Questions and Answers

little_bird

Story Summary:
What happens when the past collides with the present and threatens to cast the Potters' and Weasleys' lives into disarray...

Chapter 10 - Cut With a Dull Knife

Posted:
04/04/2010
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2,047


Scorpius concentrated on the soap bubbles drifting from the tip of his wand. One of the practical problems on their Charms final had been to produce soap bubbles and make them change color. It was the only one he hadn't been able to do properly. He had produced the bubbles and managed to make them change color, but had been unsuccessful in controlling the colors. He was determined to get it right before the train pulled into King's Cross. 'Still working on that one?' Rose asked.

'Yes,' he ground out through gritted teeth. Rose was nice, but she could be a bit of a show-off sometimes. Al and Scorpius both agreed if Rose hadn't been Al's family, they might very well be intimidated by her brains and simultaneously irritated by them as well. It was tempered by the fact Rose never actively made them feel like gormless idiots, and was always more than willing to help them with their homework.

'If you're trying to change the color,' Rose said matter-of-factly, 'you need to make a counter-clockwise twist with your wand, then a sort of soft jab at the center of the bubble, as you either think of the color you want it to be, or say it.' She pulled her own wand out, and produced a few bubbles. 'Like this,' she said, demonstrating the wand movement, silently changing the colors.

Scorpius' eyebrows knit in a frown as he carefully copied Rose's movements, satisfied to murmur an incantation of the color he wanted, and not worry about nonverbal spell-casting until he it came up later. The bubble in front of him turned a soft, glowing blue. Repeating the movement, it changed to the same warm yellow of candlelight. 'Thanks, Rosie.' He stowed the wand in his pocket, and grabbed a back issue of the Quibbler from the precariously teetering stack James and Al had between them. Scorpius whistled softly, mindlessly while he flipped through the magazine.

'Where have I heard that before?' Al looked around the compartment in bemusement.

'What?' James muttered vaguely, squinting at the "I Spy" picture in the issue of the Quibbler he was holding upside down, trying to find a broomstick in the clutter.

'That song. I've heard it before,' Al insisted. He cocked his head to the side; the low, sibilant whistle was the only sound, save the turning of book and magazine pages in the compartment. He began to hum along with the whistle, not noticing Scorpius' face had taken on a rather rosy hue.

James rolled his eyes. 'It's one of the ones from that bloody film Lily likes so much. The one where they're dancing.'

'Riiiiggggghhhht.' Al nodded. 'Merlin's fluffy bunny slippers, I hope she's over it by now.'

Scorpius stopped whistling. 'I liked it,' he said, defending Lily, feeling like someone had to.

'That's because you haven't been subjected to it a million times,' sighed James.

'Isn't this lovely?' drawled a bored voice. James' head jerked up to see Robert Nott standing in the open doorway of their compartment. 'Your grandfather would be spinning in his grave if he could see you cavorting with the blood-traitors and half-bloods,' he informed Scorpius.

'Don't you have anything else to do, Nott?' asked James coldly. 'I'd find something to do if I were you, before you find out what happens when you get hit with a Jelly-Legs jinx and Furnunculus charm at the same time.' James went back to his magazine, in seeming idleness.

Nott snorted. 'Like the four of you can do that.'

'No, but we can,' intoned Madeline's pleasant voice behind Nott. He turned around to find Madeline and Isabella standing in the corridor, twirling their wands between their fingers. 'Be good boy, and bugger off, why don't you?' added Madeline, shouldering past Nott into the compartment.

'I'd take her advice if I were you,' Isabella said, examining her nails, dispassionately. 'There's far more of us, than there are of you. And Parker may be a Hufflepuff, but he's a bloody good dueler, and you'll be on your arse with your pants around your ankles before you can say, "Boo".' Isabella calmly inspected her wand, using the sleeve of her shirt to polish off a nonexistent fingerprint.

Nott flushed a dark, angry, mottled red, and stalked down the corridor, leaving them alone. Scorpius sighed in relief. He hated conflict and fighting. It gave him a headache. 'Arse,' Rosie muttered darkly.

'Language, Rosie,' Isabella automatically corrected, before her face split into a wide grin, 'Before Grandmum washes your mouth out with soap again.'

Rose and James both shuddered in revulsion at the same time. Molly had caught them in the back garden last summer in the midst of a contest to see who could create the most creative curses, and dragged them back into the house. She had sat them in the scullery, and said a swift, sharp 'Tergeo', as she pointed her wand at each of them. Pink, frothy bubbles immediately erupted from their mouths and Molly watched with a beady eye fixed on James and Rose for several seconds before muttering, 'Finite Incantatum.'

'Thanks, Izzy. I'd just stopped having nightmares about that.' James tossed his magazine back into the pile on the seat, and reached for another one. 'So what are you doing this summer?' he asked his cousin idly.

Isabella snorted. 'Probably babysitting Aidan, when Mum and Dad are working. Not much to do on the dragon reservation. Sunday lunch will be the highlight of my week, until we have to go get my things for school in August. Might get to go to a Harpies' game or two, though.'

'Sounds about as exciting as mine will be,' grumbled James. 'Somerset's not exactly a happening place during July.'

'Aunt Ginny won't take you two to games anymore, eh?' asked Isabella sympathetically.

'Nah.' James had the decency to blush. 'Not after last summer when I kept sneaking Canary Creams to Al while a game was on while we were in the press box. Thought Mum was going to put my arse in a sling in public,' James reflected.

'No, but Dad did,' giggled Al. 'Hadn't seen him so angry since you tried to get Lily to eat U-No-Poo when she was two.'

'That's 'cause you don't remember the nappies,' James retorted.

'Oh, stop moaning, will you?' Rose glanced at her cousins impatiently.

'Says the girl who lives in London,' pointed out Madeline.

'So much fun, too, when Hugo and I end up at the shop with Dad and Uncle George or in Devon at the Burrow,' Rose snorted. 'Not like we can run about Diagon Alley, either. Just try putting a toe out of line, and in ten seconds, some busy-body witch will have tattled on either one of us.'

'But you're not buried out in the country, like the rest of us are,' said Isabella.

'That's not true,' objected Rose. 'Jacob and Fred don't live in the country. They're in Islington, and Aunt Katie would sooner let them roam London than she'd let them take the Deflagration Deluxe to school. And Parker? Please. Fulham is only slightly less swotty than Bloomsbury.' Rose sniffed and went back to her book.

Scorpius had been following the conversation like a tennis match. It was silent for a few minutes before he spoke up. 'I've got you all beat,' he said mildly, turning a page of his magazine. 'I have to see Geoffrey over the summer.' He rubbed his nose, considering. 'Probably Nott, Adam Rosier, and Malcolm Urquhart, too. The adults come over for dinner and the children are sent out into the back garden to play.' Scorpius waited a beat, then said smugly, 'I win.'

'That sounds just lovely,' said Al sarcastically.

'It's a right barrel of monkeys,' Scorpius muttered.

'Seriously. Ask your mum if you can come over for a weekend or something before school starts,' Al reminded Scorpius.

'Believe me, I will.' Scorpius looked out the window. 'Station's coming up.'

Al and James hurriedly stuffed the back issues of the Quibbler into James' trunk, while Rose tidily put her book back into her schoolbag. They dragged their trunks off the train, and headed for the line of redheads, broken by Harry's black hair. Al stopped halfway to where Harry waited, and turned to Scorpius, who was trying to find his mother in the crowd. 'Hey, Scorpius.'

'Yeah?'

'Don't forget to write, you daft git.' Al smiled.

'You, either, you nutter.' Scorpius laughed. 'See you in September, for sure, then.' The crowd thinned a bit, as people began to go through the platform entrance, Disapparated, or went to the line of fireplaces to Floo home. He saw Daphne off to one side. 'There's my mother. Bye, then.'

'Bye.' Al watched Scorpius' blonde head bob and weave through the crowd toward Daphne, who greeted her son, then they both Disapparted. Al felt a hand land on the top of his head, and looked up to see his father. 'Hi, Dad,' he said happily.

'Ready to go?' Harry asked.

'Yep. Floo or car today?'

'You must have replaced your brain with James' dirty socks. You're mad if you think I'm going to handle you, James, your trunks, schoolbags, not to mention owls in the Floo,' Harry told him incredulously.

'Oh yeah. Right. Sorry.' Al grinned sheepishly up at Harry and followed him through the barrier, dragging his trunk on a trolley. Harry hefted the boys' trunks into the back of the car and deftly maneuvered the car out into London traffic.

James was asleep in what felt like seconds. He always fell asleep during a car ride, much to Al and Lily's dismay. He took up more than his fair share of the back seat, even with the modifications Harry had made to the car. Al smirked and scooted up so his chin rested on the back of Harry's seat. 'Hey, Dad?'

'Hmmm?'

'Will it be all right if Scorpius comes for a weekend before school starts?'

Harry glanced at his son's earnest expression in the rearview mirror. 'I don't know, Al. We'll have to ask Mum first.'

Harry turned his gaze back to the road, suppressing a shiver of apprehension. Not that he didn't like Scorpius. Scorpius was all right, Harry supposed, but he had far too many deeply ingrained memories of Draco and Lucius Malfoy from the day of his eleventh birthday to his eighteenth to be completely comfortable with Scorpius. Harry knew he had told Al to be nice to Scorpius; he just hadn't been prepared for the two of them to become best friends.

'Dad, please?' Al begged. The beseeching expression on his small face made Harry bite his lip and want to give Al everything he asked for on the spot. Ginny often accused him without malice of spoiling the children to make up for his lack of a childhood. But Harry would never make a decision like this without consulting Ginny first.

'We'll see, Albus,' Harry said sternly. 'If, and I do mean if, it's all right with Mum, then we can send an owl to his mother and go from there. All right?'

'Okay.' Al sat back with a soft, dejected sigh. When Harry used "Albus", Al knew from previous experience to just let it be.

*****

Scorpius trudged inside the mansion behind Daphne. He dropped his schoolbag by the front door, and heard his mother call for Perri, the house-elf. Daphne put an arm around Scorpius' shoulders. 'Go into the back garden,' she whispered. 'There's a surprise for you.' Scorpius turned mystified grey eyes on Daphne, brow scrunched in question. 'Just go.' Daphne gave him a gentle push toward the sitting room, where a set of French doors led to the back garden.

Scorpius allowed himself to hope, for a moment, that his father was going to be there, ready to welcome him home from school. The sprig of hope was ground into mulch when he peered through the open French doors. Draco was nowhere to be found on the terrace. Heaving a disappointed sigh, Scorpius stepped outside, praying his mother hadn't invited some of his Greengrass cousins over for a "welcome home from school" evening. He stood just outside the French doors, scanning the back garden for what his surprise might be. A lone figure sat on a stone bench in the shadows of a trio of linden trees, pale hair glimmering in the shadows. 'Grandmother!' he whispered excitedly. Scorpius ran across the garden, not caring if it was seemly behavior or not. 'Grandmother!' he shouted, nearly tripping over his feet in his eagerness to see his grandmother.

Scorpius loved Narcissa. Of all his relations, she was his favorite. Last summer, before he'd gone to school, Narcissa had taken him for a walk along the beach.

*****

Narcissa bent to pull her shoes off, sneaking a peek over her shoulder. Lucius would have a word or two to say to her later if he knew she was walking on the sand barefoot. It was unbecoming for a Malfoy to do something so... common. She wiggled her toes in the warm sand with a sigh, and looked down at her grandson, who had tied the laces of his shoes together, and slung them over one shoulder. 'So you're starting Hogwarts next month?' Narcissa began. Scorpius nodded. 'Do you have all your things yet?'

'Yes, Grandmother,' Scorpius replied dutifully. ' Schoolbooks, trunk, robes, potions kit, cauldron, wand.'

'No owl?' Narcissa was surprised. She thought Draco would have gotten Scorpius an owl, purely for the status of having one of his own.

'No.' Scorpius said glumly. 'Father said he wouldn't get me an owl until I earned it.'

'Earned it how?' Narcissa's fair brows knit in a slight frown.

'Which house I'm Sorted into.' Scorpius shrugged. All his cousins in his mother's family were Slytherins and Scorpius didn't particularly care for them. They could be cruel in their teasing of the younger members of the family, and Merlin help anyone who dared to not conform to the pure-blood dogma.

'Slytherin, I presume?' Scorpius nodded silently, eyes fixed on the sand. 'And where do you want to be?'

'Slytherin, I guess,' Scorpius mumbled unconvincingly.

'Why?'

'It's where all Malfoys have been Sorted. Father and Grandfather said so.'

'Yes, love, but what do you want?'

'Why is that important?'

Narcissa gracefully sat down in the sand, and motioned for Scorpius to do the same. 'I'm going to tell you a story,' she said. 'About a girl who came from an entire family of Slytherins, too. She didn't really want to be in Slytherin. She wanted to be in Ravenclaw, because this girl was quite bright and loved to learn about magic. All kinds of magic, not just the Dark magic. But she was afraid of her family. She was afraid they would not want her anymore if she was put anywhere else other than Slytherin. She knew what happened to some of her other family members who dared to defy family tradition. So, when the girl's name was called and she went up to be Sorted, the Sorting Hat spent a long time trying to figure out where to place her - Ravenclaw or Slytherin? It finally settled on Slytherin, because she was so frightened of what might happen to her at the hands of her own family.' Narcissa gently stroked the fine, blonde hair from Scorpius' face. 'That was me.'

Scorpius' startled gaze flew up to meet Narcissa's eyes. 'You?'

'Yes.' Narcissa pulled Scorpius closer and nuzzled the top of his head. 'You need to know, darling, that no matter where you are Sorted, it does not matter to me. Or your mother. The Hat does take into account what you want. It does take a lot of bravery to be different. Whatever God, or Merlin, or whatever you believe is out there, intended for you, it is not to be in Slytherin.

'I did it the hard way. Going into Slytherin set me on a path, that if I could do it over, I would change. There are more important things than blood-status. Don't forget that. More people have died or been driven into insanity because other people think that's all that matters. And believe me, Scorpius; it was not worth it, what we all lost.' Narcissa rose to her feet and began to walk back to the villa.

*****

Scorpius embraced Narcissa tightly. He had missed seeing her over the Christmas holiday.

'Hello, Grandmother,' he said, smiling brightly.

'Hello, darling. Did you have a good year?'

'Yes, I did.' Realizing he could show her his year, rather than just tell her about it, Scorpius jumped up from the bench. 'Wait here, I'll be right back.' Scorpius dashed back inside the house and snatched his schoolbag from where he'd left it. He pelted back across the sloping lawn and scrambled into the bench next to Narcissa. 'I've got something to show you,' he told her breathlessly, pulling a leather-bound scrapbook from the bag.

He opened the cover to the first page. It was full of wizarding photographs. Scorpius sat in the middle of a mass of red-headed teenagers, between two black-haired boys, sporting a bloody nose. 'That was my first Quidditch game. Al and James,' he indicated the two black-haired boys, 'and their cousins play together almost every Saturday when the older ones on the Gryffindor team don't have a game. I got hit by a Bludger when I was trying to block a goal,' he informed Narcissa proudly. 'But Victoire,' said Scorpius indicating a slender girl with hair the color of a sunrise, 'fixed it.'

Scorpius turned the page again. 'This was Christmas morning,' he explained. 'That's Lily, Al, and James. Mrs. Potter made the scarf and the mittens. The hat, too.' Scorpius pointed to a different photograph. He and Al sat side-by-side in the kitchen at the Burrow, mugs of hot cocoa and biscuits in front of them. 'Mrs. Weasley, Al's grandmother, made the jumper. She made one for everyone at Christmas. And they were all different.'

Narcissa smiled at the photograph. 'You and Al look like a pair of bookends.' And they did in their similar jumpers, one fair, and one dark.

Scorpius turned the page. 'Guess what? I met another cousin! I didn't know we were cousins, though, until the holiday. There he is. Teddy Lupin.' Scorpius pointed to a photograph of Teddy and him on Christmas. Teddy's hair was his normal light brown. He indicated the photograph beneath it. 'That's Mrs. Tonks with Teddy. That's his grandmother.'

Narcissa blinked back a rush of tears. It had been years since she had seen Andromeda. She looked at Teddy, having not seen him since he was little more than a baby. He had much of the look of Andromeda about him. No, Narcissa told herself firmly. He looks like his mother. And his father... Andromeda and her daughter had the same heart-shaped face, and Teddy had it, too. 'It looks as if you had a lovely holiday.'

'It was nice.' Scorpius flipped through a few more pages, before he closed the book. Perri had come out to the garden to tell them dinner would be served in a few minutes. He put the scrapbook back inside the recesses of his schoolbag and headed for the French doors.

*****

Narcissa's eyes darted around the table. She thoughtfully regarded the knife she held in her left hand, turning it slightly so it glinted in the candlelight. I could slice the tension around this table with this knife, she thought. Draco hadn't spared a glance for his son since they had sat down at the table. Daphne kept her eyes glued to her plate. No one spoke, beyond bare murmurs for salt. The only sound in the room was the faint clink of cutlery on china. Narcissa cleared her throat. 'So, Scorpius, how were your exams?'

'Fine. I think I only missed a few questions on Charms, and Defense. I'm sure I did well in Potions. Professor Williams is a good teacher.' Scorpius bit his lip, and turned his wide grey eyes back to his plate.

Narcissa looked at Draco from the corner of her eye. He had stopped eating, and was trying to pretend he hadn't heard Scorpius' answer. Taking a deep breath, Narcissa plunged ahead. 'Do you think you might want to play Quidditch for your House team next year?'

'No.'

'You seemed to enjoy playing with...' Narcissa trailed off, unwilling to mention anything regarding Harry Potter or his offspring in front of Draco.

'I like playing, but I'd rather play casually with...' Scorpius stopped and his eyes darted toward the head of the table. 'My friends,' he finished smoothly. He saw his father's hand tighten on his fork. 'May I be excused, please?' Scorpius looked hopefully at his mother.

Daphne glanced at Draco, and back at Scorpius. 'Yes. Go on.' Scorpius lay his fork down, and slid off his chair. He quickly left the dining room, and scurried up the stairs to his bedroom.

Scorpius closed the door with a sigh relief. The silence at dinner had given him a headache of monumental proportions.

Draco waited until Scorpius' light footsteps faded. 'Did you have to do that, Mother?' he spat.

'Do what?' Narcissa asked innocently.

'Make...' Draco visibly struggled. 'Him talk about his year at school.' He rose and threw his napkin on his plate. 'I'll be in the study,' Draco coldly informed his wife and mother, and stalked out of the room.

Narcissa's eyes narrowed as they followed Draco's progress. She had hoped that the events of the last battle had taught him something.

It appeared they had taught him nothing.