@sunkencrown || from this
Scorpius knew he was staring -- knew he was being rude -- but he couldn’t help himself any more than he could have stopped himself from blurting that inane observation out in lieu of an explanation. He’d never seen a dead man before -- not one who was alive, at least, although this wasn’t his first corpse; that had been three years ago at the funeral of his mother’s great-uncle. That...had been nothing like this.
That had been well-dressed people standing around sharing stories that Scorpius had never heard while the dead wizard was still living. That had been half-heard mutters and sidelong looks directed at the scraggy, gray-haired wizard weeping in the corner who would have been the deceased’s husband if his blood-status had been better and the Greengrasses had cared for prestige a little less and love a little more. That had been his father’s hand going tighter and tighter on Scorpius’s shoulder at every not-so-oblique reference to mud. That had been mother’s hands shaking as she did not draw her wand on every even less-oblique reference to marks and eating. That had been Scorpius squirming under everyone’s eyes but refusing to step away from his father’s side to escape the staring. That had been...uncomfortable, but only a few steps outside of ordinary life. The presence of the corpse had not had much of an impact; he had not looked like he was sleeping, as the adults all said, but more like he was a stiff-carved statue who had never been a man at all.
There was no mistaking either the life or the death of this dripping boy barely two years older than Scorpius and the friends who had helped him perform the impossible twist of magic that had dredged this body from the cold lake and breathed life -- or at least air -- back into its brackish lungs. There was no mistaking his identity either, although part of Scorpius dearly wanted to; wanted them to have erred, to have gotten some other hapless dead man, one whom they could send back and forget that any of this had ever happened...
But that nose, that chin -- there was no denying their provenance. Scorpius saw the same nose, the same chin, on his father’s face and his grandmother’s. Saw them on his own face every time he looked in a mirror, although the black water at his knees gave back no reflection now. Scorpius tried not to look at it, or at the vague sense of motion in the distance as other things moved in the depths.
Looking at Regulus Black was no better but Scorpius forced himself to do that, even though it made his knees quake and his fingers shake and his breath catch in his throat (was the breath catching in Regulus’s again? Or was it all illusion?). “Y-your mother...” Scorpius began, then decided that was a conversation to have farther away from the water. “Never mind for now. Look, the important thing is, can you walk? We really oughtn’t to linger here. I’m not sure how long the spells on the oth...on the inferi will last.”
He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, took a long deep breath, and held out his hand to the once-dead man. “Come on,” he said, trying to sound braver than he felt. He had a feeling he had failed.