The Front Page
The Potters were barely halfway through their sons’ school lists, and already, the entire Potter family was exhausted. Granted, any shopping trip to Diagon Alley was never as simple as checking items off a shopping list. It seemed like the Potters could barely take three steps before they were stopped by someone who wanted Albus’ father to recount on his glory days, fighting against the Dark Lord Voldemort or a request for an autograph from one of his mother’s old fans from her professional Quidditch days (though she was often asked for war stories as well).
And if it wasn’t that, especially if it was a particularly slow news day, they could always count on some reporter from the Daily Prophet sneaking out from behind a corner and flash-blinding them with a camera. Not even the children were safe, especially since getting photographs of the children of wizarding celebrities had become so ‘en vogue’.
Less than an hour after they had first arrived in Diagon Alley, Lily was making it quite clear that she was exhausted. “Daddy,” she begged sounding much more pathetic than need be, “carry me, please!”
Albus watched his father shake his head. “Lily, you really are getting too big for this.” But at the same time, Albus watched his dad pick Lily up off the ground and hoist her up onto his shoulders.
Lily sighed contently as she rested her chin on top of her dad’s black mop of hair. As the youngest member of the Potter family, as well as the only girl, anyone would agree that Lily was rather indulged by her parents. Her brothers were especially aware of this fact, no matter how hard their parents might have tried to deny it.
As they continued to make their way through the crowded streets, the two boys began to grow just as tired, though unfortunately, there was no more room on their father’s shoulders.
“Harry, why don’t we stop at George’s shop for a little while?”Albus’ mother suggested, tilting her head towards the most noisy and obscenely decorated shop front on the street.
Albus’ dad glanced around the alley, as though searching for any prying eyes or listening ears that might end up trying to follow them into the shop before quickly nodding and ushering the family in the direction of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.
To any unsuspecting visitor, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was a scene of chaos and surprise. The sort of place a person would always be on edge, whether it was warranted or not.
But this was not the case for the Potter family. Yes, they were still subject to the same tricks and traps as all other visiting customers, but it was still probably the safest place for them on Diagon Alley. No reporters dared follow them after they began falling victim to an odd sort of hex of George’s own invention in which their writing pads would beat them out of the doorway, with their quills jabbing them in the bum to drive them faster. Albus’ mother had to make sure she was never carrying any of her reporting materials with her, lest she be subjected to the curse as well, being a reporter herself.
When Albus’ father opened the front door, a fanfare of trumpets began to play, signaling the arrival of new customers. It was this sort of thing, instead of the usual door chime, that was yet another one of the shop’s more ‘charming’ aspects.
Roxanne was standing behind the counter, half-absorbed in a copy of Modern Youth Quidditch. The ends of her numerous braids were tied off with multi-colored beads continuously shifting colors from black and red to grey and white to purple and gold. These were most likely yet another addition of the Fair Weather Quidditch Fan series; a new product series of various clothing and accessories that could change colors to reflect just about every Quidditch team in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
“For the fan who couldn’t quite decide which team they back,” Uncle George had said about them.
“Uncle Harry! Aunt Ginny!” she shouted, looking up from the colored pages of her magazine. “Dad’s not here right now, but I think Mum’s upstairs.”
Albus’ dad nodded to his niece before looking down at his children. “Do you think you can all keep yourselves entertained down here?” As though he even needed to ask!
As soon as their parents were out of sight, Lily vanished into the aisles and James took it as a full invitation to explore the secrets of the shop that ordinary customers never would have been allowed. Albus relaxed and strode around the shop at a slow pace, taking in all the new products that had been added especially for the students taking a break from school shopping.
He traced his finger around the rim of the displayed ‘Biting Teacups’, peering inside in search of teeth or barbs or anything else that could be used to ‘bite’. Along the display shelf of new products, he found many things of equal interest. Things like squirting flowers that seemed to be leaking a suspicious blue liquid, Self-Swearing Quills, mirrors where Albus’ reflection screamed as soon as he made eye contact with it, and Always-Win (games where the owner always won) editions of chess and Gobstones.
James had slipped behind the counter, taking a look at a display of Hogwarts maps, possibly to replace the missing Marauder’s Map, which was safely hidden beneath some loose floorboards in Albus’ room, right beside the Invisibility Cloak. Slowly, he drifted further behind the counter”Roxanne too absorbed in her magazine story to notice”until he began to open a drawer that most likely contained a few yet-to-be-released products that no one else would have access to.
Before he could extract whatever might be inside, however, the drawer slammed shut with a surprising amount of force, and James let out a loud yelp, like a whipped puppy. The one responsible stared up at James with a disapproving look, tiny black hands straightening his vest, as well as the pillbox hat on top of his fuzzy head while everyone else burst out into loud laughter, including Lily, who was all the way back at the Pygmy Puff habitat.
“Bugger, Little George!” James snapped, blowing cool air onto his injured fingers while everyone else pointed and laughed. Little George used his long black tail to open the drawer once again, but kept a watchful eye over the contents from his seat on top of the counter.
Little George, a Capuchin monkey and the shop’s mascot, had been a fixture at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes for several years now. The details on where Uncle George had acquired the monkey and how he had trained him to work in a shop were still somewhat sketchy, but the little creature was a constant source of amusement for anyone who walked through the door. And all Albus’ mother’s jokes aside about Little George being her brother’s furry little clone, it was actually Aunt Hermione who came up with the name, from a book from her childhood about a curious little monkey who was constantly finding trouble. It certainly seemed to fit.
Once, on one of those rare occasions when a reporter did manage to get through
Just as Albus was wondering where Fred was, he felt the floorboard beneath him lift as someone tried to push their way up. He tried to step out of their way, but when he only had one step to go, the square piece of wooden planks shoot up from under him and knocked Albus to the floor. From there, he watched the square piece of floor fall in a perfect arch to reveal Fred Weasley climbing up from the level beneath the shop, a large brown box soon joining him beside the opening in the floor.
Upon hearing his cousin go crashing to the floor, he turned in Albus’ direction. His wild hair was sticking out in every direction, and his already dark face was covered in dirt, dust, and soot. “Al, when did you get here?”
This was what it finally took for Roxanne to look up from her magazine and take notice of what was going on around her. “Well, it’s about time you woke up!”
“Oh, yeah,” Fred retorted. “What have you been doing up here all this time?”
Roxanne could see her brother glancing towards her magazine and became defensive. “I was making sure the register didn’t grow legs.” She glanced towards the machine suspiciously. “And in this shop, sometimes it does!”
In the midst of the sibling’s arguing, Lily was staring at the trapdoor to the cellar in a sort of shock and awe. “You two slept here? In the cellar?”
Fred nodded in Lily’s direction as he pulled himself up to sit on the floor. “Everyone’s getting ready to go back to Hogwarts, so anyone who ever buys anything from Weasley’s has been stocking up when they come to Diagon Alley to get their school supplies. We’ve been unbelievably busy!”
“Not that we’re complaining!” Roxanne piped as she attempted to return to her magazine. “The overnight pay is nice.”
Lily remained in a state of wide-eyed shock, but Albus and James were already aware of this arrangement. Every year, just before school would start, Uncle George would take their cousins with him to the shop, and they would spend several days there, sleeping wherever they could. And it was something Albus knew his cousins looked forward to every year.
Yes, most of the day would be spent busily preparing for the coming rush of students, but there would also be ice cream for every meal, testing the products that other kids wouldn’t have till Christmas, and at night, there would be war story after war story until Uncle George’s voice gave out and Fred and Roxanne were long asleep.
“Hey, Lily!” Fred finally said, pulling himself up to the floor and snatching one of the squirting flowers from the nearby shelf. “Come here! I’ve got something to show you.”
Albus bit down at his lip as Fred held the flower close to Lily’s face. He considered warning his little sister about whatever was about to happen, but then he remembered the crack she had made last night while he was waiting for Scorpius’ letter. It would be better for her if she learned this lesson on her own.
“Blaabapu!” Lily sputtered as the flower sprayed the bright blue liquid in her face. But even once the potion had dripped away, Lily’s face remained a brilliant dark cobalt.
James took his turn to point and laugh, although his pointer finger still appeared rather crippled from the incident with the drawer.
And it was right at that moment that Albus’ mum and dad came down from the upstairs office to collect their children. “Everyone, if you’ve found anything you want, put it on the counter and buy it quick.” Albus’ mother began rummaging through her purse. “We promised your Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione that we would meet them in front of Fortescue & Son’s, and we’re already running….”
Albus heard his mother’s voice trail off once she finally set eyes on her youngest child.
“Mumm-miiiie!” Lily cried out in her most pathetic-sounding tone.
Albus’ mother rolled her eyes as she strode into the aisle. “Honestly, Fred! Really?” She took her daughter’s chin in her hand to examine the large stain all across her face.
Fred held up the squirting flower, somehow appearing both proud and terrified at the same. “With ink specially designed to cling to skin, but not clothes.”
“Splendid!” Albus’ mother humphed, finally letting go of Lily’s face to put her hands on her hips. “I don’t suppose your genius father showed you the counter-spell for this little toy?”
At first, Fred began to recite the classic line of Uncle George’s about how it wouldn’t be much of a joke if any damage could be fixed right away, but the fiery anger in his aunt’s eyes told him that now was not the time. “Purgopenitus cutis”
Albus’ mother repeated the incantation and Lily’s face regained its pale, slightly freckled tone. But before Albus’ mother could lead the family out the door, James tried to convince her to give him just a few moments to buy squirting flower of his own. This only succeeded in James being dragged out of the shop by his shirt collar, Lily being led by the hand, and Albus and his father following behind, spectators to the whole thing.
“I’ll make sure Dad knows you stopped by!” Roxanne shouted as the family was on their way out.
By all logic, no one should have been fighting a trip to Fortescue & Son’s. They served, without a doubt, the best ice cream in the world, and in more than a hundred flavors (though Albus spent many nights wondering just how a person could come up with so many ice cream flavors).
But even the ice cream shop had a place in his father’s war stories. When Albus’ dad had been going into his sixth year, the old owner of the shop had been killed by Death Eaters. The shop was closed and boarded up for many years, until Odell Fortescue, the man’s son, who had been living in Belize up until then, moved his family back to Britain and reopened his father’s ice cream shop, along with dozens of new recipes he had developed in tropical Latin America.
The Potter children were already slurping away at their ice cream cones when the Weasleys arrived at their table. As was the usual custom, Uncle Ron was saddled with the majority of the bags, while everyone else in the family was limited to only one each. And Uncle Ron was the first to collapse into a chair, throwing his head over the back of the chair and taking a folded newspaper from his robe pocket.
Albus’ dad leaned in over the table. “Is that this morning’s paper?”
Uncle Ron nodded, but even that seemed to hurt. “I’ve been so busy in my duties as the Weasley family mule, I haven’t even had time to read it.”
“Me neither,” Albus’ dad answered as he reached for it. “Wake up, get dressed, and into the Floo.”
“Don’t you steal my paper! Buy your own!”
The two men continued to childishly fight over the paper, more for the sake of the fight itself while their wives rolled their eyes. It was all the more proof that after all these years and even after becoming family, the old school mates still considered themselves best friends.
“Daddy,” Lily suddenly piped, “Albus and Rose and on the front page of the Prophet!”
At first, no one took Lily’s claim seriously, but then Albus glanced out of the corner of his eye to see a group of three photographs decorating the front page, and sure enough, Albus could see his own face looking back at him from the cover of the Prophet. Not only that, the entire Arcane ScoRA found their faces plastered all over the front page. Rose was sitting on the floor of the library, paging thoughtfully through some heavy leather-bound tome. Scorpius was sitting at the Slytherin table, surrounded by his housemates, and Albus was walking down a corridor, frequently looking over his shoulder as though he sensed someone following him.
Before the full rush of panic could take hold of the adults, Albus snatched the paper for himself so he could lay into the story, Rose standing right behind him, her chin resting on his shoulder.
of Hogwarts Student
Last spring, Hogwarts fourth-year, Maddox Dugan, was sentenced to fifteen years in Azkaban for numerous reckless acts using an ancient tool of magic know as the Wand of MacArt. The arrest came as a shock to all who knew him, describing Maddox who enjoyed playing Quidditch as Keeper for Gryffindor, and who excelled at subjects including Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Transfiguration, for which his father, Cyprian Dugan, is the school’s instructor.
“It’s still so hard to believe it was him,” remarked Tracy Corner, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. “So many people were hurt during the attacks”especially during the Quidditch match when the swarm of Doxies came”we’re lucky no one was killed.
An investigation was headed by the Aurors Office, along with the assistance of a team of Magizoologist consultants, leading to Maddox Dugan being discovered in a cave just inside the Forbidden Forest which had been inhabited by a manticore”which had driven the forest’s creatures to take refuge within the walls of Hogwarts”with the Wand of MacArt. Although Maddox has never admitted having any connection to the attacks on the school, he was tried by the Wizengamot, found guilty, and now sits in Azkaban, serving his sentence.
There may, however, be reason to believe young Maddox will be there for much longer.
Yesterday, Mrs. Dugan held a press conference at her home in Brighton to announce her campaign to prove her son’s innocence and the measures she has taken to do so.
“On my last visit to see my son, I made a Blood Pact with the promise that I would prove that he was not responsible.”
The first step Mrs. Dugan has taking in keeping this promise is by petitioning the Ministry of Magic to reopen her son’s case, with particular attention to any possible alibis Maddox might have had for the attacks, and investigation toward the three first-year students are the ones that Maddox claims are truly responsible: Albus Potter, Rose Weasley, and Scorpius Malfoy.
While both Mrs. Dugan and her son still claim to have no knowledge of who was behind the attacks on Hogwarts themselves, their claim is that these three students banded together in a secret society of some sort, and conspired to frame Maddox Dugan for the attacks.
Alarice Dugan claims that the position of their parents with the Ministry of Magic may have had something to do with the children never being investigated. Albus and Rose are both cousins, the respective children of Harry and Ginevra Potter, and Ronald and Hermione Weasley, all of whom fought in the Second War against Lord Voldemort, Mr. Potter most notably for personally defeating the Dark Lord. As previously stated, Mr. Potter is the current Head of the Aurors Office, while Mrs. Potter, a former Quidditch player, now sports reporter for the Daily Prophet. Mr. Weasley is an Auror, as well, while Mrs. Weasley holds a high post with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Scorpius, son of Draco and Astoria Malfoy, is an only child, as well as the only grandson of Lucius Malfoy, known Death Eater during both Wars; Draco Malfoy was a minor Death Eater in the Second War. Lucius Malfoy, to this day, defends his action, claiming that they were done under influence of the Imperious Curse, while Draco has claimed never to have any major involvement in Death Eater affairs, even during his short membership. Draco Malfoy is currently employed by the Obscurus Books publishing company.
As of yet, there is no proof to substantiate these claims, but that has not deterred Alarice Dugan. She is hoping that since the parents of Scorpius Malfoy have notably less influence within the Ministry, she can convince the Auror Office to begin with an investigation against just him, which will hopefully lead them to the other two.
“I will do whatever it takes to help my son. Blood Pacts leave no room for empty vows, and I have no intention of breaking my word.”
Albus found himself so dumbstruck that he didn’t even notice when the paper was snatched away by his mother. She held the paper up in front of the faces of all the relatives at the circular table.
“How was this article even published without us hearing about it?” she exclaimed, ignoring the customers around her who were beginning to look up from their ice cream. “I would have thought I’ve been at the Prophet long enough to know that a story involving my son and my niece, was going to be published before it went to print!”
It was hard to tell whether she was angrier at whoever had written the story, or at herself for not knowing a thing about it.
“A Blood Pact?” Aunt Hermione joined in. “The woman has to be completely mad! There was a time when the Mind-Healing Wing of St. Mungo’s had an entire wing of people gone mad from not being able to fulfill the promises they made under that spell!”
Eventually, all the adults started yelling, each of them giving voice to their own individual concerns. But the shock of the story seemed to have caught them so off-guard, that nothing they said gave way to an actual conversation. It was more like they were all just taking turns shouting off things that were awful about this.
“She can’t really do that, can she? Accusing the children of this kind of thing with nothing but the word of her own son?” Ron shouted, his face just beginning to turn red. “That has to be slander or something of that sort.”
“Libel, Ron,” Albus’ mother gave him the correct term. “And no, because the story really isn’t about anything the children did. It’s about making a Blood Pact with her son to get him out of Azkaban.” She stared back down at the paper in disgust “Even in the accusation, she is only says what her son told her, so even if it turns out to be a lie, no action could be taken against Alaric Dugan.”
She went on. “It’s a pretty clever loophole, but it’s still a very concrete one.”
But Uncle Ron didn’t seem to be so convinced that nothing could be done. “Well, I doubt whoever wrote this story could have just turned it in without anyone giving it a glance. It would have to go through editors, and printers! And Ginny, if you had just gone to your boss and said the story was a ‘personal conflict of interest’ or something like that, that would have stopped it dead!”
Albus watched as his mother’s gaze turned deadly. “Are you saying this is my fault somehow?”
“I’m sure Ron didn’t mean anything by it,” Albus dad tried to defend both of them at the same time, taking up the paper to have a closer look. “But take at look at who came up with this story: Rita Skeeter.”
“Skeeter?” Uncle Ron spat as though the word were something disgusting. “Good Merlin, Ginny, hasn’t that woman retired yet? What about that book career of hers?”
Albus had heard all about Rita Skeeter. She was the single embodiment of why anything having to do with the press had no good to offer. When Albus’ dad had been young, Rita Skeeter had always done everything in her power to write sensationalized, and often untrue, stories about him, as well as Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, and anyone else who stood close to them long enough. Lately, though, she seemed to have gone on to write the same sort of sensationalized story in book form, on the topics of Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, the Golden Trio as a whole, and many more that Albus didn’t care to know about. Granted, Albus wasn’t really one for reading the paper, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had even read one of Rita Skeeter’s stories in the Daily Prophet.
While the adults around the table, however, Rose grabbed Albus arm and trying to pull him up out of his chair, to the point where he was convinced it was going to be pulled from its socket. Finally, if she wanted to have any hope of keeping the arm, he had to get up out of his seat and allow Rose Weasley to drag him along like a rag doll, which he still allowed to happen for some reason. And while the adults were arguing, Rose also snatched the morning edition of the Daily Prophet up off the side of the table.
Leading him by the arm, Rose dragged Albus through the crowded alley. They nearly knocked down a dozen different people, and almost tipping over a cart selling smoked meat. People all around them were staring, but Rose wasn’t showing any signs of telling Albus just where it was they were going or how long it would take to get there.
“Do you think Scorpius has seen this story yet?” he was finally able to ask as they continued walking.
“If he’s in the country and stayed in this morning, he probably has,” Rose answered. “Where’d these pictures even come from?”
Albus grimaced as Rose continued on with talking to herself. He could only imagine the prospect of being associated with Albus and Rose didn’t bode much better with Scorpius’ parents than it did with theirs. There was absolutely no way this was going to go over well for any of their families.
“We have to find out if he has!” Rose declared as she pulled Albus along. “We have to get in touch with him right now!”
And so the cousins went back to racing down the alleyway, one dragging the other along, until Albus’ sore shoulder prompted him to ask. “We’ll be seeing him a few weeks, Rose. Couldn’t we just wait till we see him on the train or at Hogwarts?”
Rose didn’t answer, but from the way she picked up her pace, it was clear that she didn’t agree. Right when Albus was convinced his shoulder was going to dislocate, he finally show were Rose had been dragging him to: the Leaky Cauldron.
“The Leaky Cauldron has owl you can rent to carry messages,” Rose told Albus. “We can write to Scorpius in the pub and send it with one of the owls there. I’m not so sure we should use our own owls to write one another anymore, anyway. Someone might start to recognize them if they start showing up too often.”
Not that you could wait that long even if you tried, Albus thought to himself.
Thankfully, Rose showed no sort of reaction as she opened the door to the pub and led him inside.
After taking a few steps into the tavern, a hush seemed to take over the room in waves, as though it were only gradually occurring to everyone there that those were indeed two of the children that had been featured on the front page of the Daily Prophet. While Albus stood halted by all this, however, Rose continued to push him forward, further into the Leaky Cauldron and towards the bar counter.
A pink-faced, blonde woman with her hair tied up under a handkerchief smiled brightly at them as she used her wand to send several dirty tankards to the back to be washed. “Albus, Rose, so good to see you!”
Hannah Longbottom, formerly Abbott, was the Leaky Cauldron’s landlady. To many, this might seem a job of little influence, but in fact, it gave Hannah the opportunity to hear and see things that officials in the Ministry could only dream of knowing about; knowing plans and schemes for criminal activities while they were still only rumors. In fact, Albus’ father had often said that because of her position, Hannah was an invaluable asset to the Auror Office; their eyes and ears as to the goings on in Diagon Alley.
“Hi, Hannah,” Albus piped. “Is Neville here?”
Barely a second after asking this, Albus felt a very sharp jab to his ribcage, courtesy of his beloved cousin who was now staring daggers at him.
“You are bloody mad, aren’t you?” she hissed under her breath. “We came here to rent an owl to contact Scorpius! Not to catch up our teachers!”
Albus answered with, “You need to get in touch with Scorpius,” he whispered back. “What I need is to say hello to my devoted godfathers, while at the same time asking my Herbology professor for any advice he might have on how to finish the summer homework he assigned.”
Rose was more than welcome to carry on with whatever paranoid activities she wanted, but Albus was going to take this opportunity the do something at least somewhat useful. Then, feeling like getting back at Rose for the sting he still felt in his side, he added, “Don’t worry. I promise to be very stupid so he won’t notice you sending your message.”
The times when anyone was given the opportunity to get the last word in an argument with Rose Weasley were few, but whenever it did happen, it was something to be greatly enjoyed.
Through some miracle, Hannah seemed to have picked up none of what was exchanged between the two cousins. “Neville’s in the upstairs office trying to work out the last of his lesson plans for school. He can never concentrate down here with all the noise, but I’m sure this will be a welcome break for him.”It was with that that Hannah left the counter to be tended by the other pub worker while she went up the stairs in search of her husband.
Hannah was Albus’ godmother, though his parents confessed that they hadn’t really become friendly with her until after she had married Neville. It seemed like a waste in Albus’ opinion; Hannah Longbottom was one of the sweetest people he knew. She would never greet a person without a smile, and her pockets always contained some sort of treat or sweet. In the Longbottom house, the potted plants took up more room than the furniture, but Hannah never minded.
“Albus! Rose!” A voice came from the top of the staircase.
The two cousins looked up to see their Herbology professor looking down at them. He wasn’t as covered in dirt as he had been while teaching at Hogwarts, but that might have had more to do with being away from his beloved school greenhouses.
He began making his way down the steps at a rushed pace. “Great to see both of you! Out shopping for school?”
The way Neville was speaking and gesturing, it was it easy to see that he was nervous. Clearly, he too had heard the news of Alarice Dugan’s attempts to accuse them of being responsible for her son’s imprisonment. “Hannah said you needed help with schoolwork.”
He led the two of them to an empty table, using his sleeve to wipe the damp surface. Rose’s eyes glanced towards the corner of the bar, where an open window revealed an owl perch where several of the tavern owls were waiting with leather sacks around their necks to hold their payment.
“So what was it about the homework you needed help understanding, Albus?”
Albus bit down on his bottom lip. He wasn’t quite sure he wanted to confess that he hadn’t even begun his Herbology assignment, and that it wasn’t just one thing he needed help with. But Albus was saved from answering by the sympathetic act of Neville moving on from the question, who seemed to know what was going on inside the boy’s head. Reaching into his leather case, he extracted a small stack of parchment as well as several books, including their textbook.
“Can I have a piece too?” Rose asked, watching in rather confused surprise as Neville also brought out an ink bottle and several different quills.
He didn’t bother to ask Rose if she needed help writing her essay. Maybe it was the assumption that, as a Ravenclaw, she already understood the assignment perfectly, or possibly that in asking for a piece of parchment to write on, Neville believe she would be able to keep herself occupied.
Rose might have been able to work her way through her assignments, but that didn’t mean that Albus didn’t. “Don’t you have a letter to write?” he whispered under his breath while Neville was busy thumbing through one of his books.
Rose humphed under her breath, snatching one of the quills and turning her eyes down to the paper, while Albus turned his attention back to his teacher. “Well, I understand everything about different things in fertilizer helping different parts of the plant grow better”phosphorus and all that stuff”but I don’t know how you know how you decide which part of the plant you want to grow the best. And what if you want more than one part of the plant to grow well?”
Neville began into his explanation, with Albus listening diligently. This wasn’t allowed to carry on for long enough to be any help to Albus’ homework, however, because of a sharp tug Rose gave to his hair, causing a high-pitched shriek from Albus and bringing Neville’s attempted lesson to an abrupt end.
“Rose!” he protested loudly before Rose shushed him and point off beyond his vision.
But Rose was not about to be made ashamed of her interruption, eyes wide as she pointed away from the table. “Look there!”
When Albus followed the direction of his cousin’s finger, his eyes soon went equally wide. It was Scorpius, along with his parents! And their arrival seemed to bring about a new rush of whispers among the pub patrons, as they saw yet another face that had graced this morning’s edition of the paper.
Rose set her quill down and pushed the parchment off to the side. It would seem writing that letter was no longer necessary.
Scorpius was standing in the doorway of the pub, flanked by his parents, who both looked upon the scene with a certain amount of disgust that only the truly wealthy seemed capable of. Scorpius, in his school cloak, entered the pub just ahead of Mr. Malfoy, the lamp-light gleaming off his slightly balding head, offering a great deal of insight into what Scorpius’ appearance might be as an adult. Mrs. Malfoy, flanking his right, was an elegant woman with blonde hair and a sculpted nose, along with a gaze that had the ability of looking past anyone in the room. Side by side, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, with their similar coloring and equally elegant robes, almost looked like the king and queen on a chess board.
Albus quickly found himself being tugged down by the shoulder to hide beneath the table, which made him feel as ridiculous as they must have looked. Neville, by some sort of miracle, didn’t seem to notice this. “Mr. Scorpius Malfoy!” he called, waving from the table. “How nice to see you!”
Scorpius met with his professor’s eyes, as did his parents”however their feelings seemed to be those of distaste and annoyance. His mother eyed the exit to the alley, perhaps debating whether or not to run for it.
“Hello, Professor Longbottom,” Scorpius piped as soon as he saw his teacher, something that seemed to cause a certain amount of disgust on the part of his parents, as though having their son be polite to one of his teachers was something to be ashamed of. “I hope you are having a good summer.”
“Very, Mr. Malfoy,” Neville answered, not seeming to notice that Albus and Rose had slipped underneath the table so as not to be seen. “Have you finished you summer homework yet?”
“Almost.” Scorpius voice sounded less than honest. “I was going to finish the rest of it tonight.”
His father smirked in Neville’s direction. “Well, Longbottom, it seems you have had an eventful summer, what with your discovery of the glorious invention that is soap and water.”
“Father!” Scorpius hissed. “Don’t insult the man who controls my Herbology grade!”
Mr. Malfoy glowered down at his son, seeming thoroughly insulted that he had had his behavior reprimanded by his twelve-year-old son.
“Draco, Astoria,” Hannah suddenly called out from behind the bar, sounding apprehensive, yet trying to be polite. “Can I interest you in something to drink? Maybe even something on the house for the sake of old classmates?”
After some amount of fidgeting, Scorpius’ parents seemed to finally decide on accepting the free hospitality. They did, however, appear to question this when Neville left the table to go join them.
Scorpius remained behind, though, and the vision of his feet and legs was soon joined by his face as well as he suddenly crouched down to his friends hiding in their less than dignified manner. “Albus! Rose!” he mouthed.
Despite the fact that Scorpius had not actually said anything, Rose held a finger to her lips and shushed him. While Scorpius stood by, appearing confused and offend, Rose led Albus out from under the table, the both of them still moving in a rather crotched positions, into a dark corridor and through a door which turned out to lead into the men’s washroom. Rose turned the locks tight and then held her entire body against the door, as though if someone managed to break through the locks, a small girl’s body could stop any intruders.
But Albus’ fidgeted nervously on the soles of his feet. “I don’t know, Rose. I really don’t think you’re supposed to be in here,” Albus warned as he pushed himself to his feet. “Arcane ScoRA business or not.”
This was the first time the actual name of their secret organization had actually been said since the end of the school year. Rose turned to look over her shoulder, as though it surprised her to hear it, as though everything she had been doing up until this point had had nothing to do with the secret organization.
Suddenly, a series of sharp raps at the door brought them both to attention. “Occupied!” Rose muttered, trying to make her voice as raspy and low an octave as possible.
“Rose, let me in right now!”
Upon recognizing the familiar voice of Scorpius Malfoy on the other side, Rose quickly opened the door for him, only to immediately slam it shut again, almost catching the boy’s heels in it, but Scorpius seemed almost too preoccupied to even be mad. From beneath his robes, Scorpius pulled a folded section of paper, containing the same story Albus and Rose had seen just moments before.
“Have you seen this yet?”
Albus nodded. “Just a little while ago, kind of by accident, and now our parents are having a collective fit.”
Rose slid back down to the floor. “Have you had a chance to give it a good read yet?”
Scorpius shook his head. “Mother and Father wouldn’t let me see the paper this morning, but I snatched it out of the rubbish when we were just stepping into the Floo. But I don’t think I have to read very far to understand just how bad this all is.”
“Did you read the part about how Maddox’s mummy blames use for putting her son in Azkaban?” Rose began thumping the back of her head against the door.
Scorpius balked at that. “The Auror’s Office and the Wizengamot put Maddox Dugan in Azkaban!”
“He got locked up because everything he used the Wand of MacArt for, almost killing a good chunk of the student body, and the three of us on more than one occasion,” Rose answered him. “You know it, I know it, and Albus knows it. But we can’t exactly go about telling people this.”
“Not without everyone finding out about the Arcane ScoRA.” Albus leaned back against the pipe beneath the sink.
Rose continued to pout. “Of course, if anyone finds out about the Arcane ScoRA, it’ll just reinforce everything Mrs. Dugan has been saying about a conspiracy against her son.”
Scorpius summed up their situation. “So what you’re saying is we’re damned if we do and we’re damned if we don’t.”
Nobody had to agree with Scorpius. What he said described their situation perfectly.
“…came in a little while ago,” he heard Hannah’s voice saying. “Don’t worry; they’re both perfectly safe. Neville was just giving them a little help with Herbology.”
At the sound of a very familiar story, three bodies crotched down against the door, pressing their ears to the crack.
“You stay here. I’m sure they just went off exploring. I’ll try looking through the storage rooms.”
Then came the sound of footsteps shuffling off in the wrong direction, and new voices entered into the outside production. “I can go looking for them too, Mum.” It was James.
“Don’t think I’m falling for that!” Now it was Albus’ mother. “I’ve already lost one of my own children and my brother’s oldest. I’m not about to let another of mine wonder off!”
But then came an exchange of voices that made the concern of Albus’ mother seem far less relevant. “Well, Mrs. Potter, I wouldn’t say this surprises me. You can’t control your son’s behavior while he is at Hogwarts, so why should one expect any different while he is at home.”
Scorpius gasped at the familiar sound of his father’s drawl. There was no way they would be able to walk out of the bathroom, all three of them, and into this mess without expecting life as they knew it to come to an end.
Outside, he heard the rustling of a newspaper, but where this new copy had come from was hard to say. “I suppose little Albus couldn’t wait to get his first taste of the limelight, no matter how he got it. But with all those tales about his father’s glory days, it really isn’t that difficult to understand.
Rose’s jaw was dropped in a sort of outraged shock, as though she couldn’t believe a former Death Eater could come off sounding so high and mighty, especially to the wife of Harry Potter.
“Your son’s face is on the front page too. In fact, I would think that you yourself have a lot more to answer for.”
“Photographed by Jocelyn Dale,” she read. “Astoria, isn’t that your sister, Daphne’s, girl? What can be said about your family when Scorpius’ dear cousin is willing to double-cross him like that.”
Upon hearing this bit, Albus turned to Scorpius, who was starting to look just a little bit ill. Albus felt sorry for him. He knew from last year that Scorpius was very close to his older cousin, and to think so would turn around and betray him like this, it had to hurt way down deep.
Scorpius must have judged that very moment as a good time to leave”that or he just didn’t want to face Albus and Rose, knowing what they now knew about his cousin”and unlocked the door without really waiting for his two friends to move away from it. He slipped out into the hall, cracking the door open as little as physically possible, before slamming it shut and going to join his parents. Through the walls, Albus could hear to tone of the adults become more gruff and curt, as though whatever they might have been arguing about before, neither side wanted to discuss it in front of the children.
After enough time had passed to give the Malfoys a reasonable exit, Albus and Rose finally left the bathroom themselves, though Albus wasn’t a hundred percent sure he wanted to, knowing what was waiting for him. But there really wasn’t anything left to say in the washroom.
Albus’s mother was standing just in front of the doorway to the alley, with James who was looking quite bored, right beside her. Hannah and Neville were nowhere to seem (probably still searching the pub for Albus and Rose).
At the moment Albus’ mother saw her son, she rush forward to give him a hug as though she had been suspecting the worst (with James making babyish noises behind her). This mood didn’t last for very long, however, and Albus soon found himself standing under a glare that felt like it was burning holes through his cloak.
“Albus Severus Potter, why would you run off like that?” his mother lectured, not seeming at all concerned that the rest of the pub was listening in as well. “Children get snatched off the streets everywhere and everyday! You could have had your own entrails be boiled for potion ingredients in Knockturn Alley!”
“Sorry, Mum,” Albus tried to sound as repentant as he possible could, hoping to bring all this to an end as soon as possible.
He got momentary relief when his mother shifted her attention to his cousin. “Rose, your parents are waiting in Flourish & Blotts. I trust you can make it there without any other distractions?”
Rose gave something that looked like a nod before racing out of the tavern as fast as she could possibly run. Whatever her parents had in mind, it had no way of being worse than anything her Aunt Ginny was capable of.
As the door was still swinging, Albus watched his mother shake her head up at the ceiling before leading her sons into the alley in a huff. For a long while, the three Potter walked in silence, neither of the boys willing to say anything that might further feed their mother’s anger. But when her mood seemed sufficiently cool, of course, it was James who was the first to speak up.
“I ran into Tracy Corner, Albus. She blames you for getting Gryffindor’s Keeper sent to Azkaban.”
“James!” His mother’s voice was followed by a light cuff on the boy’s head.
“But you don’t have to worry, though,” James went on while rubbing the sore spot on the back of his head. “I told her it would be our family’s solemn duty of promising her a replacement; one with Quidditch in his blood.”
The tone heavily implied that this player would be Albus, however, Albus didn’t quite understand how James planned to go about bringing Tracy her ‘legacy Quidditch player’. “But I don’t play Quidditch! I barely know how to ride a broom. Only what we practiced in flying lessons with Madam Wood.”
A smirk crept across James’ lips. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. I don’t think anyone in our family would dream of sending one of our own off to Quidditch tryouts unless they were completely and totally prepared to face it.”
He offered nothing further, but just continued to look ahead with that same smile on his face and their mother continuing forward as though she hadn’t heard a word of it. Albus tried to watch his mother for any reaction. She had to have heard what James said, but she just kept on walking straight ahead, if a little more stiffly than she had been before. Albus was confused. There was almost never a time when anything James said wouldn’t draw some sort of reaction from their mother, and now didn’t seem like one of those times. And why on earth did James look so bloody devious about the whole thing.
Not mentioned he seemed to be much too happy about whatever it was he was thinking of: like last week when James had mixed mustard, marmalade, and cold tea together and gave it to Albus, telling him it was pumpkin juice.
It finally came to Albus, however, while they were in the Floo on their way home, as the flames shot up around them. Something previously only spoke in legend, but something that struck fear into the hearts of all who heard its name.
The Weasley Quidditch Training Gauntlet