amusement, for the sole purpose of making Rose uncomfortable).  But this was different.  Lily had never turned this stare on any of her closest friends before.  

 “Lily… What?” Dominque sounded just as confused as Molly felt, and maybe even a slight bit scared.

 “Rose.”  It was a statement wrapped in a strangled whisper. Lily’s blonde friend stood up straighter at the name.  Her brow was creased in thought.

 “What about her?” Molly asked.  Lily didn’t answer right away, just went back to pacing a bit.  Molly looked to the girl across from her hoping that she might be able to give some answer, but none was forthcoming.

 “Rose is an idiot,” Dominique stated.  

 The blonde sighed. “Yes. But she’s a smart idiot. One that –“

 “She’s not that smart!” Lily cut in.  “She’s had some help!  We need to find out ‘who’ and ‘how’!”

 “You already know the ‘who’, Lils,” Cham said sadly.  “I think you have probably always known the ‘who.’

 “No.” Lily shook her head. “We need to know exactly ‘who’. All we know is the collective ‘who’.”

 Lily, stopped her pacing momentarily and suddenly looked up from her contemplation of the floor. “The boys are done getting Scorpius settled.  Let’s go.”

 She swept from the hallway back into Scorpius’ temporary room, leaving her cousins and friend to follow in her wake once again.

 ~SL~SL~SL~SL~

 “I’m so hungry,” someone groaned nearby. “Why is there no food?  We could at least have tea!”

 His head felt foggy and there was a drumming staccato pounding through it.  His eyes were heavy and his limbs felt like lead weights attached to his body.  

 “Ugh. Lily. Don’t you have something in this place that will shut him up?”  There was an angry bite to Albus’ voice.  Scorpius wondered briefly what brought that on.

 There was a sigh and a rustle.  Some whispering and whooshing and then some happy grumbling noises from the first voice. “You are an amazing witch, Lily-kins!”  Scorpius would have wrinkled his face in disgust if he wasn’t in so much pain.

 “When’s he gonna wake up? He’s been asleep forever!” That one, he thought, maybe, was Dominique.  “And what about everyone else, Lils? Don’t you think they will be worried about where we all are?”

 “Nah.  I’ve sent a message.  Mr. Potter will make sure they know we’re safe.” Female voice. Only female here not related to Mr. Potter, or so he assumed, therefore must be Cham.

 Someone huffed. “Fine.  But that still doesn’t say anything about when he’s gonna wake up!”  Ah. Still Dominique then.

 He noticed that he still hadn’t heard Lily’s voice, though he was aware of her presence due to her being addressed by the others.  However, her quiet cadence was conspicuously missed.  

 The sounds of Lily’s cousins and friends wafted around him in a semi-annoying buzz.  He needed quiet. His head was starting to pound more. He remembered a presence that had been there with him as he drifted off to unconsciousness.  It had helped calm him, eased his mind, made the cold go away.  But now that presence was non-existent, and he wondered duly if it had been merely a dream.

 “Seriously though, we’ve been here all night, Lils,” another voice said.  “You’re a wreck and We don’t have any clothes other than what we were wearing yesterday!”

 “There are other things to worry about than the clothes on your back,” said the voice he had decided was Cham.  “Besides, if you’re really worried about it, there should be clothes that will fit you in the rooms you slept in last night.  Or,” she added as an afterthought, “You could just leave.”  There was an edge to her voice in her last sentence, but it seemed from all of the spluttering and arguing going on around him, no one was going to take her up on the last option.

 “Quiet. All of you.”  Her voice was a balm to his pounding head, soft and low, and surprisingly calming to him.  “He is awake, Albus.  He has been awake for the better part of thirty minutes, and he is wishing all of you to silence.”

 (One of these days he was going to figure out how she knew stuff like that.  Not right now though.  Right now he was going to open his eyes.  Maybe.)  

 There was a breath of silence in the room at her pronouncement.  Not a word was spoken.  Then in a harsh whisper Albus said, “How do you know, Lily?”  Her name was pronounced scathingly and left no room for doubt that he somehow blamed her for whatever mess they were in.

 There was a collective breathy gasp of “Albus!” from pretty much everyone but Lily.

 After a moment, he heard Lily sigh and say in that same quiet voice, “it’s fine.”

 “But, it’s really not,” Dominique started.

 “We have other things to worry about,” the Potter girl practically snapped out.  The room was far too tense and quiet for a few minutes after that.  He wanted to find a way to break it, but he wasn’t sure how to go about it.  If only he could open his damn eyes.

 “Well, then,” Albus bit out, “Why don’t you enlighten us on everything?”

 “I will. Just not –“

 Scorpius took that moment to finally attempt to get his eyes open.  He groaned lowly at how heavy his lids felt and the pain that came with trying to force them open.  He took in his surroundings in a glance.  The blues and silvers on the walls were almost as refreshing to his pounding head as Lily’s calm voice when she spoke.  Albus, Cham, and Molly were standing on one side of his bed, while Lysander and Dominique were on the other side.  Lorcan stood more to the end of the bed, but on the same side as his twin.

 A frission of panic went through him when he didn’t immediately see her, but he squashed it down as best as he could.  He had, after all, just heard her.  So she had to be there somewhere. Then he saw a slight movement behind Lorcan and he saw her leaning against the wall as nonchalantly as ever.  But she looked like the wreck she was accused by her friend earlier.  Her eyes had bags under them, her makeup from the day before was smeared and unwashed from her face, and her hair was a tumbled everywhere as if she had just come in from a rather harrowing quidditch game.  

 She was gorgeous.

 Her eyes locked with his in that moment and everything else faded away.  She was assessing him, looking at him everywhere, though how she could without breaking eye contact was a strange sensation.  He didn’t know how long they stared at each other.  It could have been seconds or hours, but then the presence in his mind flared to life and the voice from the day before said succinctly, “Good.  You’re truly all right.”  Then Lily nodded at him once and broke the eye contact.

 “I’ll leave you to it, Albus,” she glanced briefly at her brother and then left the room.  

 Another tense silence followed as everyone else processed what just happened.  Then, with some emphasis, Lorcan said, “Good Grief! She can be so dramatic!”

 Cham sighed.  “She’s not being overdramatic.  She’s a bit overwhelmed right now.”  She looked at Scorpius asking him some silent question that he had no idea how to answer and coming to a conclusion that Scorpius was unsure that he would ever figure out or understand.  “Right, then.  I’ll go talk to her.”  She started to leave, but then turned back to the room with a bit of hesitance.  “Albus, you and the twins keep Scorpius company. Molly and Dominique, go see about rustling up some real food and tea.  Not whatever it is Lily pulled from thin air.”  At everyone’s agreement, she quit the room in search of her wayward friend, leaving behind a very confused Scorpius.

[loveoffiction]

The Rarest Type of Seer

The Rarest Type of Seer

“Thunder is good. Thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”

~Mark Twain

 Chapter 11

Lessons in Stealing Thunder

After his conversation with the “Hellion Squad”, as he had deemed them not-so-affectionately in his mind, (no wonder Lily got along so well with all of them), he chose to go and sit (read: hide) with Albus and Cham.  They were lost in their own world and didn’t seem to notice him at all. That was fine though.  He had a lot to think about.  This whole business with Rose was a bit screwy. What was she playing at?  There was no way she could possibly pregnant with his child!  They would have had to have been intimate for something like that to happen.  They had never got that far in their relationship, and by the time that he thought they were ready for that, he had caught her in bed with someone else.  The problem was that it was her word against his and she was playing it up.  He couldn’t figure out for the life of him why she would do this.

“You all right there, mate?” Scorpius turned at the new voice. Apparently while he was musing away at Rose’s indiscretions and stupidity, Cham and Albus had moved away to visit with some other people and someone else had decided to sit down next to him; someone that Scorpius had never seen before.  Scorpius wasn’t one to immediately trust new people and especially people that he was sure was trying to put on an act.  The newcomer had brown hair and eyes.  Scorpius assumed that the man would probably be a few inches shorter than himself when they were both standing.  

The man tilted his head at Scorpius and smiled, though it did not quite reach his eyes.  Realizing that he had been asked a question, Scorpius sputtered. “What? Oh yes. I’m fine. Just have a lot on my mind.”

“Must be pretty pressing for you.”

Scorpius raised a questioning eyebrow.

For the first time the other man seemed a little flustered but answered the silent query, “It’s just that there are all of these people and festivities going on, and here you are sitting off by yourself in a corner, seemingly avoiding everyone.”

Scorpius shook his head, but before he could even think of a reply, he heard Lily say from behind him, “honestly Chase.  Get lost.” Then she walked around the couch and plopped down next to Scorpius on his other side.  She inched as close as she could without actually touching him. He could feel his face warming up and just for a moment he despised what this little imp of a girl could do to him just by sitting down on the same sofa as he.

“Seriously though, Bryant, nobody really even wants you here.”

“Nobody being you, Potter?” The man practically sneered at her.

Lily shrugged, completely un-phased by the nastiness of her verbal sparring partner.  “See, that’s the thing.  The only people here who know who you are, are me and Cham.  Everyone else just thinks you’re someone else’s guest, but nobody really knows who brought you.  But I do, and she doesn’t count, so, once again, get lost!”  

“Lily Luna! Don’t be rude!” Ginny said from behind them.  

Lily cringed.  The man that Scorpius now knew as Chase smirked; Scorpius could have sworn that he heard Lily mutter a curse under her breath. However, when her mother asked what she said, she merely mumbled “nothing” and glowered at Chase.  

Feeling like he had been placed in an awkward position, Scorpius went to move away from the two arguing over him.  (He just wanted a moment away from all of the insanity that this family wrought).  But Lily grabbed his hand and gave him an imploring look and he was somewhat lost.  He huffed out a breath and remained where he was, but maybe the small grin on Lily’s face was worth it.  Maybe.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” The annoyance at Scorpius’ other side questioned.

“Nah,” was the instant reply.  “Why waste my breath on the likes of someone like you.  Besides, Scorpius is pretty smart.  I’m pretty sure that he has already picked up the key factors of who you are.”

The blonde preened inwardly at her praise.

“What do you mean ‘key factors’, Potter?”

And then the preening ended. Didn’t they know when to stop. They were giving him a headache.  It was like watching a tennis match.  One that never ended, with him stuck in the middle.

“I mean that he knows your name.  He knows that you are an annoying are…” She glanced back to see if her mother was still within hearing range before continuing, “arsehole,” she lowered her voice to just above a whisper.  Scorpius had to hide a grin at her apparent fear of the older Potter woman.  “And he knows that you shouldn’t be here!” She finished with a dramatic flourish of her unoccupied hand.  

She tightened her grip on Scorpius’ hand and pulled him up with her, never giving Chase a chance to reply. “Let’s go,” she said in an overly chipper voice.  “We’re about to be called to dinner.”

He had no idea how she knew that, but sure enough, the dinner bell that Mr. Weasley had had installed for get-togethers like this went off just shortly after they started walking to the door.

 ~SL~SL~SL~SL~

 They were all gathered around the tables that had been set up under magically enlarged and warmed tents in the back garden. Molly Weasley had really outdone herself this year with the food and decorations.  Oh, he knew that the rest of them chipped in to help with everything, but he also knew that the matriarch of the family was not only a force to be reckoned with, but also the one who was truly in charge.  He also knew that she was probably the reason that he was sitting between Rose and Albus, and across from Lily and the Scamander twins.

This did not bode well.

When he first saw the seating arrangements he wondered why in Merlin’s name the good matriarch would put Lily anywhere but near her best friend.  But then he saw that said best friend was sitting next to his best friend and things became a little clearer.  Still. He didn’t want to be next to Rose and he didn’t want to be amused by the way that the twins were flicking Lily’s hair back and forth between them.  (She was doing a fine job of ignoring them, or at least pretending to ignore them). Her eyes were dancing with laughter when she glanced up at him.  

Chase was sitting on the other side of Rose.  She was flirting madly with him and Scorpius wondered mildly if she had found herself a new conquest.  It would go a long way in helping clear away these rumors.  He was aware that he may appear to be brooding and jealous but he couldn’t help appearances right now.  He was rather upset with the idea of these rumors floating around.  Already he had come face to face with an irate Ronald Weasley.  It was lucky for him that Mr. Potter was also there.  And while he couldn’t decipher the black haired man’s thoughts, he was certain that the auror was anything but angry with him.  Mr. Weasley however…  Well.  There was nothing he could do for it now.  He was, however, rather upset at losing the esteem of this wonderful family.  

He felt a light kick to his foot and looked up into the bright eyes of Lily.  She gave him an impish grin that seemed to be reassuring in a strange sense, and then turned back to the twin on her right, who it was going on about some explosion or another.

Something strange happened though.  Her eyes glazed over and her spine stiffened.  She seemed to stare off into the distance for a moment.  The twins’ laughter trailed off and there was a momentary silence around their little area of the table.  He felt Albus and Rose stiffen next to him at the same time.  He remembered something like this happening back at the Potters’ home the first night she was home.  

“Teddy and Victoire are going to make an announcement soon,” she murmured. And just as suddenly as it began, her gaze cleared and she grinned broadly.  “I’m so excited for them!”  Then she looked at Rose and glared.  “Don’t ruin their moment!”

Rose huffed but was unable to answer.  Teddy had stood up just then and asked for everyone’s attention.  He seemed a little nervous as he glanced around the room.  But then he focused on Victoire and grabbed her hand and they were suddenly both beaming at each other.  It was such an intimate moment but nobody seemed to mind. Everyone in the room was smiling at the two of them.

“Well, go on then, Teddy! Tell us what’s got you up there!”  Someone yelled.  

Teddy cleared his throat. “Right. Yes.  So, Victoire and I wanted to tell you all that we are expecting our first child next summer!”

There was much applause and congratulations and crying, (why was there crying!?) after this pronouncement.  Men stood and clapped Teddy on the back, while women went and hugged Victoire.  Many of the people that were sitting at Scorpius’ table stayed where they were though, and that didn’t really surprise him, as there were too many people were swarming the happy couple.

He was happy for his cousin and his future.  Certainly. Teddy was one of the best people that he knew.  At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel as if something was off.  Not necessarily with the announcement, but with something else. There was a foreboding tension in the air that was surrounding him, and he knew he wasn’t the only one who could feel it.  The Scamander twins eyes didn’t seem as joyful as they were moments before, Albus had shuddered as if a cold chill had gone up his spine, though it was rather warm in the tent, and Lily’s lips were pursed in an angry pout.

He felt something flare to life in his mind as he was taking all of this in.  There was some new thread that was being formed, something familiar but still distant all at once.  

As the chatter died down and people began returning to their seats, Rose stood and drew their attention to her.

“Oh Merlin. No.”  Cham muttered from the other side of Albus.

“I’m so happy for you both!” She simpered at them.  Teddy’s eyebrows raised and Victoire’s face was set in confusion at how her younger cousin was acting.  Rose continued.  “You guys have been trying so hard and it’s just so exciting!”

Teddy found his voice and though looking incredibly bewildered he attempted to thank her for her courtesy.  But Rose had other ideas and trampled right over him.

“In light of this joyous news, I thought that it would be a good time to also share mine and Scorpius’ happy news!  We’re going to have a baby too!”  Her overly cheerful voice reverberated throughout the now silent room.  There were no congratulations.  No happy exclamations.  None of the men clapped him on the back – not that he wanted them to – and none of the women came over to hug Rose.  Also not what he wanted to happen.  

Everyone was staring though. At him, and also her, but he felt like it was mostly himself.  And he was floundering.  He was lost in a sea with no anchor.  Nothing holding him in place.  He figured this was what a panic attack must feel like, though he couldn’t be sure. He had only ever heard of them before. The only thoughts going through his mind were of how she could possibly do this when there was no truth to it, and more importantly: why?

He looked around to see if he had any support; Albus had nothing but disappointment on his face (thanks for believing in me, Mate.)  There was nothing to be found but pity on Cham’s.  The hellion squad looked ready to murder, though who they wanted to kill, he couldn’t say for sure.  He couldn’t bear to look at Lily.  Her estimation of him had come to mean a lot in the short amount of time that they had known each other.  The idea of her disappointment in him made him cringe, even when he knew how untrue Rose’s claims were.  

It was Ron though that made him beyond weary of the situation that he found himself in.  Rose’s father was furious.  Even more so than when Scorpius had come across the man and Mr. Otter earlier.  Ron’s face was a shade of purple that Scorpius was sure could only be found on blueberries, and he would swear until his dying day that there was actual steam coming out of the man’s nose and ears.  (And the blonde was certain it wasn’t a WWW product).

“Err.  Right. Well.  That’s a um…lovely thought, Rose.  And well, congratulations on being pregnant. But, yeah.  It’s not mine.”  And then he bolted out of the tent as fast as he could.

 ~SL~SL~SL~SL~

 Lily and Cham stood at the same time, murderous expressions on their faces.  Lily had known Rose was going to try something stupid tonight. And with Chase here, it made it that much worse.  They didn’t need any outsiders working on this with them.  And Lily had no trust for him.  He was a worm.  

 ~SL~SL~SL~SL~

 Rose cringed a bit from the pure anger on her cousin’s face, but she straightened her spine and held her head high, meeting Lily’s piercing glare head on.  She would not fail in this.  Lily and her friend would not stop what was to happen.  She, Rose, would for once be victorious over her cousin.  

To Rose’s immense consternation, once again, Lily did the opposite of what was expected of her.  The glare melted from Lily’s face and she grinned. Then she turned to her uncle.  “Things aren’t always what they seem, Uncle Ron. And those we love most,” she looked back at Rose for a moment, “can sometimes turn out to be backstabbing liars.”

Her exit wasn’t near as dramatic as Scorpius’ flight, but her parting words did what she had meant them to do, and the people that the words were meant for were left with much to think about.

  Obligatory Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the other awesome things you may recognize in this spiffylicious story.

[loveoffiction]

The Rarest Type of Seer

“I've discovered that the less I say, the more rumors I start.”

~Bobby Clarke

Chapter 10

Dubious Guests and Rumors too…

“But I don’t understand why Chase is here!” An exasperated Lily was never something to mess with.  But Cham couldn’t help herself, because an exasperated Lily was also a very amusing creature.  They were standing against the wall in the main living room of the Burrow. A smattering of cousins and friends and siblings sitting on the many conjured furniture pieces.  They kept their voices low so that the others wouldn’t hear their conversation.  

Bryant Chase (known to one and all simply as Chase) being at the party was one thing that Lily just could not seem to get over and she had been pondering the reasons for it ever since she had seen him show up.

“I told you this morning why he was here,” was her reply.

Lily groaned. “I know what you told me this morning, Cham,” she practically growled.  “I meant, why is he here? At my grandparents’ home on the night of my family’s Christmas party less!”

“Ah.  Well, you see.  Apparently he ran into Rose and she invited him along to dinner.  It was very nice of her, if you think about it.  Him being so far away from home and all that,” she paused, hoping to catch any expression that might cross the youngest Potter’s face, but Lily remained stoic, and Cham saw nothing. She sighed.  “What are you thinking, Lily?”

“Nothing,” was the abrupt reply.  At her friend’s dubious look, Lily looked away and grudgingly began, “it’s just – don’t you think it’s a bit odd that Scorpius and I go for a midnight walk – “

Cham snorted and opened her mouth, but Lily quickly spoke over her, “and then the next day Chase shows up out of the blue.  But the next day isn’t just any day – oh no.  It just happens to be the day of my family’s Christmas party.  And then he conveniently gets invited, by Rose of all people.

“You’re being paranoid.  I highly doubt he’s a traitor, let alone the traitor.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?  We were warned not to trust anyone, or did you forget?”

“I forget nothing, as you well know, Lily,” the blonde’s indignity at the slight was palpable and Lily might have felt slightly ashamed if it had not been for the next words that came from Cham’s mouth.  “He’s here because he was worried about your safety.  He knows as well I do what that place was like.  When he felt that something was wrong in that realm he came immediately to get you to safety.”

Lily didn’t reply for a long moment, her thoughts stuck on what Cham had just said.  

“Lils -?” She became worried when Lily turned to her with anger burning in her green eyes.  

“I was just wondering on the oddness of your statement,” was the thoughtful response.  “Why it is that Chase came halfway around the world to make sure I was alright,” she held up her hand to stop Cham from interrupting, “but my best friend, who has the same type of gift as he does and was, no doubt, much much closer to where I was physically located, didn’t even realize or even feel the same ‘disturbance’, if you will, that he felt and therefore didn’t even worry about my safety until my father realized I was gone?”

‘Oh shit,’ the thought went through Cham’s head so fast that there wasn’t any time to block it before it was out in the open for all those who could hear other people’s thoughts.

The hurt that she saw was worse than the anger, Cham decided.  At least she knew how to deal with an angry Lily.  

“I was busy,” she replied.  And she hoped that Lily would miss the brief glance that she sent across the room.

“Uh huh.  Okay.”

“No, seriously, Lily! I really was!”

“Doing what then? Because the way I see it, if you hadn’t been busy doing whatever I wouldn’t be in this predicament!  Isn’t that the entire reason you’re supposed to be with me whenever I ‘go off on my own’?”  

Cham felt as if she had been slapped.  “Right, because of course being your friend has nothing to do with it at all!  My job is to be your babysitter, right?” she snapped back.  

By this time their whispered conversation was becoming so heated, they were drawing the attention of the others in the room.

“That’s not what I meant and you well know it,” she lowered her voice to a whisper again, intense pain coloring her next words, “he had to claim me just so we could get out of there, Cham!  Do you know what that means? Do you truly understand?”

“Of course –“

“You don’t!” Lily cut her off vehemently.  “And he doesn’t even believe that it actually happened! So yeah, forgive me for being just a bit upset for you not being there!”  The last sentence was practically yelled and they now had the attention of everyone in the room.

Though she had seen Lily’s ire before, she had never actually been on the receiving end of it and she had no idea what to do.  She threw another glance across the room but the person she had been looking at before was gone. She sighed.

“I’m sorry, Lily.”

“Right. Yeah,” she scoffed.

“Lily.  Are you alright?”  Both girls looked up to see Albus standing in front of them.

“Why do you care?” she retorted scathingly.  The black haired boy flinched.

“That’s not fair, Lily,” Cham jumped to his defense.  She was so relieved to see that someone had jumped into the brewing argument, and even happier that it had been him, that she forgot to shutter her response in front of her friend.

Albus gave Cham a warm smile and she replied in kind with Lily looking between the two.  An idea slowly formed in her head.  When it came to full fruition, she gasped, breaking whatever spell that had come over her brother and her currently former friend.

“Right then. That explains your ‘I was busy.’ Very cryptic that.  But that’s alright.  I get it, I really do.”  So many emotions flashed over her face in that second that both of the onlookers were caught off guard.  Hurt and anger, betrayal, fear, shame, sadness.  There were others too, just as fleeting over her face before she once again closed off.  “Congratulations,” she whispered before practically sprinting for the door.

Cham tried to grab Lily’s arm, “it’s not,” but she was gone quicker than the blonde could blink.

“You know –“ piped up another voice from beside them,  “Aunt Ginny always says Lily is just as broody as your dad was when he was that age.”

“Shut up Hugo.” Albus punched his younger cousin in the arm, but he was grinning all the same.

“She’ll be alright though, yeah?” Cham asked.

“Oh yeah,” Chase said as he came up to them, “she’ll be just fine.  You know, overlooking the crazy ancients that are waking up, The Lux Lucis Efrrego wanting to take her down, and of course a cousin that is intent on ruining her.  Yep, Lily will be just fine.”

“Who in Merlin’s name are you? And what on Earth are you talking about?” Albus demanded.

It was her turn to punch someone in the arm and she was not as gentle on Chase as Albus had been with Hugo.  

Chase at least had the decency to look contrite.  “What? I thought they knew” was his elegant reply to the stormy look on the blonde girl’s face.

“Obviously not.”

“Clearly.”

 ~SL~SL~SL~SL~

 Loud and boisterous was how he would explain the Weasley clan.  Of course that could also be due to the fact that there were so many of them.  Scorpius had been coming to the Weasley family Christmas Eve dinner since he was eleven and Albus had found out that the Malfoy’s didn’t do anything special. It had become a tradition after that. Scorpius would spend his Christmas Eve with the Potter’s and Weasley’s and his Christmas Day with his own family. Even after his recent breakup with Rose, this year would be no different.

They were all unconsciously divided into their own little groups.  The men out playing muggle darts in Arthur Weasley’s shed, the women standing around the kitchen gossiping and hustling and bustling things out to the magically warmed seating area in the yard.  The cousins and all of their friends were also broken up into their own little groups talking about this and that or playing a pick-up game of quidditch out in the snowy glen.  

Usually, the Malfoy heir would hang out with Albus and Rose, and occasionally Fred.  But this year he didn’t really know where he fit in. When he originally started dating the youngest Weasley girl, he didn’t think about the consequences of a break up or how those consequences would affect his relationship with her family.

He wandered through the house thinking about his dilemma and feeling as if all the Weasleys’ were looking down on him or thinking badly of him.  He had yet to run into her father, an encounter that he was not looking forward to. Although, that particular encounter may not be near as uncomfortable as that morning’s was with Mr. Potter.

After leaving Lily’s room, he had made his way back down to the main part of the house.  He was just passing Harry’s study when he heard the man himself call Scorpius back in.  The Malfoy scion entered the office with something akin to trepidation racing up and down his spine.  

He remembered his father once mentioning that Harry could be rather scary when he felt that something he loved was being threatened.  “I don’t mind you being friends with Albus, Scorpius,” his father had said with a rueful glance at his wife, “but do not get on his father’s bad side!”

It wasn’t that Scorpius had never heeded his father’s warning about such a thing, it was just that it had never occurred to him that he would ever need to.

Harry gave nothing away with his expressions and Scorpius figured that Lily had a really good teacher in her father when it came to learning how to be expressionless.  Scorpius wished he still had the buffer that Mrs. Potter, Cham, and Lily had provided between himself and Harry earlier.  He was certain that the savior of the wizarding world would have frozen him solid for the rest of his life and made him into a statue to show to other young men that laid eyes on his daughter.  “This is what happens to young men that try to date Lily Potter,” would be printed at the base. The fleeting thought amused Scorpius more than it probably should have.  He wasn’t even trying to date her.  Yes, she was pretty.  She was also mysterious and enigmatic and a right pain in the arse, and he should probably tune into what Mr. Potter was saying.  

“…so whatever your intentions are, Malfoy, you need to be aware that if you hurt my daughter in any way…”  That had been all Scorpius could bare before he interrupted,

“It’s not what you think though.  We really did go for a walk.”  And he was so earnest in his response that Harry almost believed him. But Scorpius could tell that there was still some misgivings in the older man’s expressions.

The only response he was to receive was “hmmm” before he was sent away.

He shook those thoughts away.  ‘It’s Christmas, Malfoy – think happy thoughts… get in the spirit,’ he said to himself.

He made his way into the living room of The Burrow and almost tripped over a wide eyed Lucy Weasley. The buzz of conversation dimmed for a moment but rose back up when Roxanne Weasley started giggling at her cousin’s clumsiness.

“OI! MALFOY!!  OVER HERE!”  Turning to the sound of the voice, he saw the Scamander twins with Molly and Dominique Weasley sitting on the floor of the living room in front of one of the couches. Dominique looked as if she had just finished laughing at something one of them had said.  He had never really hung out with this group of the family.   These were Lily’s particular friends, he knew that much.  They were a bit on the eccentric side, and there always seemed to be laughter wherever they went.

As he made his way over to them, he looked to see if Lily was with them.  He hadn’t noticed her anywhere in the room or in his trek through the house and he was somewhat worried that she was not here. He decided not to think too hard on the ramifications of his concern.

“Looking for someone?” One of the Scamander twins asked when he reached them.  He couldn’t tell which one it was though for he had never taken the time to get to know them.  Dominique let out a small giggle and eyed Scorpius with arch humor.  Molly just grinned at his obvious discomfort.

Scorpius eyed them warily before he answered.  “Not really.” The dubious look he received from the four of them told him that they did not believe him at all.

There was an awkward tension that overtook the group for a moment before Molly piped up, “Soooo, Scorpius…,” She glanced at her companions with a sly smile and Scorpius just knew that he would not like what was coming.  “We were just talking about this interesting rumor that we overheard about you. Would you mind telling us if there is any truth to it?  We would so hate to be misinformed.”

Not knowing or liking where this was going, he replied, “I will do what I can to ease your minds and set the rumors straight.”

One of the Scamander twins snorted, the other grinned wickedly and Dominique let out another giggle.

Molly waved a hand at the sofa behind them and offered him a seat before she began.  “The whole house is a buzz with it,” she said without preamble. “Apparently Rose is pregnant with your child and when you found out that she was, you broke it off with her.  And now you’re trying to get together with Lily. Which by the way, if you are, well… Good luck with that.”

Scorpius paled at her words.  He was stunned at the revelation, though he figured it could be possible for Rose to be pregnant, there was no way that it could possibly be his child.  But then the rest of it was even more troubling because he had honestly know idea what to think about Lily.  He knew he was attracted to her.  He even liked her.  But he didn’t know her and she was just a tad bit on the weird side.  And then there was the whole ‘dream’ episode that they shared.  That dream was in a whole new world of weird.  

Before Scorpius could form a response a voice behind them said, “Molly.  You shouldn’t spread rumors, especially if there isn’t any truth to them.”

They all turned to see James standing there giving them a significant look. “But James,” Molly whined in protest, “how are we to know the truth if we don’t seek it out?  That’s why we asked him.”

“Besides,” Dominique interceded, “there has to be some bit of truth to it. Otherwise it wouldn’t hold any sway with the adults.  And,” she added devilishly, “they are all in a grand uproar over it!  Well, at least Uncle Ron is.”

Scorpius groaned. There were looks of sympathy all around but they were over shadowed by the mirth that he could see in their eyes as well.  

“So.  Is it true?” Molly continued while eyeing him.

“I don’t know anything about any of it,” he replied.  “I would think that she would at least have the decency to mention such a thing to me if she was.”

One of the Scamander twins snorted in response, the other muttered, “yeah right.”  James rolled his eyes, and Molly laughed outright.

Dominique smiled softly though, and he felt as if he might have someone on his side.  Then she opened her mouth.  “You give her far more credit than she deserves, Scorpius.  Then again, she has always had you wrapped around her little finger, hasn’t she?”

Scorpius sputtered at her. “OI!”

orien��:~�ɽ

[hplyrikz]

[hplyrikz]

Clear your mind here

[homofauxbic]

do i have to listen to maroon 1 2 3 and 4 before listening to maroon 5?

[exssardonyx]

i skipped straight to maroon 5 so i could get to the trolls

[hanari502]

HOW DARE YOU SKIP THE INTERMAROON

[most4rdently]

- He is so good. I don’t deserve it. - I am sure you do. Your brother thinks you do, and as you know, he is never wrong.

[whoviandreams]

Nothing in this universe can harm those things. Time’s been damaged and they’ve come to sterilise the wound. By consuming everything inside.

[the-yennefer]

Yeah, well, me, Mum and Cliff Richard movies every Bank Holiday Monday.

[lastbluetardis]

Did you just say Tentoo x Rose prompts? OMG OMG OMG OMG YES!!!!! What about Tentoo discovering his new human body is ticklish in ways that he didn't know as a Time Lord?

This is complete and utter fluff ^.^ I can totally see Rose taking advantage of his ticklishness ^.^

He had always been sensitive, he knew that. The slightesttouch of Rose’s hand would make him tingly. The slightest wisp of her breathagainst his ear would completely wipe his mind blank.

So, yes, he knew he was sensitive, but he never knew he wasticklish.

Rose had walked up behind him one morning and had carded herfingers through his hair. And it had felt good. It always felt good when Rosetouched his hair. Well, it always felt good when Rose touched him anywhere.

But then she moved her hands down and started to massage hisneck and shoulders.

He let out the most unmanly, most undignified squeak as heflinched and recoiled violently enough to slosh his morning coffee onto thetable.

His cheeks burned red as Rose laughed at him and tossed hima towel to mop up the mess.

Rose took this newfound information, though, and explored itfurther. They would be in the middle of a rather fantastic snogging session,and she would trail her hands all over his body. At first, the Doctor didn’tmind. He didn’t care what Rose did, as long as she kept touching him.

But then her fingers scraped across the skin above thewaistband of his pants, and he yelped again and recoiled away.

“Oi!” he said, catching her hand as it dipped to tickle himagain. “Stop it!”

“Can’t help it!” she panted through her laughter. “You’rejust so cute!”

“Cute?” he exclaimed, his voice pitching up a few octaves. “Cute??Time Lords are not cute!”

“Nah, but half human Time Lords are.”

She gave him a tongue-touched smile, his only warning beforeher fingers found that sensitive spot where his neck met his shoulders. Hesquealed and wriggled and dodged her hands as his own sought out retribution.But no matter where he touched or pinched or squeezed, she remained stubbornlyand resolutely unaffected.

That is, until his hands brushed across her breasts.

She stopped her assault and gasped in a sharp breath. TheDoctor quickly moved his hands away from the uncharted territory and he wasabout to apologize, but when he saw how dark her eyes were, his words got stuckin his throat. His hands were frozen between them, and he was sure what heshould do with them, but thankfully she made the decision for him. She pushedher chest out and towards his hands until his knuckles brushed across thefabric of her shirt, and he couldn’t help but open his fingers and palm her breasts.

She let out a soft moan, and her hands retreated from hiswaist to twist themselves into his hair once more.

Turns out, being so sensitive wasn’t a bad thing in thislife.

Come talk Tentoo x Rose with me!!

[firemoon42]

Ways to un-stick a stuck story

Do an outline, whatever way works best. Get yourself out of the word soup and know where the story is headed.

Conflicts and obstacles. Hurt the protagonist, put things in their way, this keeps the story interesting. An easy journey makes the story boring and boring is hard to write.

Change the POV. Sometimes all it takes to untangle a knotted story is to look at it through different eyes, be it through the sidekick, the antagonist, a minor character, whatever.

Know the characters. You can’t write a story if the characters are strangers to you. Know their likes, dislikes, fears, and most importantly, their motivation. This makes the path clearer.

Fill in holes. Writing doesn’t have to be linear; you can always go back and fill in plotholes, and add content and context.

Have flashbacks, hallucinations, dream sequences or foreshadowing events. These stir the story up, deviations from the expected course add a feeling of urgency and uncertainty to the narrative.

Introduce a new mystery. If there’s something that just doesn’t add up, a big question mark, the story becomes more compelling. Beware: this can also cause you to sink further into the mire.

Take something from your protagonist. A weapon, asset, ally or loved one. Force him to operate without it, it can reinvigorate a stale story.

Twists and betrayal. Maybe someone isn’t who they say they are or the protagonist is betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. This can shake the story up and get it rolling again.

Secrets. If someone has a deep, dark secret that they’re forced to lie about, it’s a good way to stir up some fresh conflict. New lies to cover up the old ones, the secret being revealed, and all the resulting chaos.

Kill someone. Make a character death that is productive to the plot, but not “just because”. If done well, it affects all the characters, stirs up the story and gets it moving.

Ill-advised character actions. Tension is created when a character we love does something we hate. Identify the thing the readers don’t want to happen, then engineer it so it happens worse than they imagined.

Create cliff-hangers. Keep the readers’ attention by putting the characters into new problems and make them wait for you to write your way out of it. This challenge can really bring out your creativity.

Raise the stakes. Make the consequences of failure worse, make the journey harder. Suddenly the protagonist’s goal is more than he expected, or he has to make an important choice.

Make the hero active. You can’t always wait for external influences on the characters, sometimes you have to make the hero take actions himself. Not necessarily to be successful, but active and complicit in the narrative.

Different threat levels. Make the conflicts on a physical level (“I’m about to be killed by a demon”), an emotional level (“But that demon was my true love”) and a philosophical level (“If I’m forced to kill my true love before they kill me, how can love ever succeed in the face of evil?”).

Figure out an ending. If you know where the story is going to end, it helps get the ball rolling towards that end, even if it’s not the same ending that you actually end up writing.

What if? What if the hero kills the antagonist now, gets captured, or goes insane? When your write down different questions like these, the answer to how to continue the story will present itself.

Start fresh or skip ahead. Delete the last five thousand words and try again. It’s terrifying at first, but frees you up for a fresh start to find a proper path. Or you can skip the part that’s putting you on edge – forget about that fidgety crap, you can do it later – and write the next scene. Whatever was in-between will come with time.

[writingtipsandtricks]

Great advice for all of you writers out there with a writer’s block. -Sherry

[loveoffiction]

I needed this

[lastbluetardis]

I headcanon that one of the hobbies Tentoo takes up in Pete's World is restoring old cars. It satisfies his need to tinker, and it's his own secret way of remembering Mickey. Half the cars he restores he ends up donating to museums or giving away as gifts. One of the only ones he keeps for himself is an old yellow roadster he names Bessie.

Oh absolutely!! He loves taking things apart and rebuilding them, and has done this to more than half the appliances in Rose’s flat. One day, a few weeks into their new lives together, she takes his hand and walks them to the garage and there is an old, beat up, broken down roadster. It’s kind of red (most of it is rust), and it’s missing one of the tires, and there are enormous dents in it, and the engine doesn’t work nor do the brakes, so Rose tells him to have fun and to leave her toaster alone.

He fixes it in just over a month (the longest part was waiting until he either found the parts he needed or he ordered them). He paints it yellow, and names it Bessie 2, and he tells Rose about his first Bessie, and about the people who were traveling with him that also got to ride in Bessie. And this is the first time he’s talked about his past, and it paves the way for more communication between them, an soon they’re swapping stories about their lives before each other and after each other, and it feels good to talk about their memories with each other, and as they grow more and more comfortable with each other, they find the affection and intimacy comes shortly thereafter. (They totally shag in Bessie 2 on more than one occasion, because Rose finds it so sexy to watch the Doctor’s hands fiddle and tinker with the tiny pieces of the car, and the Doctor finds it sexy that Rose is interested helping and in learning how all of the parts work.)

The Doctor found he really enjoys fixing cars, though, and is sad when Bessie 2 is finished and in pristine condition. Until one day, he and Rose are walking around this universe’s Estates, and there is an old man who can’t get his car to start, but he can’t afford to take it into the shop. So of course the Doctor offers to lend him a hand, and he’s got it running in twenty minutes.

After that, he advertises his mechanical services, free of charge, to the people of the Estates, or to anyone else who couldn’t afford proper service work.

Come talk Tentoo x Rose with me!!

[awwww-cute]

[iopele]

did I reblog this before? …maybe am I going to reblog it again? …definitely

[loveoffiction]

Not of this World…

Ok, well this was originally a Labyrinth fanfic. But I don’t remember where I was going with it. However, since I came across it in my lost writing archives and decided that I still really liked it, I felt that I would share it with all of you - even if it is just a standalone.

Chapter 1

…Not of that one either

She woke to the sound of muted voices.  She could not hear a word they were saying, but she had the distinct impression that they were talking about her.  They sounded worried and she wondered why that was.  One of the voices rose slightly in volume and the young woman-child flinched when she heard something slam against the wall just outside the room that she was in.  There was a long pregnant silence, some more muttering and then two sets of booted footsteps walking away from the door.

She shrugged her shoulders and almost – almost – cried out in pain at the stinging jolt that lanced through her shoulders.  She wanted to cry, to rage at the absolute pain that was now surfacing and making itself known in her body.  However, she gritted her teeth.  There was deep seated knowledge in her stomach that it would be very dangerous indeed if anyone knew that she was awake.  (She had no idea how she knew this, but she knew that keeping her silence was of a high importance.)

 A soft breeze blew through the room, causing the white gauzy bed curtains to flutter gently causing a much needed distraction to the ebony haired girl that was lying in the bed.  She sat up slowly, doing her best to ignore the lancing streaks of pain throughout her body as she did so.  She needed to find out where she was and how she had got there.  

Taking in her surroundings, she came to the conclusion that her current hosts were much wealthier that she was.  If the coat of arms that was grandly displayed above her fireplace was anything to go off of, then her best guess would be that these people…? Faeries….? Elves….?  Well – whatever they were, they were of noble, possible even royal, descent.

‘Great.  Just what I need – more royals out for my blood.’  

To be fair, it was only one royal family that was out for her, and she really didn’t even understand why.  It was not like she had done anything wrong.  How was she to know that the guy she had tripped up for being cruel to a young peasant child was a prince of the High Family?  (Not that she had shown him any respect when she found out.)  She had got into a rather heated argument with him about it, and then he was ordering her to bow down to him, and when she didn’t do so, he was accusing her of treason against the High Family, and yelling to all that would listen, which was quite the crowd by this time, that her head would be on the gallows the following morning.

He had turned his back for a split second to speak to the crowd, (obviously he was an attention whore, but that was all the time that the green-eyed witch needed.)  She was there one second, and when he turned back with a sneer on his face, she was gone.  

The story of the little mortal girl who stood up to one of the High Princes was circulated far and wide.  By the time it reached the tiny little village that she lived in, it was so far distorted and changed that she didn’t even recognize herself in it.  She had, of course, thought about correcting the people that were telling it; after all she did pride herself on honesty.  The only time she used lies and deceit was when absolutely necessary.  However, at the end of the story someone said that the High Prince was on the lookout for the girl that had stood up to him on that day.  He still wanted her head on the gallows.  Shuddering at the thought of her head detached from her neck, (I like it very much where it is, thank you), the girl turned and walked away, shaking said head at the absurdity of the royalty in the Underground.

She drew herself out of her thoughts and back to her surroundings.  The white curtains that had been fluttering in the breeze surrounded a large bed made of mahogany.  There was a matching wardrobe in the corner of the room and a dresser and mirror sitting on the opposite wall.  The room itself was painted in a happy shade of blue that the wood of the furniture offset neatly, and there were tasteful paintings adorning the room.  The coat of arms that she had noticed before was the forefront of the room, hanging boldly above a large brick fireplace. Everything was tasteful and no fault could be found within it.  

And there was still an air of danger lurking in the atmosphere.  The young girl shuddered and made her way slowly over to the armoire. Inside, she found the clothes that she had been wearing when she met up with the inevitable trouble that seemed to follow her everywhere she went.  

Even when she lived ‘up there’ she remembered feeling as if she had been cursed with calamity.  Then she was brought back here, (‘thanks for that, Labyrinth,’ she thought sarcastically), and she had hoped that the trouble would stop following her, but it seemed as if it had just got worse.  She would have ‘loved’ to have blamed ‘him’, but as far as she knew, he didn’t even know that she was here.  Besides, from what she could gather from the grapevine – he was in trouble of losing his title if he didn’t get his act together.  (Whatever that entailed…)

Completely frustrated at the situation she found herself in, and totally irritated at the fact that it was not the first time nor would it be the last, the girl shimmied out of the sleeping gown that she was currently wearing and slammed her first leg into her trousers.  

The pain was immediate and intense.  Forgetting her all-important need of not making a sound, the Labyrinth’s chosen embodiment cried out in pain, collapsing to the floor almost instantly, and blacked out.

~*~ 

She awoke a few hours later to the feel of a rough hand on her head, gently smoothing her hair back from her face.

“What were you thinking, child?” asked a gravelly voice.  “Do ye think ye could have upped and walked outta here, like ye were in no pain et’all?”

The dark haired girl groaned as she cracked open an eye.  ‘Who… who’re you?” she rasped.  A glass of crisp water was shoved into her hand and she gulped it down, only then remembering her pain.

The gravelly voice at her bed-side chuckled.  “Mimi be the nurse in this’ere castle” was the response from beside the girl.  

Turning her head to her right, she took in the ‘nurse’.  She looked as old and as gravelly as her voice.  She had long gray hair that was pulled up into a tight chignon. Her nose was crooked and her skin was wrinkled like that of an old dwarf.  Her eyes were the deepest brown that the child had ever seen and they were filled with so much wisdom, that she wondered if the old woman had been there to see the creation and separation of the world.  

Before she could voice her questions, (which was probably for the better anyway), the old dwarf patted the young girl on the hand and said, “Ye mustn’t try getting up and wandering around me lady.  You isn’t ready for that yet.  Besides, ‘is majesty can’t find out who you are.  If he does, it will mean bad things for the Underground.  So’s you just stay in ‘ere and let ‘ol Mimi take cares ‘o you.”

The girl nodded her head slowly.  All she wanted to do was get out of here, but it seemed that she was stuck.  At least for the moment anyway.

[loveoffiction]

The Rarest Type of Seer

“I love those who can smile in the face of trouble, gather strength from their distress, and grow brave from their reflections…”

~Leonardo da Vinci

Chapter 9

“Where have you guys been?  We’ve been worried sick about you!  Everyone in the house has been searching for you and your father has been almost out of his mind with worry!  What’s going on Lily?”  Ginny Potter passed back and forth in front of her only daughter waving her hands dramatically as she paced.  Lily had always considered her mother to be of a sensible nature, so she wasn’t entirely certain how to go about addressing the upset harridan that she was currently presented with.

She did feel slightly bad for scaring her parents but it wasn’t as if she had any real control over the situation.  No.  The one to blame was sitting on her left side, currently pondering how he was going to explain to the Potters that he had apparently whisked their daughter away to some other realm, claimed her as a prize in a hunt, and then miraculously brought her back.  Oh yeah, and according to some nargles and some sort of shadow creature, he was a Dreamwalker.  ‘How exactly was he supposed to maintain the Potter’s good opinion if the story that he told them, no matter how much truth there was to it, sounded insane even to himself?’ 

Lily tried to reassure him, but he was so lost in his thoughts, he was oblivious to Ginny’s angry diatribe.  ‘Lucky him,’ was the uncharitable thought that crossed Lily’s mind even as she winced in pain at the headache that all of Scorpius’ unshielded thoughts were giving her.

“Well, Lily Luna?  Are you going to answer me?”  Lily brought herself back to the present circumstances.  She and Scorpius were sitting on the couch in her father’s home office.  Cham stood by the door with an imperceptible smirk on her face and Lily had to wonder if she was laughing at Lily’s present circumstances or something else entirely.  You never could really tell with her. 

“LILY!” 

This sudden exclamation brought Lily completely out of her contemplation.  It wasn't like she was trying to ignore her mother, or maybe it was, it was just that so much had happened this past night, and her thoughts were everywhere.  Her head hurt and her foot was in some new form of agonizing hell and all she wanted to do was sleep, or at the very least, get out of her mother’s presence. 

She sighed, figuring that she would have to give her mother some form of an answer or else she would never be able to discuss what had happened with Cham.  And she really needed to talk this out – because if anyone would know how to get out of a claiming it would be her best friend.  Or so she hoped.

“We went for a walk, Mum.  That’s all.  Nothing happened and we’re perfectly safe,” she stated.  She reached over and grabbed up Scorpius’ hand, breaking him out of his reverie.  She unconsciously entwined their fingers together as she pulled his hand up into the air with hers, as if to say, “SEE! Perfectly fine!”

Ginny scoffed and significantly glanced at Lily’s foot that was currently using Scorpius’ lap as a resting place. 

Lily felt Scorpius tense up and wanted to at least try to ease his mind.  He really needed to stop thinking right now.  It was surely hurting her more than it was him.

“I fell,” Lily deadpanned.  There was a snort that came from the corner of the room and Scorpius turned to look at her incredulously.  Her mother gave her a disbelieving look and flopped into the chair behind Harry’s desk. 

“What?” She addressed the room at large.  “I did fall.  Besides, Mum.  It’s just a little sprain.  Cham’ll heal it up and I’ll be no worse off than I was when I fell asleep.”

Hoping that the interview was at an end, the dark haired girl grabbed her blonde companions hand and tried to pull him up with her as she stood to leave.  But with the excruciating pain that was shooting up her leg from her ankle and the fact that Scorpius hadn’t been expecting the movement, Lily ended up falling precariously back onto the couch.

“Oooowwww!” Nobody was sure if it was a moan or a whimper that escaped her mouth, but her mother was back on her feet and standing in front of her daughter with a look of concern on her face.  Cham had rushed over and Scorpius was hovering next to her.  “I’m fine,” she gasped out.  “Really, I am.”

“Clearly.”  Ginny let out an exasperated breath.  Leave it to Lily to tell them she was alright when it was perfectly clear that she was not.  ‘Like father, like daughter,’ she thought not for the first time.

“I’m not sure where you thought you were going, but since you are clearly not ‘perfectly fine’, you can stay right there and tell me the truth about where you went.”  She held up a hand to stall whatever it was Lily was about to interrupt with.  “And don’t tell me you just went for a walk either.  I know it’s not the truth.”

At Lily’s inquiring look, Cham jumped in, “the ward alarms went off when you guys came back onto the grounds.  Everyone thought that one of your dad’s enemies might have found Potter Place and they were breaking in.”  Steeling herself for what she was about to impart next, she continued, “what it boils down to Lils, is that the wards – the house – it didn’t recognize your magical signature, either of your signatures.”

Daunting silence followed this pronouncement and it was only broken by the entrance of Harry.  His black hair was even more tangled and disheveled than usual.  There was dirt on his face and his robes, which one could tell were thrown on in haste, were torn and scratched.  His green eyes were weary with fatigue.  He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the two wayward teenagers sitting on the couch.

In that moment, Lily felt true shame for the first time in her life.  She knew how much her father had on his shoulders and the worry that he often felt when it came to his family and those he considered his own.  She also knew, without a doubt, that the only thing her father would ask them about was their welfare.

True to her thoughts, the first thing Harry asked was, “are you alright?”  He gave them a piercing look that was reminiscent of his old headmaster making them both squirm under his intense gaze.

“I’m fine,” she answered with exasperation

“She sprained her ankle,” he said at the same time.

Silver grey and tired locked with deep green and furious for a moment that felt like eternity to the two of them.

Only the clearing of Harry’s throat broke their gaze. “Let’s see it then,” he said walking over to them.  Lily shifted uncomfortably under her father’s penetrating gaze.  She sent a glare at the Malfoy scion for adding more worry to her dad’s shoulders.

“I promise, Dad.  I’m fine.  I just fell and twisted it when we were ru – when we were coming home from our walk.”

Harry didn’t miss her slip, and he eyed her speculatively for a minute.  “What were you running from?” He questioned her as he examined her foot.

“Nothing, Dad!  Honestly!”

Knowing that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with his line of questioning, he gave it up for loss.  “Alright Lily.  I won’t ask anything else.  You keep your secrets.  But, I want your word that if you run into any type of trouble, you will come to me.”

All too excited that he was going to leave her alone, she gave her word immediately. 

Her parents didn’t believe her for a minute.  Cham raised snorted at her and even Scorpius raised an eyebrow in surprise. 

Wary from the night’s search and frustrated with her daughter’s lack of answers, Ginny whipped out her wand more forcefully than necessary and quickly healed Lily’s ankle.  Thus doing, she waved her hand at the door and ordered the three teenagers out of the office.

Scorpius and Cham preceded her out the door and just before she reached it, Lily turned back to her parents.  “I’m sorry for causing so much trouble and worry.  It really was just a walk,” she began.

“No more Lily!  I know as well as you do that it was not ‘just a walk’.  If you want to tell me the truth, then please do so.  Otherwise don’t waste mine or your father’s time.  Just go.  We have to be at our grandparent’s home later today and your father needs to sleep before we go.”  Ginny gestured once more toward the door and dared her daughter to say anything else.

The dark haired girl turned once more and just before she left she thanked the door for healing her ankle.

~SL~SL~SL~SL~

As the door shut behind Lily, Ginny lost all the fight that was in her petite frame.  She sank into her husband’s plush chair behind his desk and covered her face with her hands.  “Ugh!” She cried, dragging her hands down her face.  “She’s just like you were at that age!”  She shot Harry an accusing glare to which he shrugged his shoulders.

“Come on, Gin.  It’s not all that bad.  At least she has her mother’s intelligence and discriminating mind to temper the heedless recklessness that she inherited from her father,” he gave such a cheeky grin with this speech that Ginny couldn’t help but laugh.  He always seemed to know what to say.

“Fine,” she said on an exhale, “I’ll let it be.  We have to go get ready anyway, and I’m absolutely certain that you need to rest.”

  ~SL~SL~SL~SL~

Scorpius and Cham stood just outside Harry’s office waiting for Lily.  There might have been an uncomfortable silence between them had Cham not been so lost in her thoughts and Scorpius paying more attention to his surroundings.  As it was, when Lily came out of the office, almost in tears, Cham grabbed her best friend’s arm and practically dragged her up to her tower room.  

Not really knowing what to do with himself, Scorpius trailed silently behind the two girls. Scorpius had never been to this room in Potter Place.  The room was large and circular, as one would expect a tower to be.  The walls were a cream color and there was blue carpeting on the floor.  There were four large arched windows that allowed sunlight to steam through and each window had a window seat attached to it.  In the center of the room up against the wall sat a large bed with blue and gold bedding and a canopy surrounding it.  A comfortable looking chaise lounge was up against one side of the room.  A fire started up on its own in the fireplace as they entered the room.

Despite the well-kept look about it, there were definite signs of Lily everywhere.  Sketches laid about on the floor with open books nearby, and her scent was more prominent here than anywhere else in the house.  He tried not to notice the pile of clothes, or the green lacy bra that sat atop it, that was sitting in front of what he could only assume was the restroom.  Lily Potter may have a sentient room that catered to her whim and fancy, but this room was by far, much more personal.   

As soon as he stepped over the threshold, the door slammed shut behind him and Cham turned on the two of them with a menacing glare.  “Where did you go!?” She demanded.  She held up her hand just as he started to answer.  “And I don’t want to hear that lame ass excuse that you went for a walk.  I’m not stupid and you,” she turned on Lily at that, “cannot fool me!  So, come on then, out with it.  The truth.  Where did you go?”  She glared at them.

Scorpius squirmed.  It was bad enough when it was Ginny and Harry.  He had no idea how scary Cham could be, though he did remember upon first meeting her that Albus said she could be a bit protective of Lily.  He was at a loss for what to say though and he could only hope for Lily to help him out. 

Sensing his unease and feeling the sudden onslaught of his thoughts, Lily sank down onto one of the window seats almost in a perfect mirror imitation of her mother earlier.  “We did go on a walk, Cham,” she earnestly replied.  “But it wasn’t planned, and it wasn’t – here,” her voice was decidedly weaker at the end of her response.

Furrowing her brow, Cham questioned, “if not here, then where?  Lily, you have to understand.  It’s not just the wards and the change in your magical signature that has us so worried.”  Lily looked at her friend expectantly.  “Chase was here.”

“Why?” Her question was hesitant and if he didn’t know any better, slightly scared.  The Malfoy scion wanted to know who exactly Chase was and why his being here what agitate Lily so much. 

“He said he was worried about you.  He mentioned that there were some strange things going on in the –“ she gave a hesitant look at Scorpius before lowering her voice to a near whisper. 

He couldn’t make out exactly what was said after that, but he could tell that Lily was not as amused as she was attempting to appear.  He vaguely wondered if Cham was even bought into.  Judging by the storm that was brewing in her blue eyes, the silver eyed teen doubted it.

The two girls whispered some more between them, every now and then glancing at hi.  Scorpius was getting rather tired of them talking about him while he was still in the room.  He knew that most girls liked to gossip about guys, but couldn’t they at least wait for him to leave the room?

He was about to say something too.  Lily’s raised voice stopped him completely in his tracks.  “It doesn’t matter though, Cham!  There has to be a way to stop the claim.  Hell, he doesn’t even believe it happened!” Scorpius could feel her agitation and he watched as she began to pace her room all the while pulling her hand through her dark tresses.

Cham’s voice was smooth and quiet in her reply.  “Then make him.” 

“Yeah – I’ll just do that,” he was sure there was going to be more of her sarcastic retort but she took one look at him, glanced away and resumed her tireless pacing.

“Well, you have to do something, Lily.  Tonight’s Christmas Eve and you already know what that means.  Your entire family is going to be there and you know what kind of trouble she has planned.  What kind of trouble that they have planned.  And if what Chase says is true the ancient ones are stirring –“

“They’ve been stirring for a while now,” Lily dismissed.  “I’m not overly worried about them.”

“Perhaps you should be, Lils.”  There was a long silence after this calm reply.  Lily had stopped her pacing and was gazing out at the morning sky.  Scorpius wondered at her thoughts and the strange wariness that had overcome her countenance ever since the name Chase had come up.

Her almost black hair gleamed with red highlights in the sun.  She was covered in dirt and scratches from head to toe, and Scorpius never thought he had ever seen anything so beautiful.

~SL~SL~SL~SL~

It was just a stray thought; that much she knew.  They had so many more important things to be thinking about, but when she heard it in her mind, the first thing she did was to flush red with pleasure and then quickly with embarrassment.  ‘WHY couldn’t he keep his friggin’ thoughts to himself?’

She glanced at him quickly and taking in his oblivious stare, decided that the argument, the many arguments, just weren’t worth it right now.  They were all tired, some more than others, if the rings around Scorpius’ eyes were any indication. 

“We’ll deal with all of it later,” she declared to her friend.  “At the moment we need to sleep.”

“What about -?”

“I’ll deal with the issues that Chase has brought to your attention.  I promise I will.  But it’s been a long night and I’m worn out.  We need to be at our best tonight if she does her part in their plans.”

Chameleon sighed in resignation.  “Fine.  What about…?” She threw a significant look at Malfoy to which he glared back.

“I’m right here, you know,” he spoke for the first time since he entered the room.

“Yes, we know,” was the tart reply from the blonde girl.  Lily stifled a giggle at the exchange and received two glowers in return.  She responded with a shrug. 

“What about Scorpius, Cham?  It’s not like he doesn’t practically live here already.  He can make himself a bed on the floor, go to Albus’ room, or make his way down to the parlor.  I don’t really care.”

In some way, Scorpius was certain that he was supposed to feel offended.  However, he just couldn’t find it in himself to do so.  After all, did Lily Potter not just give him permission to sleep in her room – while she was still in there?  He felt that he shouldn’t read too much into it though, as they did fall asleep together on the chair in her parlor. 

Realizing that the two girls were still waiting for an answer, Scorpius sluggishly brought himself out of his tired thoughts.  ‘Thanks, Lily.  I appreciate it, but I think I’m going to head back to my apartment and sleep there.  I’ll see you at your grandparents’ Christmas eve party, yeah?”

He wasn’t sure if she looked disappointed or if it was just his overactive imagination, but all thoughts were wiped out of his mind when she gave him a swift hug, so fleeting that he was almost certain it didn’t happen.  She quietly told him to “sleep well” and then opened her door for him to leave.

He gave a mock salute to Cham and left the tower room, and he wasn’t sure, but probably part of his heart as well.

[loveoffiction]

The Rarest Type of Seer

Chapter 8

Harry tumbled through the floo into his private office.  He never did get the hang of fire place travel and aside from port-keys, it was still probably his least favorite way to go.  It had been a long day at work and most of his staff was down to a skeleton crew right now.  Ginny had left one of the smaller lamps on for him and he shut it off making his way out into the darkened hallway.  He knew his wife despised his late nights at the office just as much as he did.  He despised them even more when he had to work them over the holidays, especially when his daughter was visiting.

However, it was his duty to the wizarding world to keep it as safe as he possibly could.  He knew that Lily had not come home just because her mother had asked her too.  Sure, that probably had a lot to do with it, but Lily was not a child of whim.  When she did something, there was always a purpose or a reason for it.  Now all he had to do was figure out exactly what it was his daughter was up to – and she was always up to something.

He figured that whatever it was, it probably had to do with that group she and Cham were talking about a couple weeks ago.  The ‘Lux Lucis Effrego’.  As oblivious as his wife and closest friends liked to claim that he was, he was made youngest head auror for a reason – and it was not because of his wizarding world status.  Harry had taken his seeking skills and turned them into fine-tuned attention to details.  He had not missed the look that passed between Lily and Cham when the ‘Lux Lucis Effrego’ had been brought up at dinner when they first arrived.  Nor had he missed how the two girls skimmed over the topic and changed the subject as quickly as they could.  He also did not miss his niece paling in color. 

The whole situation had been troubling him for days, so he did dome research and what little bit he found on the group was even stranger than anything Luna Scamander, herself could come up with. 

‘Bleh,’ was what he thought of it right now.  He would worry more about it after Christmas was over.    

He walked down the darkened hallway only to stop just in front of Lily’s parlour.  Though they were distant and vague at best, he had fond memories of this room.  Harry knew that at one point in time many years ago, his mother sat in this very parlour and played with him.  (He liked to believe that this was the reason that the room had taken such a strong liking to his daughter.) 

There was a small fire cackling in the grate, which the black-haired man thought was quite odd.  Ginny would never allow a fire to go unattended in the house, even if the room was sentient.  As he made his way toward the fire to put it out, he sighed tiredly and made a mental note to get after Lily in the morning about this. 

The fire gave a merry pop and a shuffling sound caught his ear.  Harry turned around quickly, wand at the ready, and stood there too dumbfounded for words.  He was absolutely certain that his eyes were deceiving him.  They had to be, because there was no way that Scorpius Malfoy would be dumb enough to break up with Harry’s niece, and then be asleep with his daughter in her private parlour a week later.

Harry blinked.  Then he took off his glasses and wiped them down with his robes, replaced them on his face and looked again.  And he blinked again.  That was definitely his daughter on the couch with Scorpius Malfoy.  She looked serene and peaceful.  It was a look that Harry had rarely ever seen on his daughter’s face before.

As he stood there watching the two of them with the shadows of the fire dancing on their faces, he was taken back to some of the rare occasions when it was just he and Ginny and quietude.  His life had never been easy, and although Lily had never been abused as her father had, her life had been just as difficult.

Who was he then, Harry figured tiredly, to come in and scream at the two of them.  Besides, they were just sleeping, (and he had never liked seeing Rose and Scorpius together anyway.)

Merlin, he was exhausted.  The savior of the wizarding world glanced one more time at the sleeping couple, he was certain that neither of them would appreciate being called a couple, and he went to bed.

~SLSLSL~

She woke up in one of the last places she wanted to be.  White mist covered the ground she was laying on and she could make out the glint of a beautiful silvery full moon reflecting off of a lake that was beyond the not-so-distant wood line.  This was the Black Forest, home to the Blue Lady and her nightmare creatures.  (Personally, Lily liked the Blue Lady – when she wasn’t threatening your life, she was very entertaining.  At least she gave you warning before attempting to kill you.)  She was not, however in the forest itself, but the grassy fields that connected the Realm of Dreams to the Realm of Nightmares.

Sitting up, she shook the grogginess from her head.  The Nightmare realm was probably the most dangerous place, (though Cham had told her about a much deeper, scarier part).  ‘Speaking of Cham, just where exactly is she?’ Lily wondered.  This was not a trip that she could have made on her own.  To enter a dream through your sub-conscious was one thing, but to enter the realm itself – well, it just couldn’t be done without a realm-walker.  And Cham was the only one that Lily personally knew that did not have a vendetta against her.

The air surrounding the area where she was sitting suddenly got quiet.  The frogs stopped croaking, the nightingale stopped singing, and the owls stopped hooting.  Even the little glow worms and lightning bugs stopped flashing their lights.  Lily stood up as quickly and quietly as she could, and hissed as a sudden jolt of pain shot through her ankle.

She ignored that and tried to figure out exactly why everything had gone so eerily silent.  The full moon’s extra brightness gave her a clear view of everything that was out there.  The field was wide open, and riddled with lush grass and wild flowers.  She could see the Silver Mountains in the east, rising up over the horizon, but not close enough for her to get to.  Far to the north (very far to the north), was where the Fae people hid themselves away from all of civilization.  Then there was the Wastelands of Oblivion in the west.  None of these places were very optional for protection at this point in time.  The only place that had any kind of protection from whatever evil may be lurking was the forest.  She really did not want to go there. 

She heard it then.  It was a faint howling sound that was quickly joined by more howling.  It was enough for her to know why everything had gone silent.  She looked up at the full moon, thinking that it was no longer as beautiful as she originally thought.

Those howls were not the howls of regular wolves, nor were they the howls of werewolves.  No – these were merely dogs.  Great big wolf – like dogs.  They were the height of a Great Dane, with the mass and teeth of a tiger, and the speed of a cheetah.  These dogs belonged to the Hunter, and it was the night of the full moon.

Right.  She was screwed.

She calculated her options: A) make a mad dash to the trees, hope and pray to every deity that is out there that those beasts don’t pick up her scent, and take her chances with the nightmares within the Black Forest, or B) stay here in the middle of the open fields and become dinner.   

The howling became louder.  She decided to take her chances with the nightmares.  She had done it before; she figured she could do it again.

She ignored the pain in her ankle as she made a mad dash for the tree-line.  She really wished she knew just how in Merlin’s name she came to be here. 

It had been a long time since the Potter girl had visited the Black Forest, and she remembered swearing quite vehemently, that she was never coming back again.  It wasn’t called the Black Forest for nothing.  During the brightest hours of the day, it was almost dark as night, and in the night-time hours, well – Lily liked to compare it to a black hole.  She moved as swiftly as she could through the forest, all the while keeping a keen ear out for the Hunter and his dogs.  The tallest trees that she knew of grew up around the lake in the center.   Cham had told her once that if she ever got lost in here, those trees would be the safest.  “Lily,” she said, “if you can climb high enough up those trees, there is nothing in this forest that can hurt you.  The higher you go, the closer you are to the light.  And light is the most feared thing in any nightmare.

She could feel eyes on her as she moved, and it took everything she had within her to hold her fear in check.  It was not wise to allow the creatures of this forest to sense any fear.  Another howl came from behind her and then some crashing through the underbrush.  The hunt was getting closer.  (And if she didn’t know any better, they had picked up her scent.)  She squeaked and ignored Cham’s obnoxious voice in her head that was making fun of her for doing so, and ran even harder and faster towards the moon-lit lake.  Her ankle was killing her by this point.  Tears were running down her cheeks from the pain and she felt like she was about to collapse from the intensity of the pain.

Lily kept glancing behind her to make sure that the Hunter’s dogs had not gotten any closer, but she really could not see anything through the darkness and her teary eyes.  She turned back around just in enough time to slam right into a warm body, taking them both down and twisting her ankle all over again.

~SLSLSL~

He blinked as he slowly woke up, his eyes adjusting to the darkness as he came to.  Whispered voices carried on the back of the wind as it blew through the trees, and he gasped, barely containing a groan as he sat up with a jerk.  ‘Just where in the heck am I?’  He was lying on a very wet ground and there was something large and rough next to his cheek.  There was very little light filtering from the moon through the trees, and everything was cast into shadows, making for a very creepy atmosphere.

Scorpius sat up slowly trying to push the disorientation and fogginess out of his mind.  He remembered quite clearly going to sleep in Lily’s parlour – and now… he was here.  The Malfoy heir was quite sure that he had been here before; (he recognized the wild scent of this place), he just couldn’t quite put his finger on when.  Pushing these thoughts aside, he looked around wondering if Lily was going to be a part of this particular dream.  He hadn’t had very many dreams of her, but whenever he did – they were always very…interesting.  Not finding his object of interest, the blonde stood up slowly and decided to try to get an idea of where he was.

He was sitting in a very small clearing. Trees and underbrush were everywhere the eye could see and there was no visible path out.  He could hear water trickling nearby and he followed the sound to a hidden stream that was nestled in between two very steep land banks.  The moon glowed brightly off the water, but Scorpius noted that there were still trees that grew near enough that a person could hide in the shadows.  There was a log raft that was sitting on the bank of the stream as if waiting just for him. 

Shrugging his shoulders, he figured he would just go with what the dream gave him to get out of the creepy clearing.  He was certain that he wasn’t in the right place anyway.  So deciding, he made his way down to the river raft.  The second his body was completely on the raft, it started to move, as if there was an invisible force plowing it through the water.  

Scorpius didn’t know how long he had been on that raft before it finally moved over toward the bank of the river.  It could have been mere minutes, or it could have been days, but it felt like forever.  The entire time he sat there on that raft, he could not shake the feeling that he was being followed.  There was an intense feeling of malice in the air, and he had his guard up the entire time. 

Finally the raft started moving to the bank of the stream.  The land was not so steep here and there was a bit less foliage also.  However, the air was filled with ten times the tension and danger that it had been when he had been floating along on the little stream.  He took note to be more cautious and instantly walked head first into a tree that he knew for a fact had not been standing there seconds before.

Instant giggling caught the blonde man’s attention and he looked around to see two small creatures no higher than his knee laughing at him.  Their skin was brown, leathery, and wrinkled all over.  They had the tails of a monkey, the ears of a bat, and the wizened eyes of an old head-master.  He hoped that they were not out to hurt him in any way as he had no means to truly defend himself.  (Scorpius only now realized that he happened to be wand- less.)  Then again, they were laughing rather joyfully, obviously at him, but at least the laughter was not malicious.

He shook his head, which protested in pain, and glared at the new creatures balefully.  A million different questions went through his mind at once, but the one that popped out of his mouth was, “What type of creatures are you?”

The giggling stopped instantly.   One of them hissed and bared their pointy teeth.  Scorpius flinched back in automatic response.  He really didn’t mean to offend, but he was getting rather tired of this particular dream and was beginning to just want to wake up, but something was holding him here, and he needed to find out what it was.

“The better question, Dreamwalker, would be – what are you doing here?”  The voice that answered him was deep and rumbling and sinister.  He felt the air cool at least ten degrees as this new creature made his presence known.  The two small creatures had scampered into the bushes and hid themselves away.  For his part, Scorpius remained outwardly calm, though he was shaking with fear inside.

“I’m not really sure,” he replied warily to the query.  “But there is something I’m supposed to be doing here.  I just don’t know what it is…,” he trailed off.  “Do you think you could help me?”

“This place is not safe for your kind, Dreamwalker,” the creature answered.  “However, as I am bound by certain promises, I will offer my assistance to you.  But only until you have safely retrieved what you have come to get.  This place is dangerous, especially tonight.”  The dark creature, (which Scorpius still had not actually seen), muttered this last part under his breath. 

‘What’s so special about tonight that makes it so dangerous,’ he wondered.  But the shadow creature, as Scorpius had deemed him in his head, had already started moving on.

“Come young Dreamwalker!” the creature commanded, and Scorpius took note of the steel in the creature’s voice and started moving his feet.  “Bring your nargle friends as well.  They have better eyes in the darkness of the forest than any other creature here.” 

At first Scorpius was confused.  ‘Just what in Merlin’s name was a ‘nargle’?’  Luna had spoken of nargles before, but just like everything else that she spoke of, he dismissed as part of her craziness.  Then he heard more giggling and he turned around to see the little brown creatures grinning up at him.  He really wanted to wake up. 

On and on they walked through the forest.  The trees and underbrush got thicker in some places and thinned out in others.  He felt as if he was being led on a merry chase for no other reason than his subconscious wanted to have fun.  He tried to come up with reasons why he would be having such a strange dream, especially since it was such a rarity that he dreamed at all.  The clarity of the dream was so strong that he just didn’t know what to think.  On occasion he would come out of his thoughts and try to question the shadow creature about what it was he was supposed to be retrieving or why the creature kept calling him ‘Dreamwalker’.

The creature was very good at turning everything into a riddle.

He sighed in relief when they stopped rather abruptly, and then groaned when he realized that they were still deep in the forest.  They were in another clearing; very different from the one that he had woke up in.  Just beyond the tree-line, a fire burned bright and strong.  Its shadows danced off of the rocky cliffs behind it.  Scorpius could barely make out a hole in the face of the rock, and he came to the conclusion that it was some kind of cave. 

Two women sat around the fire.  Well, one of them was sitting.  Her head was in her hands as if she was in a deep thought, while the other seemed as if she were dancing gleefully around the fire.

“This is as far as I can take you, Dreamwalker,” the shadow creature said.  There was a note of fear or derision in his voice, (Scorpius really couldn’t tell which), as the creature stared out at the beings in front of him.  “Before I go, I will leave you with this piece of advice.”  The shadow creature waited for Scorpius to give him his full attention.  Once he had it, the creature continued, “DO NOT let them,” he motioned with his shadowy head towards the fire and the beings around it, “catch you!  If they do, things could turn out very badly, and not just for my world, but for yours also.”

“I don’t understand what you’re…” Before he could even finish his thought, however, the shadow creature was gone. 

Scorpius sighed in frustration.  He had no idea what was going on or why he was even here.  And wasn’t this just a stupid dream anyway?  He pinched himself.  Hard.  He was surprised to note that it hurt and a small red welt was appearing where he had abused his skin.  ‘Well isn’t that just grand?’ he asked himself.  Now he really wanted to know where he was and how he got here, though he still clung to some small hope that this was all some crazy and insane dream cast over him

So lost in thought was he, that at first he didn’t even pay attention to what was going on just past the tree line.  The sound of raised voices caught his attention and as silently as he possibly could he went over to the trees to find out what was going on.  Curiosity was going to be the death of him yet.  He was absolutely sure of it.

“All we need is the heart and the jewel.  We have everything else,” the one that had been dancing around the fire said.  Her voice crackled with an edge of anticipation.  She looked young, though she could have been any age.  The words that she used seemed to be of the ‘Olde English’ variety.

“There is no way you will be able to get away with this.  If Maorigan finds out –“ the girl that sat upon the log in front of the fire seemed to be younger than the dancer, and though bravely speaking, there was an undercurrent of fear that was clear to anyone that was listening.

The older woman made a hissing sound that came from the back of her throat, and Scorpius flinched in fright at the sound.  Even the small nargles seemed to be afraid as they jumped back from the pure evil of the sound.  “She will not find out,” dancer girl said malevolently.  The younger cringed in her seat.  “She has hidden herself away in the forsaken North.  She and her crows have left this part and ‘retired’ as those measly humans call it.  Had she stayed, she might have been able to come into a glorious reign when all of this is over.  But, alas –,“ The speaker made a quiet ‘tsk –ing’ sound and then laughed in clear and unadulterated evil glee.

And then stopped.  As a matter of fact, everything seemed to stop.  Out on the winds came the sound of a howl so intense and so frightening, that not only did the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but Scorpius could swear that the hair at the very tips of his head was standing on end. 

“The hunter is out tonight?”  He heard one of the girls (most likely the younger) ask in confusion.

“Well, it is a full moon tonight,” was the reply.

Scorpius looked at the sky.  It wasn’t a full moon, but he was certain that it would be the next evening.  He didn’t know much about folk-lore, but he knew enough to know that on the ‘three’ nights of the full moon, a person was not to be outside.

“But the hunter has not been out since Maorigan went to the North,” said the confused voice once again.

He was not sure, but he could swear that the other girl shrugged at her companion before she answered.  “Perhaps he was bored and decided to do something.  Danu knows, I’m tired of watching him sulk!”

“But he made it abundantly clear that he would not hunt again until the day he felt his sister’s magic pulse through our lands again, or his mother made her presence known.”

There was silence in the clearing for a moment.  All that could be heard was the cackling of the fire.  Then the older woman, who was kneeling in front of the fire, stood up quickly with a sinister smile on her lips.  “Perhaps a mortal child has found her way to our realm, and our esteemed hunter has decided to go for a look-see,” she said.

She started to walk slowly around the fire, looking at the ground intently.  The nargles who had sensed the danger that was within this woman had been pulling on Scorpius’s arm for quite some time now, but he had been quite readily ignoring them.  However their insistent nagging and the sudden change in the demeanor of the woman made the Malfoy scion more alert than he already had been.

As she reached the other side of the fire, directly across from where Scorpius was hiding in the bushes and the tree-line, the woman looked up.  Right into Scorpius wide grey eyes. 

“Well, well, I think we have company, Sister,” she said and began making her way over to the bushes.

He scrambled back and made a mad dash out of that particular clearing.  By the time the woman got over to where she had seen the grey eyes shining out at her, there was nothing to find.  But she smelled the scent of fear, and knew that a young mortal had heard everything that had been said.  It was of no matter to her though.  Her plans would come to fruition and the young man would play his part well.  She was sure of it.

~SLSLSL~

Scorpius ran with no exact idea of where he was going.  The nargles, he realized with a little bit of surprise were keeping very good pace with him.  He felt somewhat safer with them by his side.  Although he was not sure why since he was not sure what kind of protection they could provide. 

He looked back one more time to see if the woman from the clearing had followed him.  She was nowhere to be seen though, and this gave him a great sense of relief.  That is, until he slammed into something very hard and yet very soft at the same time. 

The wind had been knocked out of him when he fell to the ground and he was having a very hard time catching his breath.  From below him, he heard a soft moan, and he felt small human like hands push at his chest trying to get him to move.

He scrambled off as quickly as he could and did his best to get a good look at the second thing that he had run face first into tonight.  In the moonlight that streamed brokenly through the trees, he could make out pearly white skin, midnight black hair, and eyes the color of dark green. 

Lily.

The situation was so incredibly surreal to him.  He pinched himself.  Again.  Harder than he did last time and it still hurt. 

“This is not a dream, Scorpius,” Lily said through gritted teeth. 

His response was quick and sardonic – “A guy can wish, right?”

Lily did not seem amused.  “You can wish all you want, but it’s not going to get us out of here.”  She looked at him contemplatively for a moment, and he stirred uncomfortably under her intense gaze.  “How did you get here?” she asked him suddenly.

At a loss for words, all he could say was “huh?”  ‘Very eloquent indeed.’  He was beginning to feel like he was always at a loss for words around her.  Even in dreams that were apparently reality.  How did that even work exactly….?

She continued to stare at him as if trying to find some secret into his soul.  The scrutiny was making him feel nervous and even more on edge than he had been to begin with.  She shifted her gaze more directly to his and he couldn’t help but to get almost lost in the moonlight and her very deep green eyes.  ‘Since when did I become a poet?’ he asked himself.  He swore he saw her turn just a little pink before she looked away from him and to the surrounding area.

Before he could dwell anymore on that, she asked him again, “How did you get here, Scorpius?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly.  “One minute I was asleep on the couch in that parlour of yours,” he continued, deliberately leaving out the part that she had been with him when he fell asleep, “and the next I was waking up in a tiny little clearing with only a stream and a river raft as a way out.”

Lily looked at him again.  There was something different about him, his aura was off somehow, and she needed to figure out what it was.  She felt as if their very survival depended on it.  Especially since she knew the hunter and his dogs would be along soon. 

“So, you took the little raft down river – and then what?”

“The raft pulled over onto a bank and I got off.”  If he thought it was odd that she didn’t ask him about how the raft seemed to know to pull over he made no mention of it.  She seemed to be mulling over this piece of information. 

Anticipating her next question, he interrupted her by saying, “when I climbed up into the trees, I met these two little nargles,” at the mention of them, the little nargles made themselves known to Lily and started dancing around where she still sat on the ground,  “and a shadow creature that led me to another clearing and then he left.”

Lily laughed at the silliness of the nargles, her smile reaching all the way to her eyes, and making Scorpius’s breath hitch in his chest.  She glanced up at him again quickly and then looked away muttering to herself, “I still don’t understand how you got here.”

“Dreamwalker! Dreamwalker! Dreamwalker!”  The nargles started chanting.

“WHAT!?” 

Scorpius looked away sheepishly.  “That’s what the shadow creature kept calling me,” he answered uncomfortably.  He did not understand what a ‘dreamwalker’ was exactly, but he was not comfortable with the title, nor was he comfortable with the horror that was etched across Lily’s beautiful face.

“No. No. Nonononono.  This can’t be happening.  YOU!”  She yelled, scrambling up and wincing in pain at her ankle.  “You’re not supposed to be a dreamwalker!!  You’re supposed to be my brother’s annoying best friend who ignores me and pretends that I don’t exist!” 

She had moved closer to him in her rant and was now standing inches from his face.  She slammed her small fist into his chest as she ranted about the unfairness of it all, and he, for the most part, allowed her to yell, even though he still had no idea what in the hell she was going on about.  

As she carried on muttering about ‘stupid wizards hiding certain powers’ (Scorpius took offense to that, as he knew she was talking about him,) and ‘dumb fae who think they can do whatever they want’; he took note of the way she favored one leg over the other.  There were very real tears in her eyes, and he had no idea if they were from the pain in her foot that she was obviously trying to hide form him, or from her anger about him supposedly being a dreamwalker. 

“Are you even listening to me!?”  She practically screeched.

“I –“ was all he got out of his mouth before they heard the howl of one of the hunter’s dogs.

“Oh.  Merlin.”  Lily said, looking up at Scorpius with fear in her eyes.  She shuddered and hugged herself causing Scorpius to want to put his arms around her and hold her tight.

“We’re doomed, Scorpius,” she said quietly, forgetting her previous anger in light of this much heavier predicament.  “Unless…”  She looked around where they were standing and he watched in complete awe as she limped her way around to the different trees placing her hand lightly on it.  Nothing happened with the first five or six trees that she touched, and her eyes got very wide as she heard the hunter coming closer to where they were hidden.  The seventh tree that she touched, to Scorpius’s utter amazement, turned a light gold under Lily’s soft touch.

She turned toward him with a tremulous, but determined look.  “We can do one of three things here, Malfoy.”  He nodded to let her know that he was listening, even though he inwardly winced at her use of his last name.

“We can climb this tree to the very top and hope and pray that the hunter doesn’t decide to wait us out, which he will,” she said the last part with such force that Scorpius wondered how she knew exactly what the hunter would do. 

“I guess that’s not an option then,” he was surprised to hear that his voice did not waver.  “What else?”

Her eyes narrowed at him dangerously and flashed with repressed anger.  Quietly, as if trying to hold in her frustration, which she was, she said, “you could try to figure out how to make that dreamwalker magic of yours work and get us the heck out of here.” 

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, the only outward sign of what he was feeling.  Taking a deep breath he said, “Lily.  How can I figure out how to use a type of magic that you claim I have, when I didn’t even know that I had it.  AND!  I don’t even know what a dreamwalker is!?” 

Lily bristled visibly at his tone but Scorpius didn’t care.  He was tired of being accused of being something that he just knew he wasn’t.  “What’s the third option, Lily?”  He asked before she could make some rebuttal.  He could hear the dogs rushing through the woods, and from the sounds of it, they were getting closer.  The nargles were cowering low under some bushes.

The Potter girl paused.  Her fast refute died on her tongue at his question.  She shook her head and her hair fell into her face.  If Scorpius had not known any better, he would have sworn that Lily Potter was embarrassed. 

“The third option, Lily?  What is it?  We don’t have a lot of time here,” he said earnestly.

“You can invoke….” she muttered.

“What?”

She sighed, in frustration, or embarrassment, he wasn’t sure.  In a louder voice she said, “You can invoke your right to hunt as a Dreamwalker in this realm.  You would be safe from the hunter as he would see you as a comrade and not as a foe.”

“And you,” he couldn’t help but ask.  “How would that help to keep you safe from the hunter?”  He was pretty sure he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear her actually say it.  Some little voice in his head told him that it was kind of cruel to draw it out of her like that, but she was so aloof all the time, that it was like a balm to his prickled pride to see her even slightly embarrassed.

She froze for a moment, and he was unsure if she would continue on.  He watched her silently steel her nerves, shaking her dark hair out of her face.  He could just barely make out the slight points at the tips of her ears.  ‘If this really was the land of the Fae, like I am beginning to think that it is, then Lily Potter could fit right in.’ He mused silently. 

Lily’s quiet but determined voice brought him back to the task at hand.  “For me to be safe, you would have to claim me as your prize.” 

His immediate response was, ‘I can do that.’  He held his tongue though.  There was something about the way that she had looked away from him that bothered him.  Moving closer to her, he tentatively touched her shoulder.  She looked like a forlorn and wary little girl-child, and he wanted nothing more in that moment to protect her from whatever evils in the world might exist.  “Hey.  What is it?  What’s the matter with the last option?  It doesn’t sound too bad.”

The dark haired girl made a growling sound in the back of her throat and pulled out of his grasp.  She moved over to the tree that she had talked about climbing and leaned against it as casually as possible, shifting her weight off of her bad ankle.  Inside she was writhing in pain.  ‘Words have power in this realm,” she began, but she got no further than that.

The loud crashing of trees, underbrush, and leaves was all they heard before six very large wolf-looking dogs barreled through into the very clearing that they were in.  The two nargles that were, for the most part completely forgotten about up until this moment shrieked and took off into the woods.  Lily jumped at the sound of all of the racket and mad a beeline for Scorpius, hurting her ankle for a third time that night.  The dogs ignored the nargles and surrounded the two humans.

The hunter followed the path of his animals into the clearing and stopped in front of them.  He was tall and ethereally beautiful.  His hair was as white as the freshest and cleanest snow, and it gleamed brightly in the moonlight.  His eyes were a sharp cutting blue and all that could be seen in them was cruelty and mockery, and his face was sharp and angular.

“What have we here?” he asked them in a voice as smooth as velvet.  He circled around the two of them taking notice that the girl stood slightly in front of the young man as if protecting him.  The hunter grinned in malice at the thought that this child might think she could beat him at his own game. 

He walked closer to them and Lily shied away from his presence.  “It seems that I have finally caught up to my prey.  You led me on quite the merry chase.”   The fae leaned into her space running his finger down her cheek.  “What a pretty little thing you are,” he whispered.  “Jewel-keeper.”  Lily held in her gasp at the sound of that particular name.

She eyed him defiantly while her mind spun in circles looking for a way out.  She really wished Scorpius would figure out how to use his power, or at least claim his right to the hunt; consequences be damned.  ‘Stupid Malfoy!’ 

For his part, Scorpius was not just idly standing by.  He was trying to think of a way out of the situation without having to invoke his ‘hunting right’.  There had been something about the way she shied away from that particular option that made him consider finding a different way out.

As he thought on their current predicament, he once again came to the debate of ‘is this all or dream?’  If it was, he could just invoke his right, they would wake up and all would be well.  Right?    

By the way the hunter was ogling Lily, it was beginning to not matter if this was a dream or not.  A streak of pure possessiveness shot through Scorpius as the hunter leaned down into Lily’s personal space.  Not wanting to examine the emotion, but also not liking the lustful look on the hunter’s face, he jumped in front of Lily and grabbed the hunter’s hand before he could so much as touch a strand of hair on Lily’s pretty head.

The surprise that was seen on the hunter’s face was gone in a millisecond, though if Scorpius had turned around, he would have seen it mirrored in Lily’s face as well.  However, smart boy that he was, the blonde kept his face to the enemy and his back to the girl.

The hunter let out a bark of a laugh, though the humor didn’t quite reach his eyes, and his mouth curled into a snarl.  “Who are you? The jewel-keeper’s protector?” his voice was mocking in the most terrible of ways, his face was snarling. 

“I’m not the jewel-keeper!” Lily insisted.  Scorpius was certain that she would have stomped her foot if it had not been for her injury.

The hunter was surprised at the sheer audacity of the boy to challenge him in such a way.  The two humans stood before him, though not quite cowering in the way that the hunter would like, he could smell their fear.

The girl grasped hold of the young man’s shirt from behind.  Though her eyes were wide, she reeked more of apprehension of what was to come than fear of the hunter.  The boy drew her closer to him in a way that the hunter recognized quite well.  He doubted, however that the boy knew what he was doing.

“Do you stake a claim to this mortal girl, human?” he asked in his cruel voice. 

Scorpius opened his mouth to answer but was cut off before a word was even uttered.  “HA!” the hunter exclaimed, eyes gleaming brightly.  “But you cannot stake a claim, can you?  You are not Fae, nor do you have any Fae magic running through your veins, nor do you belong to the hunt on this night!”

The hunter continued to rant about the unworthiness of Scorpius and as he did the air around them became more and more charged.  The large dogs which were just growling and snapping were now cowering and sniveling.  Not that the hunter was heeding attention to them.  Lily watched in fascination as the aura around Scorpius changed from the light blue that it normally was to a very bright silver-ish color.  She had only ever seen that color on one other person – or ghost – as the case may be.

With the air as charged as it was with magic, Lily made sure to stay as close to Scorpius as possible.  There was a reason why the Potter girl avoided this place as much as possible, and it had everything to do with her own magic, or the lack thereof of her magic whenever she came here. 

Finally Scorpius had enough of the hunter’s dialogue, though why the hunter had not struck yet was anyone’s guess, and the Malfoy scion spoke over him in a deadly quiet voice.  The charged air stood still, though it crackled with electricity.  The dogs lowered their heads to the ground in submission, and the hunter’s mouth was stuck in a comical ‘O’ shape. 

Lily would have giggled if the situation wasn’t so very serious.  The voice that came out of Scorpius was not his own, and shivers ran up and down the poor girl’s body. 

“As a Dreamwalker in this realm and the only true descendant of the Princess Rowena, I Scorpius Malfoy, stake my claim during this hunt to the mortal girl Lily Luna Potter.” 

Lily buried her head in the back of Scorpius’s shirt and groaned.  ‘Oh Merlin, what have you done, Scor?’ she whispered into his back as the wind kicked up and the leaves started swirling around in a mad frenzy around the clearing.

“YOU CAN NOT INVOKE THAT RIGHT!!  YOU DO NOT BELONG TO THIS WORLD!!  YOU ARE NOT THE –“

Whatever else the hunter was about to bellow neither of the two heard, due to the high winds and the sudden whirling vortex of magic.  The next thing Lily knew, she was lying flat on her back looking up at a grey, cloud filled sky.  The ground she was lying on was cold and wet, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was back at home, and she grinned happily with the knowledge.

Scorpius had done it!  He had got them home and she would be forever grateful for that.  Speaking of the Malfoy heir…  She looked around her and found the blonde haired man groaning as he sat up gingerly.  Lily could tell that he had not quite figured out where he was. 

He blearily looked around in confusion, his eyes finally settling on the Potter girl.  “Lily,” he croaked.  “I just had the strangest dream…” he trailed off as he took in where they were at.

“How…?” There was very real panic shown in his eyes when he looked back at her.

“You weren’t dreaming Scor.  It was real.  You – you’re…” her voice held a trace of sadness, or was it pity?  Scorpius could not tell.  He didn’t like either though.  His denial was quick and firm.

“No,” he said shaking his head.  “I was sleep walking or something.  And you came out to get me and bring me back into the house.”  He was doing his best to convince himself of this and Lily sitting there on the ground with her ankle at an odd angle was not helping him in the least.  As a matter of fact….”Lily – why does your ankle look like it’s broken?” 

She glanced down at it and then back at him.  She wondered about telling him the truth of it.  ‘Would it break his already strained psyche?  Would he be alright enough to deal with more evidence to where they were that night?’

She never got the chance to answer though.  Cham came storming out the front door toward the two of them.  She looked as if the hounds of hell were hot on her heels.  She stopped abruptly in from of them, took one look at them both and said, “Awe HELL!”

[loveoffiction]

The Rarest Type of Seer

Chapter 7

Malfoy Manor was foreboding in the way all old and prestigious homes were.  Large and sprawling with an old gothic look to it and surrounded by a huge wrought iron fence, it was a fortress by itself.  It could, if you let it, intimidate the strongest of heart.  Scorpius grew up here. 

Many childhood memories flitted through his mind as he made his way up the sprawling terrace steps.  But one stood out in the forefront of his mind.  It was his eighth birthday, and everybody had shown up for it. (Including some people that he had never seen before).  His Great Aunt Andromeda and his second cousin, Teddy had also come.  He had a fleeting remembrance of a third person to their party of two, but he was not entirely sure.  Also among the attendees were his mother’s sister and her ‘husband’ and daughter.  (He wasn’t too thrilled about them, so he mainly focused on his other guests.) 

Andromeda always brought Scorpius some of the best gifts.  They were always of the muggle variety and they ALWAYS held some sort of secret magic for Scorpius to figure out.  (It was to his grandfather’s utter dismay that his grandson was completely smitten with muggle things.)  After opening all of his gifts, the blonde would then proceed to interrogate Andromeda with any and all questions that he might have about whatever object that she brought him that year.  On this particular occasion, she had brought him a Rubik’s Cube.  To his eight year old mind, this was the coolest thing ever.  As the party continued on and the people were coming and going and the other children were playing their games of tag and hide and seek, Scorpius was immersed in trying to solve the puzzle of the cube.  He remembered that Andromeda stood near him conversing with someone else, and the Teddy came over and said something quietly to her. 

In hindsight, Scorpius recognized the seed of tension that filled the air in their little area after Teddy walked away, but as he thought on it now, he wondered how much of that tension had anything to do with what followed after, because just as Teddy walked away from his grandmother, there was a shriek in the air the Malfoy scion’s aunt, Daphne Zabini, came storming out into the backyard.  She was covered from head to foot; in what Scorpius thought might have been seaweed, though to this very day, he would never be sure of that.  As he drew nearer to his screeching aunt, he noticed that she was near hysterical and she was rambling something about toads being in her room and in her dresser, and in her suitcases.

A crowd was gathering around his aunt, as his mother tried to calm her down.  He caught a glimpse of his father, who rolled his eyes at the whole scene.  Not even to the young boys mind, did this surprise him, Draco Malfoy had always made his sentiments towards Daphne known.  He tolerated her only because she was his wife’s sister and for no other reason than that.  Isabelle had come rushing over to her mother when she had first come out and was adding to all the fuss and chaos.  Though, why it was such a huge deal escaped the blonde boy.  Personally, Scorpius happened to like toads very much.  Going with the natural instinct of self-preservation, Scorpius chose to keep that thought to himself. 

As if reading his mind, his aunt suddenly stopped all her ruckus and looked at her nephew dead on.  “It was you, wasn’t it?” She accused, pointing a finger at the young boy. 

“Um…no?” His answer was a question form, mostly due to the sudden turn of events.  He was an only child, and as such he had never really been straight out accused of anything before.  Generally speaking, Scorpius had a knock for telling on himself, before anyone ever got the chance to accuse him of anything.

"Why you little –“

“Come now, Ms. Daphne,” Andromeda cut across, before Daphne said anything else, “How could Scorpius do anything to your room or bags, when the he has been down here the entire time?  Perhaps you are overreacting just a little bit?”  She finished.

Daphne didn’t say another word, but the daggers that she glared at Andromeda spoke volumes to what was really going on inside her head.  She seemed to see the wisdom in Andromeda’s words however, and left the party shortly after that.  While this came as no surprise to him, he also realized that in all the drama of his aunt gathering her things and declaring to the Malfoys’ that they would be lucky if they ever saw herself or her family again, his great aunt and Teddy had also disappeared.

He had, of course, asked her later where she had gone off to, but all she did was change the subject, and ask him about how school was going.

The memory made him smile just a little and the little quirk of his lips was still there when he walked into the formal parlour where he knew his mother and grandmother would be.  (Merlin forbid they ever use anything as informal as the family room.)  He sauntered into the room, ready to give a happy hello, took in every single person that was in there, and promptly turned around to walk out. 

“Scorpius!!” A shrill voice from behind him said.  He groaned quietly to himself, spun around with a fake smile plastered to his face and greeted his least favorite aunt.  (He tended to over-look that she was his only aunt.) 

“Hullo Aunt Daphne,” he said with a decidedly lack of emotion in his voice.  He nodded to his Uncle Blaise who was standing in the corner talking to Draco, and looked around for the demon spawn, *cough, cough* his cousin, Isabelle.  He needed to know exactly where she was, so that he could avoid her as much as possible. 

“We were just talking about you Scorpius,” his aunt said in a simpering voice, ignoring his cold greeting.  Scorpius thought her pronouncement was a tad on the ironic side, since he had quite literally just been thinking about the events that had caused them to leave and never return all those years ago.  He didn’t let her know any of this though and continued to look around the room for his cousin.

His grandmother was sitting in the large sofa chair.  It had come to be known as hers and no one dared to sit in it, while his grandfather sat on the duvet.  They had identical looks of indifference on their faces.  His mother and aunt sat on the large couch drinking tea that the house elf had brought in and there was absolutely no sign of his cousin.  This was worrying. 

Opting to protect himself from any surprises from Isabelle, Scorpius asked with what he hoped was an air of indifference, “where’s Isabelle?” 

His father gave him a commiserating look and nodded toward the door in which a tall caramel skinned girl was walking through.  She had a dancer’s lithe frame and perfectly clear skin.  Her hair was as dark as a moonless night sky and was in tight little curls.  She was just about every guys dream to look at.  She was Scorpius’s worst nightmare.

“Looking for me…?” Isabelle asked in a saccharine voice, sauntering into the room. 

This time his groan was out loud.  “No. Not really.”  There was a loud snort that came from somewhere over by his father, but the blonde was hard pressed to know if it was his father or uncle.  Both of which knew exactly how Scorpius felt about Isabelle.

“That’s no way to greet your favorite cousin, now is it Scor?  Especially when I came with sympathy for you and ideas on how to get her back for all the pain she’s put you through.  After all, we can’t let Rose get away with the way she’s treated you!”

Open mouthed, Scorpius stared at her.  ‘How in Merlin’s good name could she possibly know about what his breakup with Rose?  Nobody in his family had been told about it, and he had planned to keep it that way.  There was enough bad blood between the two families as it was.’  Scorpius remembered quite clearly the day that he had told his father that he was dating a Weasley.  Draco had been livid at first, and then he turned it into begging and pleading for his son to stop dating the girl.  “Weasleys’,” Draco said, “were bad tempered people who only saw things their way and would use him up and then spit him out.”

Scorpius had pointed out to Draco that it was only because he and Ron had never got along that he felt that way.  Eventually Draco conceded and quit harping on about the issue.  Now however, it seemed by the smug look on Draco’s face that Scorpius would never hear the end of the ‘I told you so’s.’ 

‘Save me now, please!  Any type of help would be greatly appreciated…’  His silent plea went out, seemingly unheard. 

“Rose broke up with you?”

“Why?”

“When did this happen?”

“Are you alright?”

The questions started being fired from all corners of the room and the blonde was sure that he wanted to scream.  He sighed quietly and briefly glanced at the cause of the current chaos.  Isabelle chose just the right thing to say and she said it just loud enough for everyone to hear. 

“First of all,” he said over all the questions, “Rose did not break up with me.”  Isabelle gave him a surprised look and Draco’s triumphant grin fell from his face immediately.  Scorpius could not be sure, but he swore that Daphne had just sighed in relief.  “I broke up with her,” he continued, and there again was the happy grin from his father.  Before anyone could say anything, Scorpius held up his hand.  “Let me finish,” he said.  “I’m not going to go into any details about why we broke up, but I will tell you that it has been a couple weeks since it happened, and yes Mom.  I’m fine.  It’s been a while in coming.”

As he made this speech he took in everyone in the room.  His uncle, grandmother, and grandfather looked as if they could care less.  His mother, Scorpius could tell by the look on her face, that she was worried for his well-being, while his father was entirely too happy about the situation.  His aunt and cousin were the two people in the room with the reactions that were the strangest. 

Isabelle seemed almost giddy with the information, in which he chalked up to her being a gossip monger, and Daphne looked almost green after the knowledge had been revealed.  Almost squeaking as she cleared her throat, she asked him, “is there no chance that you will get back with her?”

Scorpius gave her a strange look and shook his head at her.  It seemed that he was not the only person in the room that thought it was a strange comment as well.  Everyone else was looking at her weirdly also.  Turning back to Isabelle, he found her studying him in an intense manner.

“What?” He asked rather gruffly.

 All his cousin did was to shrug her shoulders at him in an irritating way.  “Nothing,” she replied.  She leaned closer to him as if to impart some great wisdom and whispered quietly, “if I were you, I would get out of here before my mother…. Well, just get out of here.”  She winked and walked away from him.  After she was across the room from him, it occurred to the blonde that he still had absolutely no idea how Isabelle had come across the knowledge of his break up.

~SLSLSL~

Scorpius left as quickly as he could after that happened.  He made sure to speak with his grandmother and grandfather about what was going on in the world around them.  (His grandfather did not get out of the house much anymore.)  He kissed his mother on the cheek, bid his aunt and uncle goodbye, and nodded at his father.  Then, making his way to the grounds outside, the Malfoy heir apperated away. 

Scorpius had spent the rest of the day and well into the night apperating aimlessly around England.  He found himself on the craggy cliffs of Cornwall, and wandering the streets of London.  He ended up in what he thought was the Forest of Dean and then on the banks of the Tamar River.  By the time he realized how late it was, he was thoroughly exhausted and had no desire in returning to his own flat where he was absolutely certain that he would end up in some altercation with Albus. 

In his mind’s eye he clearly pictured a warm fire and a couch in a room filled with art and pictures of loved ones along with an atmosphere of pure serenity.  The next thing he knew, Scorpius found himself standing just inside Lily Potter’s parlor in Potter Place.  Scorpius looked around him, wondering just how on earth he had managed to get here.  It was one thing to apperated all over England, but to get inside the wards of the Potters’ home was magic beyond the Malfoy scion’s comprehension.

As he got his bearings around him straight, he realized that the atmosphere wasn’t quite as calm as he imagined.  As a matter of fact the very air in the room seemed as if it were cackling with an angry energy.  Remembering something that Albus had mentioned about the room responding to Lily’s moods, Scorpius went to look for the dark haired girl.  He did not stop to consider why it bothered him so much that she was upset.

A bitter bark of a laugh led him to the second floor alcove.  There he found Cham and Rose in what looked like a head to head altercation.  “You can’t do that to him!  Not only is it wrong, but what do you think your parents are going to say when they find out that what you’re saying is an outright lie?” Cham asked vehemently. 

“What do you care?  You think that just because she has feelings for him, he’s going to turn away from what will be his duty.  She won’t be able to stop it from happening, and neither will you!”  Rose fired back. 

Scorpius had no idea what the two girls were talking about and just as he was about to intervene, the fight looked as if it were about to become physical, Lily came storming up behind him.  Her deep green eyes were flashing and her dark hair windblown.  She barely glanced his way as she pushed past him. 

Locking her eyes on her cousin, Lily glared the red haired witch down.  Scorpius expected her to start yelling and screaming at Rose in the same way that he sometimes heard Mrs. Potter get after James and Albus.  But apparently Lily was Harry’s child through and through.  The temperature became positively cold in the hallway.  “You won’t get away with it,” she said through gritted teeth.  “I won’t let you.  I’ll do everything in my power to put a stop to your little plan.”  With that said, she started to climb up the loft stairs that led to her room.

Before she fully disappeared, Lily turned around and said in an even colder voice than before, (if that was even possible,) “If you ruin Teddy and Victoire’s announcement, I will seriously ruin your life!” 

The hallway was silent for a few seconds after that, but then Rose broke out into a maniacal smile.  “She’s so dramatic.  She won’t do anything.”

Beyond lost at what exactly the argument between the girls was about, the blonde boy made his way back to the little parlor.  He found himself at an even bigger loss for understanding when he came across Lily Potter in all her dark haired, green eyed glory laying across her favorite two person chair with her eyes closed.  ‘Just how in the H*** did she make it from the top-most part of the house down to the parlor without being seen or heard, and before I got here!?’ 

A tired, whispering sigh escaped the girl and Scorpius swore that he saw tears coming from her eyes.  Her voice, when she spoke though was strong, and there was not an ounce of sadness when she said, “If you’re coming in here to sit down and relax, then so be it, but will you please do me a favor?”  At his questioning look, Lily continued, “don’t think.  Just shut your brain off.  I don’t want to hear any of your thoughts, or questions about what just happened or how I got here before you, or, well, really, anything.  Just…Zen….” She trailed off into what could only be a sleep like quality.

“Zen?” he asked.

“Shhh….” was his answer.  He walked over to her and saw that she really had fallen asleep.  She looked so peaceful, almost childlike in her sleep.  The almost unnoticeable worry lines that crinkled around her eyes were smoothed over, and her mouth was curved in a faint grin.  Looking at her now, Scorpius could almost believe that the girl was no more than ten years old, instead of the seventeen year old he knew her to be. 

She shivered slightly, and a blanket appeared out of thin air onto the back of the chair.  He couldn’t help but feel as if roles had been reversed somehow as a sense of déjà vu washed over him. 

He covered her up, almost tenderly, and started to turn to make his way over to the couch, but Lily’s hand shot out from underneath the blanket and she pulled, hard.  Scorpius found himself almost on top of the small girl, and wondered what Harry would think of this if he should walk in.

“Sleep, Scorpius.  Don’t think.  Just sleep,” came the voice from underneath him.  He would have been seriously amused if Albus had found himself in this situation.  But since it was not Albus, but himself and his best friend’s little sister, he voted for self-preservation.  So thinking, he made to get himself up.  Lily apparently had other ideas.  Her arms tightened around Scorpius and the more he moved, the tighter she held on.  He also noticed that she seemed to become more agitated in her sleep every time he went to move away from her. 

He whispered to her soothing nothing words and resigned himself to sleeping on the chair wrapped up in her arms.  Not that he was complaining, he just really didn’t want to face the wrath of the Potter men, and one Teddy Lupin. 

Once he was finally settled in next to her with his own arm being used as a pillow, and his breathing had evened out to where he was sleeping peacefully and there were not stray thoughts being tossed into the atmosphere, Lily opened her eyes and breathed a small sigh of relief.  For just this small moment in time, everything in Lily’s world was calm. 

In a couple of days she would have to face down her mad, crazy cousin in front of her entire family.  She would have to protect Scorpius from lies that he knew nothing about and eventually she would have to explain to him why she was different.  Well, that one part was only if he was as interested in her as she hoped he was.  Otherwise, it wouldn’t matter. 

As Lily was drifting off to sleep with these happy thoughts in mind, Cham came hurrying into the room.  Seeing that her friend was practically asleep, the blonde girl gave her friend a sly wink as she breathed a sigh of relief.  “We’ll talk later,” she mouthed to Lily and left the parlor.

Lily grinned at Cham’s back and snuggled in closer to Scorpius and finally succumbed to sleep.  It had been a very long day.

[loveoffiction]

The Rarest Type of Seer

Chapter 6

  The Christmas season always seemed to be a bit hectic to Scorpius.  People running from here to there, forgetting whatever it was they were going to get and then running back again a few hours later.  The hustle and bustle of frantic mothers and the sound of screaming children always seemed to fill the air.

Then there were the annual holiday parties that he would be forced to attend, not only at the Ministry of Magic, but also at his Aunt Daphne’s home.  (Who, it must be said, gave Scorpius the creeps.)  He would also be expected to attend the Weasley family Christmas party, which he used to always look forward to, but now, with this whole ‘Rose fiasco’, he was rather hesitant to know if he would even be excepted back into the Weasley’s home.  He was rather surprised that Albus hadn’t broached the subject with him again since the day that they found Lily in her parlour at Potter Place.

Then again…. he wondered if the reason why Albus had not said anything had to do with said littlest Potter.  She did seem to hold a certain sway over her brother, even if he would never admit to it.  Scorpius himself would never have even though it had he not seen it for himself very briefly.  As it was however, things were still strained between the two boys and it was somewhat difficult to have all the tension going on in their flat. 

It had been a few days since their shopping trip in Diagon Alley and Scorpius was sitting at his kitchen table going over the mail when a vaguely familiar owl flew through the, well, it was a closed window.  (Apparently, it wasn’t locked.) 

The owl landed gracefully on the table in front of Scorpius and gave him a baleful look, as if to say ‘You are far inferior to me, and I can’t believe I am being used to deliver mail.’ 

It was a majestic looking owl, Scorpius would give him that.  He was a snowy white color with gray tips at the end of his wings and black spots on his feathers.  Whoever owned this bird had to be from a very wealthy family.  Scorpius was sure of it.  The owl held in its beak a small envelope that had to have had some sort of shrinking charm on it and after having a (what seemed like five minutes, but was probably only a few seconds) stare down with the big bird of prey, Scorpius finally spoke.

“Are you going to give me the letter, or are you just going to sit there and look at me?”  He asked somewhat irritably. 

The owl squawked loudly, almost dropping the envelope into the bowl of uneaten cereal sitting in front of Scorpius.  It quickly regained it and instead, dropped it unceremoniously in the blonde’s lap.  Then it flew up into the air, circled around the ceiling a couple times, and zoomed at his head, nipping Scorpius’s ear a little harder than was probably necessary, before flying back out the way he came.

“Ow!” The Malfoy scion grumbled, rubbing at his sore ear.  He shook his head at the retreating owl with an indignant look on his face, grumbling about the evilness of all white owls. 

“What’s that you got there, Scor?”  Albus asked walking in.  His black hair was just as messy as always, though he was dressed rather impeccably in a pair of ironed slacks and a button down shirt.

“Going out somewhere?”  Scorpius returned, ignoring the other boy’s question.

Albus shrugged and grabbed a piece of toast off the table that his house elf, Elis, made for them earlier that morning.  “I asked you first,” he said giving Scorpius a grin.  The grin itself lacked the good humor it usually held when the two boys bantered back and forth and Scorpius was sorry for it.

“Just a message, I’m assuming.  I haven’t enlarged it yet.” 

“Get on with it then.  Let’s see it.”  Albus was a little more interested in it than Scorpius would have expected, but he enlarged the parchment none the less.

It was beautiful.  Awe-inspiring even.  It took him back to a much simpler time when all was well in his world and there were few worries, other than winning the next quidditch match and  how many inches a piece of parchment neede to be for his next class.  Albus was speechless, and the only thought in Scorpius’s mind, was ‘How in the heck had the artist even known about this particular scene?’   

He must have been at least 15 at the time.  The painting showed him sitting in a blue and silver chair in the Ravenclaw common room.  His tie was loosened from around his neck and his head was leaning back against the soft cushion of it.  His eyes were half open, and in his hand was an open book.  The shadows in the picture reflected the light that had to be of a warm fire off to the side, unseen by those looking on.

A little shaken from the walk down memory lane, and wondering how long it was going to be before he actually came face to face with his ‘secret admirer’, ( he refused to think of this person as anything other than that), the blonde re-shrunk the picture and carried it delicately to his room, where he put it in a very special jewel box. 

Albus trailed behind him.  “How....?  Do you…..?  What I mean to say is….” 

“If you’re going to ask me something, then spit it out, I do have some places to be today.”  Scorpius didn’t mean to snap, but he had never let anyone know, not even Albus, about these pictures.  They had always been something that was special to him, and he refused to let that be ruined by anyone.  And if Albus knew about them, the it was a given that Rose would soon know about them as well.

Albus gathered himself together and asked, “Do you know where that picture came from?”  At Scor’s shrug, he continued.  “It’s just, I recognize the style vaguely and I was wondering of you knew who the artist was?”

Scorpius studied his friend closely, and then sighed and took the plunge.  “I’ve been getting these pictures since I was about eight years old.  I always receive two a year.  One for my birthday and one for Christmas.  The one this year came early, but I usually get them on the day of….,’ but he was interrupted.

“NO WAY!” Albus shouted.  “You’ve been getting these letters, pictures, whatever they are for over ten years and you don’t have a clue who is sending them to you?”  The tone of Albus’s voice was perfectly incredulous, and there was an underlying disbelief that rankled Scorpius’s already tied-up nerves.  It was his next question, however, that sent a jolt of shame through the blonde boy.  “And why is it, that I never knew about them?  I would think that as your best friend, you would have at least told me something about them. 

Scorpius remained quiet as he went to his closet.  He pulled out an old weather beaten box and brought it over to his desk.  “What is that?”  Albus asked as he joined him.  At first the Potter boy was absolutely certain his friend was not going to answer him.  Scorpius hovered over the box with his hands barely grazing the sides of it.  It was as if he were contemplating opening it in Albus’s presence, (which of course, was exactly what he was doing, but Albus didn’t need to know that.) 

“Memories,” was Scorpius’s simple reply.  The Malfoy scion sighed, knowing that if he didn’t open the box now and add the portrait to it, he didn’t know when he would be able to do it.  He just didn’t want Albus to see the contents of the box. 

Albus gasped at the sight of the dozens of pictures that were in it.  Every one of them had been framed in a type of ornate wood, and then shrunk down so that they would all fit inside.  Some of the drawings were things that would only have a meaning to Scorpius and no one else, but there were others that Al recognized. 

There was one that caught his eye and he was utterly entranced by it.  Reaching in the box at Scorpius’s complete dismay, Albus pulled the picture out and gasped at the absolute beauty and intensity of it.  He remembered that night so well.  Rose had barged up to the Ravenclaw common room and demanded her way in, then she cried on their shoulders about how Andy Loveless had stolen her cloak and hidden it in the forbidden forest.  She had begged the two boys to go with her to get it.  And, of course, they did.  They had got themselves into a tight mess with the centaurs though, and Albus had been absolutely sure that they were about to be horse food, but then they heard one of the strangest sounds.  It was almost like thunder, but with an underlying bell-like tinkling.  The next thing they knew, the entire heard of centaurs had taken off in the opposite direction toward the sound and they found Rose’s cloak sitting on a rock just behind where the centaurs had been standing.

The drawing showed the absolute delight on her face, and the stunned disbelief on the face of Albus and Scorpius.  The shading and lighting and the colors that had been used made the picture come to life and brought the memory to the forefront of his mind. 

“Whoever this artist is – they seem to know quite a bit about you ,” Albus said.  There was an edge to his voice now, especially since he was absolutely certain that he recognized the artist’s style, though he couldn’t be entirely sure.

“I know,” Scorpius practically breathed.

“Sooo… Why haven’t you told me about these?”  Scorpius shrugged and added his most latest acquired painting to the collection, and carefully closed the lid. 

“Wait! Just wait a second,” the black haired boy stayed Scorpius’s hand before the lid shut completely.  He pulled out the most recent picture and looked closely at the bottom left corner.  The tiny symbol there confirmed his suspicions and with a sigh, he put it back in the box, allowing his friend to close it.

“You’re absolutely certain that you have no idea where these portraits are coming from?” He asked his friend.

“No idea,” was the firm reply. 

“Huh.” Was all Albus said before he reverted back to a topic that neither boy really wanted to discuss.

“Are you going to tell me what happened with Rose, or are you going to keep that a secret as well?”  The comment was so sudden and unexpected that at first Scorpius was unsure how to respond.  To him, it was as if Albus was attacking him, and his response showed his displeasure at the insinuation that the break up was somehow his fault.

“I’m sure Rose told you everything you need to know about what happened between us,” he replied somewhat bitterly.  “It doesn’t matter what I may say about what actually happened anyway, Albus.  As I’m sure you’re going to believe her over me no matter what.  That’s how it has always been, and I don’t think it will ever change.”

Albus had been told this same thing before by many people, ok mostly only Cham and Lily.  But to hear it from his best friend, it seemed to strike a chord in him and he wondered if he really was as biased on Rose’s account as all three of them seemed to think he was.  He didn’t give himself much time to ponder it, filing it to the back of his mind to think on later.

“It doesn’t matter anyway, Al,” Scorpius was saying, and Albus raised an eyebrow at him.  “What happened between me and Rose is our business and nobody else’s, and that includes you.”

Slightly stunned at his friends declaration and the fact that he had pretty much just been told to mind his own business, Albus watched as his friend of forever grabbed up some clothes and other personal things and threw it all into an overnight bag.

“At the risk of being told to ‘butt out,” Albus began, “where are you going?”

Scorpius looked at Albus for a few moments before answering, “I have been summoned to Malfoy Manor and I don’t know how long I’ll be expected to stay,” he answered.  After he had everything he thought he may need, he gave a brief nod to Albus and left their flat.

Maybe it was for the best that he wasn’t going to be sticking around for a couple of days.  As he thought about it though, he groaned a little bit to himself, because there was absolutely no way that he was going to stay overnight at the Malfoy family home.  ‘Maybe, I can stay at Potter Place, and avoid Albus’  He wondered.