Chapter Twelve: Boy Interrupted

POV: Scorpius

"Tracked?" I stopped abruptly when Zabini's rambling finally entered my eardrums, distracting me from thoughts of the hearty, elf-made breakfast that awaited us at the Great Hall before our first lesson. He pulled down the morning edition of the Daily Prophet he was reading, narrowing his eyes at my sudden interest. "What do you mean tracked?"

"As in followed," he said impatiently, "monitored, charted, spied on—that's what I mean."

Ignoring his tone, I snatched the newspaper out of his hands. "There's no way they wrote that in the Prophet. They are notorious for covering up anything of—oh. It says tracked here."

Zabini rolled his eyes at me, taking back his newspaper. He smacked me over the head with it. "The Prophet is writing it as a reminder to the public that ex Death Eaters are given routine evaluations every few years, but Dad sent me a letter last night about it.  Apparently what the media is neglecting to say is that the Ministry is demanding those of the Sacred Twenty-Eight to come in every two weeks for Legilimency."

I scowled, crossing my arms over my chest. 

Most others would have interpreted my body language as that of being annoyed or upset, but Lucas Zabini had five years of being one of my best mates; because of that, he knew I was confused.

He sighed before explaining that, "The Sacred Twenty-Eight are the twenty-eight British families who are truly pureblood. The Malfoys are one of those twenty-eight. As are the Greengrasses."

"Your dad isn't British," I pointed out. 

Usually, Zabini was not one to be without a smile on his face. He was always upbeat about something or the other. He had his moments of dramatics that provided Potter and me with laughs, but he was still a charming, smarmy bastard through and through. To see him now with no ounce of amusement, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed...well, I knew this was bad.

"He isn't," he agreed, "but he has three deceased stepfathers on the list. Not to mention he took the mark and comes from the equivalent of the Sacred Twenty-Eight in Italy." He paused for a moment, letting two Ravenclaw girls pass us by, giggling and waving at us before turning into the main corridor. He sighed, this time as if he were exhausted. "I'm not ashamed of my dad, Scorpius," he said, "but I've had it with people being ashamed for me."

I looked away from him, my shoes suddenly the only thing I could look at. It was not uncommon knowledge that I've been fighting for years to be something other than Draco Malfoy's son. He was a great man, an even greater father, but he would never be anything else but the teenage boy who disarmed Albus Dumbledore at the top of the Astronomy Tower. He was never going to be anyone else but a member of the most despised, supremacist family in Britain. That was a suffocating shadow to be under, especially when I'm trying to pave my own way in the world.  

Sometimes I lose myself in the whispers of people, of the people who glare at me, who blame me for things that happened years before I was born. I let them inside my head. I let them skew the truth that I know: my father is an honorable, trustworthy, loving man who made mistakes he repents for. 

"What is the Ministry hoping to find?" I asked Zabini, looking up at him again.

This time there was a smile on his face. "Dunno," he laughed, "but Dad said he's going to be thinking extra hard about the time he caught Hagrid and Madame Maxime snogging his Fourth Year."

I laughed, too, following him as he turned the corridor and the road to delicious breakfast was taken again. 

"If they think Death Eaters are out to get muggles and half-bloods again, well they can forget about Dad being a part of that mess," he said in afterthought. 

"Why's that?"

"Because, Malfoy, my dad's already a traitor to the cause." His smile turned into a giant smirk. "I'm a half-blood."

I coughed when the inhale I was taking caught in my throat. My eyes opened in bewilderment. "Excuse me—what the fuck?"

He slapped my back, laughing. "Yeah, mate. My mum's a muggle. She did have a cousin who was a witch and underwent terrible treatment during the war for being muggle-born. That's why she doesn't want me to know about the past, because she doesn't want me to know how her side of the family suffered. Plus it's nothing Dad is proud of."

"Hold on," I hissed, still flabbergasted. "In the five years we've been mates, you've never mentioned your mum was a muggle!"

"Is it relevant?" he asked, raising a brow. "Does that somehow change our friendship or who you see me as?"

"Of course not!" I said immediately. "I just thought—" Whatever it is that I thought about in that moment was robbed of me to say when a set of hands were placed over my eyes. 

"Surprise!" came from behind me.

Denied of my vision, all I could hear was the giggles of the person behind me and the snort of mock Zabini gave. 

"See you inside, mate," he said, his footsteps now entering my eardrums.

Bastard.

"Can you let go?" I demanded when the hands pressed tighter against my eyeballs.

"Salazar," the hands were dropped instantly, "you have a shitty sense of humor, don't you, Malfoy?"

I could not hide my frown of annoyance when I turned to find Belinda Rookwood, a fellow Slytherin Fifth Year (the most devious and cold-hearted girl to have ever roamed Hogwarts, according to rumors), standing there with a sharp smile. Her short, angled blonde hair hung loosely just above her shoulders, the scent of lavender and vanilla came from her locks, but her aura ejected malice.

"I just wanted to say hello," she added, a little nicely, too, "since we haven't had time for a proper catch up."

"Yeah," I frowned further, this time in confusion, "we haven't in five years. Are you sick today, Rookwood? Need a hand to the hospital wing?"

She narrowed her dark eyes at me. "Don't be a prat. I'm trying to be nice here."

"You've never been nice before," I reminded. 

"I would be," she said, "if you didn't hang about those....people. In case you haven't noticed, Malfoy, I don't exactly like your friends." Her nose wrinkled at the thought of them. 

"Right," I scoffed, no longer interested in continuing to be in her presence. "Well, I'm off."

"Scorpius," she called, startling me when she reached for my hand, keeping me in place. My disbelief grew more as she seemed to be struggling to say something (or swallow her venom). Then a wicked grin pulled on her red lips when her brown eyes caught something behind me. I was about to turn to the poor bastard she had labeled her prey, but I was stopped by her mouth crashing against mine. 

Blimey. I was the prey.

She grabbed on to my shoulders, pushing me against the marbled wall just outside the Great Hall. Salazar, it is embarrassing to admit that she knew exactly what she was doing (really, she was a great kisser) and I forgot how my mouth worked. I was too surprised by her strength to even remember to push her off. 

Her tongue had just slipped into my mouth when a sharp, infuriated ahem echoed behind us. 

Tearing herself away from my body, Belinda allowed me the chance to inhale some much needed air as she turned to glare at whoever interrupted her violation of me. 

"What?" she demanded. 

"This is a very disgusting sight to behold on our way to breakfast," said one unforgiving witch by the name of Nia Harper. 

My eyes shot open just as I was about to clean my tongue off from the taste of evil and mint on the sleeve of my school robes.

"Well, Harper, that's a good thing, I reckon. You are getting on the cow side of things nowadays."

I saw the glimmer of murder take up Harper's blue eyes, but I was distracted from the possibility of her acting on it when I caught the redhead beside her. Fuck. Harper had not come alone. There was Rose, disbelief and betrayal on her beautiful freckled face.

"Malfoy," Harper said through clenched teeth, "I know you haven't had a girlfriend in, well, never, but Rookwood? Why do you hate yourself?"

I rubbed my face with my left palm, not having any form of response. 

"I'll let you get some breakfast, Scor," Belinda said sweetly, turning to press a kiss at the side of my jaw. "See you in class."

As she flipped her hair over her shoulder, grinning devilishly at the two Gryffindor girls before walking away, I cringed. The onslaught was coming.

"Class starts in twenty minutes," Rose muttered after a clearing of her throat. "We better hurry."

The strained smile on her face was worse than the onslaught.

Harper huffed before starting the march in, but still said, "You and Rookwood, huh?"

"Harper," I started to protest.

"What? I just thought you were more into the Emily-type than, you know, satan's daughter. Whatever, I'm not judging you."

I caught a glimpse of Rose from the corner of my eye and wanted to punch myself in the face. Sure, we did not have the strongest of bonds in our immediate group, but we were still friends. Things between us had changed since our First Year (fine, since I stopped avoiding her). From the moment I met her I got hooked on the intensity of her hazel eyes that grew mightier, lovelier every passing year, but there was a wall between us. I did not know what it was, but it made us tiptoe around each other.  It did not have a name, but I knew it was in jeopardy when she refused to meet my eye.

"Don't mention this to anyone, Harper," I mumbled. "You owe me that much."

Harper waved a hand at me, disinterest on her face. "Don't worry, Malfoy. I hardly care enough to spread this around. Your disturbing secret is safe with us. Right, Rose?"

Rose did not answer.

"See?" Harper continued as we walked up to the Gryffindor table that was still littered with our friends. "No one cares."

"No one cares about what?" At the center of the group, looking a little bruised from the altercation with the older Slytherins, but nonetheless whole, was Al. As always, he was in tune with whatever came out of Harper's mouth. "What's going on?"

"Nothing is going on," I told him, looking over the  group. When I noticed my best friend was not present, I asked, "Where's Em?"

I was expecting Al to answer, but it was his dimwit brother who spoke up. "That way," he said, pointing a finger at the far end of the table. Sure enough, there Emily was. She sat on her own, her green gaze faraway as she absentmindedly stirred her soggy cereal around her bowl. 

"I asked you three a question," Al interrupted, reaching over to grab Harper's hand, giving it a tug when she, too, had looked over at Emily. "What were you talking about before you came in?"

Rose wedged herself between her cousins Freddie and Louis. "Nothing—"

"Malfoy was snogging Belinda Rookwood," Harper said loudly.

Spitting out their Pumpkin Juice, Al, Lucas, and Liam shouted, "WHAT?" at the same time. 

I glared at the blonde Gryffindor still standing beside me. "What the hell, Harper?"

She grinned, batting her long lashes at me. "Oops."