The Window

"So let me get this straight." School nurse Darling Rosier blinked quizzically as she tried to piece together the story she was just told. "She punched you because you cursed him because you thought he was going to hit her?" When Scorpius Malfoy nodded, unwilling to speak because of his busted lip, Darling raised a brow. "Uh-huh. Do I need to tell the Headmistress about this, or do you think you three can sort it out by yourselves?"

When Scorpius gave her a shrug, she sighed and looked him over to assess the damage. "Bizarre as it sounds, I believe you. I don't think anybody in the world is stupid enough to try to pull off that story if it didn't actually happen," she muttered. Then, she glanced sideways at James and amended, "Well, almost nobody is."

Scorpius let out a snort which quickly turned into a yowl as he clutched his nose in pain.

"Oh, I guess I should have told you your nose was broken before you decided to do anything stupid. I didn't think snorting would hurt it though." Darling almost seemed sheepish, but shrugged and disappeared into the next room. Scorpius listened to the sounds of her rooting around in the apothecary and meanwhile glared over his shoulder at the other side of the hospital wing. James had flopped on a hospital bed and Scorpius wasn't sure if he was feigning fatigue or just being an idiot as usual. Kate sat at the end of another bed, staring into space as one of the nurse's student aides wrapped her bleeding knuckles with bandages, seeming to talk her ear off.

"That's the only thing you really have to worry about. Your lip is split, but that should only cause some minor discomfort when you eat, as long as you don't do any, er, strenuous mouth activities," Darling advised as she came back into the main room and handed Scorpius a small vial of a cloudy blue liquid. "I've mended your nose, but it's still a bit crooked so you should take a bit of this every hour or so until it goes back to normal. Unless of course you like the aquiline look, in which case by all means you can keep your nose that way."

Scorpius took the potion from her and gave a small sigh of relief when she told him his nose would be back to normal. Although he wasn't entirely concerned about his appearance, he didn't fancy the idea of looking like a Roman bust for the rest of his life.

Abruptly, Ted Lupin burst into the hospital wing, diverting his attention. Out of breath, the young Defense Against Dark Arts professor leaned against a bedpost to catch his breath and then rushed to Scorpius and Darling. "I heard there was a fight. Is everything alright, Darla?"

Darling seemed to blush furiously at the arrival of the man, whose hair was rapidly changing from a violent shade of turquoise to dark brown. She turned away from him slightly to hide her blush as she put away her mending supplies and muttered, "Was being the operative word there, Ted. Everything's fine and sorted out, just some scratches. Nothing I can't fix."

"I don't think there's anything you can't fix," Ted admired as he followed her back into the supply room. "Say, what are you doing this Saturday?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes as he watched the pair disappear into the next room. Ted Lupin was the son of his father's cousin, but as Andromeda Black had been estranged from the Black family before Scorpius was born, he wasn't exactly on familiar terms with the Metamorphmagus. Neither held animosity for the other, though, which Scorpius supposed was a good thing considering Ted had been his teacher since Scorpius was a third year. Even having been raised like a brother to the Potters, Ted didn't seem to hold any bias towards them either. It was the opposite of what Scorpius had expected.

Most of the Hogwarts teachers nowadays held less biases than the older generations, but there was still some obvious favoritism among them. Professor Babbling the younger was one of the biggest culprits of this. Every year, for each Quidditch match during which Slytherin played she could be seen howling in the stands for her former house's victory. In class, she often awarded Slytherins points for their knowledge (which was often, as Kate was her star pupil) while overlooking the other houses entirely, no matter how enthusiastic they were to answer. Professor Longbottom was of course always eager to cheer on Gryffindor, and he and Babbling had a healthy rivalry between them. He was nowhere near as ferocious as she was when it came down to it though.

Scorpius was just about to grab his things and leave when he heard Darling call from the next room, "Boys, you can leave now; it's almost past curfew. Kate, I'd like to have a word with you in before you go if you don't mind though."

Scorpius raised a brow at this news, but didn't care enough to really dwell on the thought. As he passed Kate, he ignored her completely and threw a sneer in the direction of her boyfriend. He didn't see it though and swung his bag over his shoulder, leaving through the door that led into the opposite corridor. Scorpius stepped out into the hall and began toward his common room.

By the time the next morning's breakfast had come around, Scorpius's crooked, broken nose was starting to look like its normal straight self again. Despite the fact that he was feeling much better, as he walked into the Great Hall he couldn't help but notice that James and his band of buffoons were pointing and laughing at his black eye and split lip. Both had been the result of Kate's wrath the night before. It wasn't the first physical altercation they'd ever had, but it certainly was the closest she'd gotten to actually hurting him.

He ignored the gawking Gryffindors and took a seat at the Slytherin table. Most of the Slytherins weren't early risers so the table was practically empty, save a few sixth year girls that looked his way, glared, and quickly returned to their business jabbering like chimpanzees. No doubt word had gotten around that he had gotten on Kate's bad side. Most of Slytherin house absolutely adored her, so crossing Kate was crossing the rest of the house too. He ignored the girls and poured himself a glass of pumpkin juice.

As he was spreading blackberry jam over his toast, the Hall filled with the chattering of the half dozen or so of Slytherin girls that filled its doorway. The gaggle moved in like a swarm of angry bees, and Scorpius could see that the group was comprised of Apikalia Avery, Cholpon Derrick, Tara Ivanova, Roxane Macmillan, Romana Montague, Olivia Vaisey, and Isabelle Yaxley, all of whom were Kate's dorm mates and her "entourage" as they liked to call themselves. They sat down away from Scorpius, but were still close enough for him to hear their conversation.

"I heard he hexed James because he wants Kate for himself," chirped Isabelle. Although most of the girls in the group were gossips, Isabelle was the most notorious blabbermouth. It was no wonder why, as her mother, Pansy Parkinson, had taken over Rita Skeeter's business of stretching the truth in her daily columns for the Daily Prophet. Isabelle could have easily been attractive if she didn't run her mouth so much. She was a lean girl with wavy chestnut hair was worn in a sophisticated style. She had lightly tanned skin and dark eyes to go with her dark hair. Her prominent cheekbones made her stand out exceptionally among the others.

"Oh, what a cad. Knowing the way his father was in school, I'd believe it," Olivia Vaisey verified Isabelle's testimony. She pursed her thin lips, then her turquoise eyes widened as she added confidentially, "I've heard stories." The girls looked up sharply when they heard a groan come from Scorpius.

"Well, don't jump to deny it, Malfoy," Tara scoffed. Horse-toothed, Tara was considerably unattractive despite having two very attractive, famous Russians for parents. Her father, Fyodor (who had kept his mother's last name), was the son of the Bulgarian Quidditch team's acclaimed seeker, Elena Ivanova. Tara herself was tall and awkward with a boyish build, hooded brown eyes, and short hair the color of autumn leaves. Her chin was very pointy and her skin was on the verge of being pasty.

"Deny what?" Scorpius raised a brow, staring at the girls. "It's none of your business anyway. Nothing happened, so bugger off."

"Your nose says otherwise. Looks like a great old bird beak that does," said Apikalia, "We should start calling you Bird Beak. Birdie Beak Malfoy." She, Olivia and Tara broke off into a fit of obnoxious giggling as Cholpon and Romana looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

Apart from Kate, Cholpon and Romana were probably the least involved in the gossiping that went on within the walls of the Slytherin girls' dormitories. Romana was a sensible girl of tall stature. She wore her wavy black hair in a thick ponytail that didn't hide her high forehead. She had wide gray eyes that seemed austere against her tan skin. She played as Keeper on Slytherin's Quidditch team.

Cholpon was also on the Quidditch team, although she played as a Beater. Slytherin rarely ever permitted females to be on their team, especially as Beaters, but since Scorpius's fourth year, he had noticed an increase of females on the team. He'd never really paid attention to Quidditch until Kate made the house team as a Chaser. He still didn't like Quidditch, but he was happy to see Kate enjoying herself.

"Hey, shut up you lot," Cholpon squinted her teal eyes and hissed at her housemates, flicking her curly, sand-colored hair out of her face as she turned her head. A hush fell over them and Scorpius turned to see why. Kate had appeared at the entrance to the Great Hall. Regardless of the fact that James saw her and stood to make his way to her, she ignored him and began toward the Slytherin table.

Wordlessly, Kate sat in the seat next to Scorpius. She poured herself a glass of apple juice and he resumed spreading jam on his toast. For awhile, they ate in silence next to each other, until Kate finally said, "Look, I know I overreacted last night, but what you did was really stupid, regardless of your noble intentions. I know it's really hard for you to trust James, but I need you to understand that he would never lay a hand on me." She paused for a moment to wipe the corners of her mouth with her napkin, but she really seemed to be collecting her thoughts. "I'm not going to apologize, and I really don't want an apology, either," she cut Scorpius off as he was about to speak, and added, "but I'm not proud of the way I handled it, and you shouldn't be proud of what you did either."

Scorpius let out a sigh and opened his mouth to talk again, but she interrupted him once more, "I've done some thinking, and I've decided that it would be best for everyone if I just... break up with James."

Silent for a moment, Scorpius wasn't quite sure what he could say to that. He wanted to tell her "that's great!" but even though he was thinking that, of course he couldn't say it to her. Even so, it didn't seem entirely too good for him either. Just because she was breaking up with James didn't mean that she wanted to go back to the way things were. He doubted they ever would, but he had some hope that maybe...

"It doesn't mean much of anything, though. I still like him, and borrowing that he doesn't get too angry by my breaking things off with him, he'll probably still return the feeling. I just don't want there to be this ridiculous animosity between you anymore," she said, but her last words didn't sound entirely convincing. She was resigned to the fact that James and Scorpius would always go at each other, but as long as she was out of the picture, at least she didn't feel responsible for it. "I'm mad at you, Scorp, but I'm still your friend, and I don't want you to think I'm abandoning you because my boyfriend hates you, if that's what you've been getting to thinking lately."

Scorpius gave a shrug, neither denying nor confirming her words, although she had pretty much hit the nail on the head. His biggest problem with her dating James wasn't that it was James she was dating--the rest of Slytherin house even approved of their relationship, despite James being a Gryffindor--but that they spent less and less time together, and now some days she just felt like a complete stranger. They had gone from knowing everything about each other to keeping secrets and hiding things, turning their backs on the other... He hadn't been a very good friend, but Kate was to blame for things too.

"So when are you going to tell him?" It was Roxane who broke the silence. She and the other girls had been listening intently to the conversation, although Cholpon and Romana feigned disinterest. The others were practically hanging off the edges of their seats, craning their necks to hear the quietest parts of the conversation.

Both Kate and Scorpius looked up sharply at the question. The girls quickly sat up straight and occupied themselves elsewhere as Roxane balked. "Cripes, I was just asking."