Chapter 27: Unperceptive Witch

POV: Rose

Dominique came bursting through the doors of the Transfiguration classroom with bloody murder shining bright in her green eyes. Her pale face was finally gaining color, a burning red that matched her hair as she made a beeline for Lily, her wand out.

"What did you do?" she demanded to one of our younger cousins. "You owled my dad, didn't you? You told him! You told him after you swore you wouldn't tell anyone! Now Dad's on his way to murder me!"

Lily, ever the fearless type, slapped away Dominique's wand as she jumped off the surface of the desk she had been sitting on. Louis and Freddie stood behind her, both grinning in anticipation for the gruesome fight that was definitely going to follow (there was always guaranteed blood when Lily and Dominique, two same uncontrollable forces, went in for a battle).

Fortunately, I was present. There would be no blood spilled on my watch. 

"Dom," I said loudly, leaving my side of the classroom to wedge myself between the two. Freddie and Louis booed me in the background. "No one owled Uncle Bill. McGonagall summoned all of us here."

I pointed my thumb behind my shoulder, directing Dominique to where Al, Lucas, and James were playing a game of Exploding Snap. 

Dominique gritted her teeth as she lowered her wand a centimeter. "So Dad isn't coming here to send me straight to that Muggle Catholic school he's been threatening me about since I was ten?"

"No, Dom, you're okay—"

"It would serve you right," Lily cut through my reassurance. Her brown eyes were dark and narrowed. "For being a hypocrite and thinking I would betray you."

"We all know you act before you think," Dominique returned angrily. "How was I supposed to know your threat of telling my dad about what you saw was empty? You throw tantrums whenever things don't go your way."

Lily's cheeks grew red now, too. 

I sighed. There would be blood, then.

"Tell Dad what?" Louis now asked, no longer looked amused but curious. 

Dominique's eyes widened. She recognized her mistake the instant Lily turned to Louis.

"She thinks I told Uncle Bill I caught her having sex with a Slytherin because I asked her to help me get all of you off mine and Liam's case. She refused and thought I'd break my promise of keeping my mouth shut."

Louis looked like he got hit with a beater's bat. "What?" he stuttered out. "What do you mean—what Slytherin— how can you— what?" 

Dominique rolled her eyes at her brother, pocketing her wand now. "Oh, calm the hell down, Louis. It's just sex."

"DON'T!" All at once, from their various spots around the classroom, my male cousins shouted at the top of their lungs.

Nia smirked, I rolled my eyes, Lily scoffed, Lucas looked interested, and Emily remained staring at the desktop at the reaction of my relatives.

"Idiots," said Dominique with a scoff of her own. "Macho idiots no less. Women are sexual beings, regardless if they are related to you or not."

Al clapped his hands over his ears, shaking his head. "Be sexual all you want. We just don't want to know."

I rolled my eyes. "Where are Liam and Malfoy?" I asked, breaking past this pointless conversation. "They never came back from their walk with Teddy."

Nia looked away from the tiny blue birds she had cast. "You're right," she said to me. "He wasn't in Charms. I'll go look for him."

"No," Lily said as Nia started to get up from her seat. "I'll go look for him. You stay."

Nia groaned. "Listen, little girl, you have no idea where he would even be."

"And you would?" Lily demanded. "Have a tracker on him or something, Harper?"

"Call it history," Nia hissed. "Years of history, not months of playing footsie under the dinner table."

Nia was going to leave with that, leave Lily fuming and Al frowning at her, but the Headmistress appeared at the door before she could cross it.

"Sit, Miss Harper," McGonagall pointed a finger to the nearest seat before turning her eyes on the rest of us. "There is something important I need to say, so I require your full and prompt attention."

 Hearing the doors of the classroom open again, I turned towards it, my lips tugging into a bright smile as Malfoy entered.

My smile was for nothing, it disappeared instantly as he looked away from my eyes. There was something like sorrow on his perfect features.

"Professor," James spoke from the background, "I swear whatever you  assumed we did, it's all Freddie's fault."

"Mine?" Freddie gasped. "You were the one who set off Weasley's Wild-fire Whiz-bangs during our Care of Magical Creatures lesson and startled all the Skrewts!"

 James' eyes widened. "Lies," and then he shoved Freddie. "Yeah, well, Louis snuck into the girls' dormitory to 'talk' to Coral McLaggen!" He pointed an accusing finger at our blonde cousin, who was turning pink at the accusation. "He was in there supposedly teaching her the hand movement to the Stupefying spell—whatever that means!"

 "Coral happens to be my girlfriend, you git!" Louis shouted. "And I was helping her! We had a Charms exam the next day!"

 "You've got a girlfriend?" Dominique was now outraged, too. "Who in their right mind would date you?"

Louis ignored his sister as he smacked a hand on Freddie's back as he addressed the Headmistress with a, "Freddie's conspiring with a few Fifth Years to use Skiving Snackboxes to get out of their O.W.L.'s. They're planning on starting an alleged ill-fated epidemic!"

"I told you that in confidence, you wanker!" Freddie launched himself at Louis, fists flying. "You ordered three boxes!" He punched Louis on the chest. "And we all know you weren't studying with Coral!"

When Freddie managed to drag James in, too, by the hair no less, I let out a deep sigh. I rolled up the sleeves of my button-up, taking my wand out next. The spell to separate my three idiot cousins apart was interrupted by McGongall's loud, shrill voice vibrating off the walls of her classroom.

"Enough," she screeched at them, though her eyes showed less impatience than what I thought she would have. "Remove your hands from around Mister Weasley's neck, Mister Potter," she then demanded, waiting for James to stop choking Freddie. "Quite frankly, I have no idea what any of you are doing here. I did not summon you."

Freddie, Louis, and James looked at one another, their heaving slowing as it was being replaced by a cringe. McGonagall was right. She had not summoned them, they showed up to skive off class.

"However, seeing as the three of you cannot seem to behave like proper Sixth Years, you will be assigned detention. And you, Mister Weasley," McGonagall then pointed a finger at Freddie, "will send your father back his products and will be force to tutor First Years until the rest of term."

"Yes, ma'am," Freddie sighed.

"Mister Potter," the Headmistress continued, "you'll personally assist Professor Burns on raising the Skrewts for a month and you'll write an essay on their growth."

James frowned. "Why do I get more? Freddie was the one conspiring—" He stopped his complaint as McGonagall's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Yes, ma'am," he caved.

 "You, Mister Weasley, will stay out of the girl dormitories," McGonagall turned to glare at Louis now. "Do you understand, or I'll be forced to write to your parents about your heated activities."

Louis blushed. "Yes, ma'am."

Freddie and James glared at Louis' light punishment. 

I rolled my eyes at the current situation. How we were all related, I'll never know. "Professor," I called instead, "why did you summon us? Have we done something wrong?"

"No, Miss Weasley, you have not done something wrong." McGonagall's change in tone and Malfoy's shaky breath made a lick of fear crawl up my spine. I turned to him, begging him with my eyes to look up, but he didn't. He focused hard on the marbled floor beneath his feet. "Auror Lupin was sent here to inform Mister Greengrass that his father has passed. Alec Greengrass was murdered—"

"NO!"  Nia bellowed, breaking through the forming shock around the classroom. Tears flooded her blue eyes, devastation written across her beautiful face. "No, he is not—no! He can't be dead! He—you're lying—Scorpius!"

Nia's feet had maneuvered her to Malfoy. For years I had been so used to my best friend glaring or darkly smirking at him, that seeing desperation for truth, for comfort, for anything to hold her together made tears of my own spark in my eyes. 

Malfoy silver eyes were swimming with unshed tears, too. "He's gone, Harper," he said to her in a broken murmur. "They killed him. You know why. For her."

I did not understand his comment, but Nia did. I saw it on her face. And because she understood it, the unimaginable happened: they embraced. She wobbled on her feet, grief and something else unbalancing her, and Malfoy caught her in his arms. Often Nia had said if she ever put her arms around him it would be to squeeze the last bit of oxygen out of his lungs, but right now she was holding him like he was her oxygen. 

I had been so caught up in Malfoy and Nia, Liam's cousin and his best friend, that I forgot about the other person who could be just as deeply affected by this news like they were. 

Tears rolled down Lily's cheek as she took a cautious step toward the Headmistress. "Where is Liam?" 

"In his dormitory," McGonagall complied.

Lily's eyes now flashed with determination. "Forgive me for breaking the rules in advance, Headmistress, but I'm going to him."

"Miss Potter, I've tried to control your father's actions when he was at school, not to mention your mother's. I'm well aware the Potter children when determined are equally as impossible to restrain," McGonagall spoke to Lily softly. "You're allowed in, but for a few hours. You must give him time to grieve."

As Lily hurriedly headed out of the classroom, McGonagall turned back to the rest of us with her usual firmness. "Be there for him," she almost ordered. "He's going to need all the support and affection he can get. He's an orphan now, and that's a pain greater than you can imagine. Be his family, be a strong unit."

"Bloody hell," Louis mumbled sadly, watching the Headmistress go without another word. "And to think I threatened to hex his wand off this morning."

Patting our cousin's back, Freddie and James pushed Louis to the exit of the classroom. "Should we hug him? You know, be cuddly and all?"

"Don't do that, idiot," Dominique and Lucas caught up to the boys before they could leave. "He'll come to us when he's ready."

James shook his head. "I'll still hug him. He's practically family."

Lucas snorted. "Yeah, I bet that's how he feels after you've threatened his manly-bits since dating your sister, Potter."

I turned to see Al slowly approach Malfoy and Nia. "He has us," he whispered to them. "He's always had us. We're in this together."

"Scorpius?" Creeping as slowly and undetected as ever, Emily made her way where Al stood by our two grieving friends.

Upon hearing Emily's voice, Nia and Malfoy let each other go, their moment of mutual comfort ending as Al caught Nia by the waist, pulling her in, and Emily took a step closer to Malfoy.

"I'm...I'm so sorry," she murmured to him, her emerald eyes twinkling with tears. "I'm sorry for your loss...for Liam's."

Staring at her for a moment, looking deep in her eyes, making my insides burn, Malfoy extended a hand to her, resting it upon the side of her face. He did not have to say anything to her, the love in his eyes was loud enough to fill the classroom.

Emily heard it, too.

Still, she took a step back, looking over to Al. "We should take Nia to Gryffindor Tower. She can't go to class like this."

As the three left, I kept my attention locked on Malfoy. There was a type of pain in my chest that reminded me of how Lily looked. There was grief and heartbreak, but also a need to do something. Anything. My entire body burned to do something that would ease his own pain.

Lily was in love with Liam. That was the look of determination in her eyes that drove her to be there for him because for her, for Lily, there was no other option. I realized—I accepted—that was how I felt, too. That was the urge in my bones, to be there for Malfoy and take all of his hurt.

"Scorpius?" I murmured, taking slow steps to him, my hand reaching out to touch him. His head was down, that silky, pale-blonde hair covering his silver eyes from my view. The shake in his shoulders told me he was still crying. 

It drove me to gather him in my arms.

He buried his face in my neck, holding me just as tightly. "Rose," he cried, "Uncle Alec didn't deserve to die like this. He was a good man. He...what happens now? What happens to my cousin?"

"It won't be easy," I whispered back to him, running my hand up and down his back, "but he won't be alone. Liam has us, Scorpius. He has you and your parents. You're his family. We are his family, too. And we never leave family behind."

"He has Lily," he then said. 

"And you have Emily. Or Rookwood," I heard myself before I could stop myself.

He tensed in my arms.

"I'm sorry," I was quick to input. "I shouldn't have said that. I know things with you and Emily have not been good for weeks now, and I—"

"You're the dumbest smart person I know, Rose," he said, pulling back far enough that I could see his silver eyes, but not far enough to where he was out of my arms. "And blind. And stubborn. Then again, so am I."

Merlin. 

My heart picked up in rhythm. 

It was happening, wasn't it?

"Emily..." he paused, pain in his eyes again, "Belinda has never been my girlfriend. She doesn't take your place in my heart. For fuck sakes, no one has ever come close. Don't you get it, Rose? It's always been you. And I know it's always been me. It's always been the both of us, but we are too bloody stubborn. We rather fight each other than just admit this. But I'm tired of fighting, Rose. Aren't you?"

I was.

So I took my hands from around his shoulders and reached for his face much too eagerly for a girl who did everything with a gentle touch. But I had been waiting so long for this—we both had. I saw the same impatience in his silver gaze. It's what drove me to pushed up on my toes and kiss him.

He took my breath away and ignited my heart into overdrive at the same time. 

 My fingers found their way to the strands of his silky hair, tugging at his roots as he reeled me into him, pressing himself tighter to me. There was not an inch of space left between us as he hoisted me up and I wrapped my legs around his hips. My chest was filled with an emotion that I never felt before.

He turned us around, the back of my thighs now pressing against the edge of a desk as his body came hovering over mine. I pulled him down, squeezing him with my legs to keep him in place. 

I had just started to shiver from the way his teeth nipped at my neck when there was a loud cough that halted Scorpius from continuing his actions on my skin. 

I pushed him off of myself almost instantly.

"Mum, Dad?" Scorpius said from the floor, caught between glaring and looking ashamed at their presence. 

I was not caught between anything. It was embarrassment all the way through as I adjust my clothing. 

"Mister and Mrs. Malfoy," I squeaked out, "I, uh...I am sorry for your loss."

With kind blue eyes, Mrs. Malfoy nodded once at me from her husband's side, the latter narrowing his eyes at me. "Thank you," she said softly, "it means a lot, dear."

Before an even further awkward silence could loom over us, I jumped off the desk as my cheeks flushed harder. "Well, I, uh, best be off. I, uh...yeah." I looked away from the parents to look at the son. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

Thinking that he'd just nod his head at me, brush me off from the embarrassment, Scorpius did the unexpected by reeling me into an embrace. "I'll be waiting for you," he murmured into my ear, pressing a kiss to my forehead before releasing me.

Feeling my heart pound a thousand miles per millisecond, I waved awkwardly at the Malfoys and headed for the door. As I was filled with tingles, my blood rushing, my insides fluttering with the best emotions ever, I managed to catch Mister Malfoy say, "Granger's going to kill me when she knows my son's been snogging her daughter."