Chapter Text
I am considering sneaking out anyway, no matter what Mum says, wrote Albus Potter, bearing down on a book, knees crossed, quill scribbling furiously. He was a thin boy with black hair and green eyes, a thoughtful frown on his face. Anyway, no news on our friend. Father is being very secretive. We’re planning to visit the Scamanders soon. If my letters stop coming, just assume I’ve been eaten by any manner of magical beast.
Albus blew on the parchment, hastening its drying, and then rolled it into a tight scroll. Art hooted inquisitively from his perch in the window, rolling his head back to watch Albus seal the note. He was a barn owl, a gift from Albus’ father, and his primary means of keeping in touch with his best friend over the summer. Sometimes he harassed Albus to write more quickly, no doubt after the treats Scorpius plied him with.
“Straight to Scorpius,” Albus said, fastening the note to Art, and adding pointedly, “But try to go to his bedroom window. His mum will be resting.”
Art nipped his hair affectionately and flew off, disappearing over the swamp.
It was hot and humid, three weeks into his summer off school, and Albus was hiding again. He often snuck out of the house when he woke, took a few rolls or some eggs from breakfast, and ran off into the forest. He had a collection of books in the Molehill, his hidden fort just a mile or more from his grandparents’ house, and he spent the long hours going over them. He was safe there, concealed by a Fidelius charm.
So far it had been invaluable in avoiding his annoying older brother – and in hiding a fugitive.
He thought of his letter to Scorpius, of the words ‘our friend,’ which he used to replace her name whenever they spoke of her. Dotty Stross was in the custody of the Ministry, her life on the line as the Americans fought for custody of her. His father – or Scorpius’ father, for that matter – would probably not like that the boys were talking about her. Albus had asked over and over to be allowed to speak with her, but he was always denied. She was dangerous, his mother said, and unpredictable, his aunt said. His father was sympathetic, but stern. No contact.
So Albus could only speculate about how she was doing.
He was considering how he would get to the Malfoy household without his parents finding out while he climbed down the ladder and carefully avoided the trick-step at the bottom, where the wood had rotted away and once swallowed his whole leg. He was so consumed by thoughts of Dotty that it took him a moment to notice the figure standing at the end of the dock, and when he did, he jumped out of his skin.
And straight into the swamp.
Albus floundered, sputtering as swamp water invaded his mouth. He tried to pull himself back up on the dock, but it was too high, and he had to get out on the shore where his sister waited, giggling, with her hand over her mouth.
“Sorry,” she said, clearly not sorry.
Albus got to his feet, fuming, “What are you doing?”
“I followed you, but then you sort of… disappeared.” Lily looked around him, sharp blue eyes searching the low foliage, the rippling water. “Where did you go?”
He almost said it outright, because the Molehill was still visible behind him – to him, at least – but then he remembered the charm. She would only see the water.
“And then you reappeared,” she went on, “And fell into the water.”
Albus scrubbed mud out of his hair. “None of your business.”
She frowned, putting her hands on her hips. She never looked more like a miniature of their mother. “Is that where you keep going all day?”
“No.”
“Are you avoiding me?”
He sighed, “No, Lily, not you.”
“Oh. James.” She stepped closer to the Molehill, tapping the ground with her foot. “What is it, then? Something magical? I promise I’ll never tell anyone!”
He trusted her, but he was reluctant to give up his secret. He only considered it because she seemed so hurt by it. He had always been closer to her than James, and he was now more than ever, because James spent most of his time with their cousin Fred and could not be bothered with his younger siblings anymore – and they never missed a chance to make fun of Albus for something or another. One day it was his poor grades, and the next it was his poor ability on a broomstick. Albus was clearly not up to their standards.
But his sister had always adored him, and he liked her company. She was milder than James, perceptive, and very kind. She had played an integral part in his deception over the last schoolyear, and though he had promised her a full explanation of what happened, she had not badgered him for it since he came home.
He gave in, repeating the words his uncle had said to him on Christmas, “It’s north-by-northwest.”
Lily looked at him strangely, her eyes widening a pinch.
“You want to follow the winding path away from the garage, pass four odd stones, and turn toward the biggest stump.”
Lily shuddered. “What…?”
“It’s protected by a Fidelius charm. Bill and Charlie cast it when they were kids.” Albus looked in the direction of the Molehill, waved his wand gently toward it, and though the image he saw did not change, Lily gasped loudly. “And now, you’re part of it.”
She did not move, mouth ajar, “Wow!”
“They gave it to me last Christmas,” Albus said. “So I would have someplace secret to go, just for me.”
Lily looked guilty suddenly, “Oh.”
“It’s alright,” Albus said. “It was never meant to keep you out. Do you want to see inside?”
“I do,” she said, bouncing a little on her heels, but then she sighed, “But we have guests. I was supposed to be bringing you back.”
Albus looked regretfully at the Molehill, his no-longer-secret hideaway, and waved it away with his wand. Lily gasped, impressed, and then started laughing.
“Who are our guests?” Albus asked, starting a slow walk back through the swamp toward their grandparents’ home.
“You first – what were you doing in there?”
“Writing to Scorpius,” Albus said. “I was thinking about sneaking off to visit him, since Mum and Dad are so against it.”
Lily nodded along, “I wouldn’t tell them.”
“I know.”
She had a little skip in her step, “It’s just a few people, er, Gran and Grandad, obviously, and Ron and George, and our cousins, and Teddy and Victoire…”
Albus had, since returning home from Hogwarts, lost his enthusiasm for big gatherings. He had a wonderful time with his Slytherin friends, but when faced with his family, who were almost exclusively in the diametrically opposed house as children, he felt inexplicably guilty. His feelings of not belonging had come home with him, made worse by his brother’s constant teasing, and not being able to see Scorpius. The Molehill was his escape from all of that.
As they emerged from the woods, he saw that she had not named all of their visitors.
“Neville!” he cried, delighted, as he spotted his godfather by the back door.
Neville looked up, almost dropping the pastry had he been eating, and he smiled. He showed no signs of the injuries Dotty Stross had inflicted on him the past schoolyear, and instead stood straight, and strong, and proud, sporting a new, dark beard about his jawline.
Albus hugged him. “I didn’t know you were back in the country!”
“Just got back yesterday,” Neville said, laughing, and tapping Albus on the head as he pulled away. “Have you gotten taller already?”
“No way,” Albus said. “Did you bring us something from Slovakia?”
Neville and his family had been away for weeks, since the moment the term ended, on an herbology-related trip to Slovakia, among other places. They took trips like that every summer, sometimes only coming home just before the Hogwarts term started.
“Of course I did,” Neville said through a bite of food, taking a moment to smile at Lily, “Hello, Lily. Keeping your brother in line?”
“Yes,” Lily said. “Although, it is my fault he’s all wet.”
Neville cocked an eyebrow, looking at Albus again, “That you are. What happened?”
Albus blanched, suddenly alarmed she was going to spill his secret.
“I was about to step in a bog hole, and Albus tripped pulling me away from it. He fell in.” Lily made an honest, believable expression of regret.
Neville laughed, “Well, that’s his job, I suppose, as the big brother.”
Albus put an arm around Lily and squeezed, silently showing his gratitude, and appreciation for having such a clever sibling, and said again, “What did you bring us?”
He had candies from three different countries, which were as tasty as they were magical. He told them about his trip, attracting their other cousins in the process, and by the time he had come to their boat trip home, his audience included nearly everyone there. It forced Albus to notice that there were people missing – notably his father and his aunt Hermione.
“Where’s dad?” he whispered to James, who had come to stand beside him.
James said, “Called into work. What else?”
His father had been working nearly nonstop lately, responding to calls of mysterious magical occurrences all over the countryside. Albus suspected that it had to do with the powerful gemstones he inadvertently reunited, but hoped he was wrong. He and Scorpius had discussed it at length, referring to the stones as ‘mice’ as if they were simply discussing their pets, to trick anyone who might intercept their letters.
He knew what Hermione was up to. She worked in magical laws and spent most of her time corresponding with the Americans and digging up old cases to justify keeping Dotty Stross in their country for trial. Albus had eavesdropped on his parents talking about it, and his mother mentioning that it was driving a wedge between her and his uncle Ron.
He spotted their daughter Rose off on her own, playing with a set of marbles, and went to join her. He had finally shaken Lily, who stayed to continue harassing Neville for information about a particular species of unicorn he saw in the forests of Russia.
Rose looked up at his approach, and to his surprise, she scowled.
“Alright?” Albus asked, uncertain.
She focused on her marbles. “Leave me alone, Al.”
“What’s wrong?”
She was keen to be friends again at the end of the school year, after his being sorted into a different house had created a rift between them. She even pushed a girl down for teasing him. What had changed?
She sighed loudly, “I don’t want to talk to you, is all.”
“But why? I thought you weren’t upset about me being in Slytherin anymore-”
“I said go away, Albus!”
He was jarred by her harsh tone, and noticed her father Ron looking up from across the garden, probably intending to enforce her words. He was quite protective of her. Albus left, his heart clenching. What did he do to upset her this time? He had barely seen her this summer.
Albus meandered around the party, stopping to chat with Louis about how Gran had tried to cut his hair in the middle of the night when he slept over the previous week, and then spotting his older brother James and his cousin Fred chatting near the forest. Lily was with them, bouncing on her heels as she told a story.
But as he got closer, they stopped talking, and James groaned, “What, Albus?”
“I only wanted to join,” Albus said, allowing a bit of anger to brew. “What were you talking about?”
“Hippogriffs!” Lily said.
“Nothing a Slytherin would need to know,” James said bitingly. “Or such a poor rider, for that matter. If you could stay on a broom, maybe I’d tell you.”
“I can stay on a broom,” Albus objected.
James and Fred laughed, having both witnessed him fall off his broom several times that summer alone. He flushed.
Lily whacked James in the arm, “Stop being a bully!”
“I’m only telling the truth,” James said, though he did not use a cruel tone for their little sister. He tapped Fred on the shoulder and they walked off, laughing.
Albus was so angry he searched around for a rock to throw at his brother, but came up emptyhanded. He may fall off his broom from time to time, but he had great aim. He had once nailed James in the forehead with an orange from across the garden.
“Do you want me to put slugs in his bed?” Lily asked.
Albus could not resist a laugh at that. But the sound died away, leaving his mood down in the dust. “No… thanks though. He’s right, anyway.”
“He is not,” Lily said, huffing. “You do fine on a broomstick. And who cares what house you’re in? Alice and Augusta aren’t in Gryffindor, either!”
“Yeah, but point out one person here who was in Slytherin.”
Lily twisted her lips, remained silent. She was remarkably like their mother, in both appearance and intelligence, but neither of them had a good answer to that point.
Albus looked around for some distraction. He could not dwell on what his brother said all day. It would just make him angry, and what good was that? He spotted the twin Longbottom girls by the big tent, where they served meals at the massive Weasley-Potter table. Alice was sitting down, kneading her forehead, and Augusta was hovering nearby.
He approached, smiling, “Have you got a headache, Alice?”
She looked up, returned his smile for a moment. “Just full, is all.”
Augusta and Alice were both in Hufflepuff, a different house from their parents, and so was their older brother Frank. Albus could not remember there being an uproar when Frank was sorted to Hufflepuff. It seemed his parents could not care less.
“Did you really see brown unicorns?” Lily asked Augusta.
Augusta nodded, grinning, “I have a photo, if you want to see it.”
She ran off with Lily to accost her father for the photographs, leaving Albus alone with Alice. Despite being twins, the two girls were quite different. Albus had always known Augusta to be very grounded, intelligent, and serious by nature, while Alice… well, people thought she was odd. He had known her his whole life. He always shared the perception that she was strange. But now, he could not see her that way.
He used to find her spaciness annoying, and he would laugh at her alongside his brothers and cousins, and her own sister, sometimes. It all seemed like a lifetime ago. Now that he was the odd one, the outcast, he could not imagine being so cruel. Not that she ever noticed, so lost in her dreamy thoughts at times – but he noticed. He knew.
“Can I get you anything?” Albus offered, worried that she was in pain.
Alice sort of smiled, sort of grimaced, “No, thanks. It should go away soon.”
“Do you get a lot of headaches?”
She nodded, “More these days. It’s just…”
“What?” Albus sat down, as her voice had become barely audible.
She said, “It’s… just under the waves, where the moon shines on it, you know?”
He frowned, “What?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding.
Albus was puzzled, “Alice, I don’t understand.”
“No,” she said now, looking up at him fiercely, “Purple… poisonous… stars.”
Albus blinked, put off by her intensity, and he said, “Uh, yeah, sure.”
She nodded again, looked back at the table.
Suddenly they were not alone. Hannah Longbottom appeared, taking her daughter by the shoulders, “C’mon, love, let’s go inside and lay down. Molly says you can have a rest on the couch if you like. Does that sound good?”
Alice looked up at her with hazy eyes, “Under the waves…?”
“Yes, darling,” her mother said, drawing her up. She looked at Albus, seeming apologetic, “She’s just tired. We had a long day yesterday.”
“Is she alright?” Albus said.
“She’ll be fine, just needs to rest.”
Albus watched her lead Alice away. On their way in, Neville caught sight of them and joined them, and the family went inside together.
“What was that all about?” His mother appeared by his side, a hand on his shoulder.
Albus looked up at her, finding that she looked just as tired at the Longbottoms, as if she, too, had been traveling for weeks. “I dunno. Her mum said she’s tired, is all.”
“Hmm.” His mother sat beside him, kneading one of her shoulders. “Sorry for springing this on you, love. It sort of happened out of nowhere. Gran insisted.”
“For what?” Albus said.
“Just a gathering, I suppose…” she winked, though. “Maybe something more.”
Albus wondered if they were celebrating his birthday a week early, as a surprise, and a thrill filled his heart. He watched the guests for any signs of gifts, but no one was looking in his direction at all.
“I saw Art flying over,” his mother said, “Who are you sending letters to?”
“Scorpius.” Albus turned back toward his mother, unable to help the bitterness creeping into his voice. “I want to visit him.”
“I know.”
“Why can’t I, then?”
“Your father and I-”
“Scorpius isn’t dangerous, and neither is his family!”
His mother’s face hardened a little. “I know you’re friends, but his father-”
“I don’t care what his father did.”
“But I do,” she said sharply. “You can’t expect me to send my son to the home of a killer.”
A killer? Albus stared at her, waiting for some explanation.
His best friend was also in Slytherin, but that was not what made his parents so weary of him. Scorpius was the son of their school rival, Draco Malfoy, and though his father never told truly damning stories of people in his past, he had no good stories about him. Albus’ uncles were a lot more loose-lipped and openly scorned the Malfoys. Albus had dropped those teachings the moment he arrived at Hogwarts, when he found Scorpius to be kind, funny, and brave. He might not have survived his first year if not for his faithful friend.
It annoyed him, and frustrated him, and Albus wanted an explanation for his parents’ hesitation – especially now that they knew Scorpius had been the one to save his life by contacting them, at the risk of their friendship.
He wanted to ask her, to force her to answer, but his mother had looked away at something happening nearby.
Teddy had dropped to one knee in front of Victoire and was holding a sparkling, obsidian ring. She was frozen to the spot, her hand over her mouth. Everyone was frozen, really, waiting for either of them to say something.
Teddy finally spoke, his face more serious than Albus had ever seen it, a lock of shining pink hair settling in the center of his forehead, “Victoire, you are the center of my life. I love you.” He said something in French, which Albus did not understand, and Victoire – and her sister, brother, and mother – gasped softly. Bill was standing beside his wife, staring at the situation with hard, uncertain eyes.
Victoire gently held her hand out to him, drawing him to his feet, and kissed him on each cheek, smiling vibrantly as she said, “Yes.”
His whole family erupted into cheers. Albus clapped his hands over his ears.
When the cheering died down, his mother was saying, “I wish your father could be here,” as she approached the newly engaged couple and wrapped Teddy in a tight embrace. She and his father had mostly been the ones to raise him, but they had rarely seen him since he graduated Hogwarts the year before Albus started. He was off traveling the world, waiting for Victoire to graduate – to marry her, he supposed.
Lily ran up to Albus, glowing, “Teddy and Victoire are getting married!”
“I saw,” Albus said.
“Why do you look sad?”
“What? I’m not.” Albus fixed his face, hiding his disappointment that this was not, in fact, an early birthday surprise for him, but a spontaneous gathering so that Teddy could propose in front of everyone. It was silly of him to think that, anyway. He tried to appear happy, but what his mother said just before the proposal was repeating over and over and over again in his mind.
A killer.
Did she mean that Draco Malfoy was a murderer? His father had never told him that. Albus poured over his memories, all the stories of his school days, and found nothing of the sort. What did she mean?
Lily joined him on the bench, sighing dramatically, “One day, I’m going to marry a man like Teddy.”
Albus cocked an eyebrow at her, successfully distracted, and said, “A long, long time from now!”
“Of course, silly. I’ll be playing professional Quidditch before then.”
“I bet,” Albus agreed. His somber mood persisted. He watched his family laugh and celebrate, watched Bill go through some kind of crisis, and thought about Scorpius and his parents the entire time.
He wondered if it was true.
He wondered if Scorpius knew about it.
He wondered if his father would tell him, if he asked.