If I Fall for You [Harry Potter: Next Generation]

15. Too Late

A/N: well look who's here. Lately I've been very busy alternating between binge watching Pretty Little Liars with a friend and discussing Owl City while renovating my grandpa's crawl spaces with a different friend. Also writer's block like you wouldn't believe. (Both of the aforementioned friends are aspiring authors like moi, but that doesn't change the fact that writer's block is a horrid beast and there should be a cure for it). Stick it out though because I'm not planning on abandoning ship. I'll finish this story or die trying. You have my word.
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Rose stared down at Albus, uncomprehending, because he couldn't, he just couldn't be -

Vanessa pursed her lips. "Oh, very noble, I suppose," she remarked in a bored tone. "Not quite what I intended. But no matter: why don't you follow your friend now, Rose Weasley?"

Rose didn't reply; indeed, she hardly heard a word of what Vanessa was saying. There was a rushing in her ears, a rushing which appeared to be desperately trying to drown out reality, to detach her from the blackness swelling inside her. She stared at Albus' eyes, silently praying that it was all a dream and she'd wake any moment now - but his eyes, oh, his eyes... that unseeing stare was much too real, and yet so awfully surreal at the same time.

The rushing grew to a roaring, and somewhere deep in the pit of Rose's stomach a rage she hadn't known she possessed was coming to life, a roaring bonfire rising up inside her; a need to hurt Vanessa Ryan, to kill her, maybe -

At that very moment Professor McGonagall, Professor Longbottom and Madame Chapelle burst onto the scene, and as McGonagall raised her wand and cried "Expelliarmus!" Albus' wand flew out of Vanessa's hand.

"Accio wand," Professor Longbottom added, and Albus' wand flew into his hands. Vanessa cursed and back away, glowering.

"Well, well, what have we here...?" McGonagall trailed into silence as her eyes fell on Albus' unmoving form. The other teachers followed her gaze.

An awfully loud silence ensued, during which Rose tried her best to restrain herself from running at Vanessa and doing something violent that could, admittedly, get her expelled.

"Oh," McGonagall finally broke the silence with a hoarse whisper, her hand going to her mouth. Professor Longbottom was as white as a sheet, and Madame Chapelle was clutching her heart and staring at Vanessa, a horrified expression on her face.

Vanessa turned away from them haughtily and approached Rose. "You won't win," she growled, quietly, so that only Rose heard. "The Dark Lord will rise again. You cannot stop him."

Rose stared at her, because how - ? And then it clicked: the grey vapour. Could it possibly be...?

Then Vanessa leapt at Rose and began to struggle to gain control of her wand, but McGonagall's voice yelled "Stupefy!" and Vanessa collapsed, unconscious again.

After a moment McGonagall ate up the distance between herself and Rose, the others on her tail. She cleared her throat. "Weasley, what - what's going on here?"

Rose shook her head, eyes on the ground; she didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to think about it, and all at once the bonfire died down and she felt like curling up in a ball and screaming until she woke herself up from this nightmare.

"Potter - who - how did he...?" McGonagall whispered in a shaken voice.

"Ryan killed him," Rose replied bluntly. All of a sudden the harsh reality of the fact came crashing down on her like so much deadweight, and she couldn't hold back the tears that sprang into her eyes.

Madame Chapelle's hands flew to her mouth. "I am so sorry," she whispered. "I never dreamt that Vanessa would - would - " whereupon she broke down and began to sob.

"There, there, Margot," McGonagall soothed, putting a comforting arm around the smaller woman's shoulders and handing her a handkerchief. "No one blames you! How could you have known?"

Professor Longbottom looked at Rose and then at Albus and then past Rose and said, "Is that Scorpius Malfoy?"

Rose nodded numbly. The Professor went, if possible, even paler. "Is he - "

"No," Rose interjected sharply. "No. He's not. He's not dead." I think, she added silently.

Professor Longbottom didn't blink twice in reaction to Rose's rather rude response. That was the thing about him. He was often too lax for his own good.

"Weasley," McGonagall called. She was staring at the greyish puddle thing, which was now completely still, a repulsed look on her face. "What in the name of Merlin is that?"

Rose shook her head. "Ryan knows," she muttered. Professor Longbottom and Professor McGonagall shared a glance.

"Let's get out of here," he suggested. "We can deal with that stuff later."

"Yes, let's," McGonagall agreed grimly, breaking away from a sobbing Madame Chapelle and pointing her wand abruptly at Albus' body. "Levicorpus," she muttered, her voice uncharacteristically tremulous.

Rose stepped back involuntarily and fought down the bile that rose in her throat at the sight of her cousin's limp body rising into the air and hovering just above the ground like some grotesquely inanimate puppet. She almost protested against such a means of transportation, but then again... no one wants to touch a dead body.

"Wait!" Rose cried hoarsely. "I'll carry him."

Professor McGonagall turned and eyed Rose incredulously. "Don't be ridiculous. He's bigger than you, you won't be able to carry him all that way, especially with the state you're in."

Rose stared right into McGonagall's eyes, meeting her gaze unflinchingly. "Please, Professor."

Even as Rose stared, something changed in the headmistress' reserved gaze, as if a barrier had been let down. "Oh, alright," she agreed, with a heavy sigh. "Just be sure to let me know if you get tired, and I'll take him."

Rose stepped forward wordlessly and McGonagall let Albus down gently in her arms. He was still semi-warm, like the last dregs of autumn. But the stillness of his chest alone was enough to terminate any illusions one might harbour about his wellbeing.

Rose thought she saw a tear tracing its way down McGonagall's cheek as the headmistress turned away and pointed her wand at the still-unconscious Vanessa Ryan, muttering "Levicorpus."

"Come on, then." Professor Longbottom scooped Scorpius into his arms and began making his way down the Chamber with quick strides.

"Come along, Weasley." McGonagall took Madame Chapelle's arm in a comforting sort of way, and the two headmistresses followed close behind the Herbology professor, Chapelle still crying silently, McGonagall making a rather obvious effort to not follow suit.

Rose cast one last glance up at the statue of the wizard. His empty stone eyes gazed out at the snakes twining around the columns, the emerald-eyed snakes that seemed so eerily alive.

Perhaps they were alive.

Vanessa Ryan must be a Parselmouth. Did she have Slytherin blood in her, then? But did Rose have Slytherin blood in her? She looked up at the statue again and wondered if that was exactly how he'd looked in real life. Who knew?

Rose set off after the teachers, down the long, shadowed chamber where Slytherin himself had once kept a snake of his own. Where the stone snakes lived on, centuries after the man who had built them had left forever.

She carried her cousin's body in silence all the way down the Chamber and through the great stone doors, which closed behind them with a loud grinding noise. He seemed to settle heavier and heavier in her arms as the last bit of warmth fled his body, and Rose held him closer to her as if to instil anew in him that warmth even as the cold fingers of grief clutched at her heart and squeezed the air out of her lungs, and left her about as warm as Albus Potter's lifeless weight.
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A/N: do I spend too much time cackling evilly or what