Harry Potter Next Generation: Family Legacy

Chapter Twenty-Nine: There's Still Me (Scorpius)

 The Snitch! I reached forward, farther, farther than I thought was possible. So close to jumping off the broom, I made a final stretch and my fingers closed around the tiny, beating Snitch. The crowd cheered, and a wave of yellow and black, looking like hornets, jumped up and down like mad.

Raising an arm above my head, I hollered along with the crowd. But too late, I realized, was that I was plummeting through the air, the ground was coming closer and closer, when I blinked open seconds before my body slammed into the ground.

I opened my eyes quickly, and saw nothing but a small shelter of curtains that surrounded my bed. Blearily and with a massive headache, I sat up slowly and looked around. Streaks of yellow and white shown threw the curtains, and when I peered out behind one the massive sun was rising above the ridge of mountains.

There was a shriek, and I jumped, almost hitting my head on the wall. Hazel threw back the curtains with a loud ripping sound, and grinned delightedly at me. I couldn't help but noticing that her nose were swollen and red, and dark shadows circled beneath her eyes.

"Scorp!" she said, and dashed around the bed to hug me. Her black school robes fluttered around her. She drew back and looked at me with a clearly forced grin. "How are you feeling?"

I looked at my twin blankly. "What happened?"

"The Quidditch game," Hazel said. "Y-you fell off your broom." Her eyes looked moist, but I didn't point that out. Whenever I asked that stuff to Hazel, I somehow was the one who ended up in the mud puddle.

"Quidditch..." I whispered hoarsely and trailed off. Bits and pieces of the game stood out in my mind, and the rest came clearer as I tried to remember. I was going to catch the Snitch, and then it evaded my grasp, and then Rose Weasley pointed her wand at me, I fell, the ground rushing up to meet me...

"I've been unconscious for how long?" I asked.

Hazel wiped her eyes with her sleeve and choked," About two days. I've been visiting you between every class." Her eyes darkened considerably, so the grey coloring looked more like black. "There's not much to do now, that I have no friends to talk to."

Personally I thought Hazel was losing her mind. "Um, 'azel," I said softly. "You have Albus Severus Potter for a friend. Remember him? Messy brown hair, freckles, green eyes, best friend?" Hazel gazed at me, eyes blank. "He spent Christmas with us?"

"I know who he is!" Hazel snapped. I jolted back, surprised by her flash of anger. "But he's not my friend. I don't see how he could've ever been. He's a Potter."

"Like that matters," I said. My head spun, and not just from the wooziness of waking from a concussion.

"Albus said that he couldn't trust me because I was a Malfoy, and Dad was a Death Eater. He said that he could never be friends with a Malfoy. He thinks that Slytherins just go up in their common room and plan who to jinx next..." Her voice trailed off, and I had a sudden urge to leap up and go confront Albus Severus Potter.

"How do you know this?" I asked.

"He told me," said Hazel. "He told everyone in the Great Hall." Her nose twitched, and I saw she was trying to stop from crying again.

"Why are you crying?" I asked.

Hazel glared at me. "Oh, no reason," she replied sarcastically. "My brother almost dies, my best friend—the only one in the entire school who like me, by the way— says I'm evil, and everyone's making being proud of begin a Malfoy harder than ever!"

Madame Abott shushed Hazel from her office, and my twin glanced back, furious. 

I shrugged. "We were best friends at Malfoy Manor, we can be best friends at Hogwarts." Hazel didn't look convinced, and I rose up, painfully, out of the covers and onto my knees. "You don't need friends, Hazel. We always knew that they would betray us in the end." She nodded.

"You still have me, your twin. And unless I do die, I will never abandon you."

Hazel's sharp grey eyes looked into mine. "Me neither," she said. All traces of tears were gone from her cheeks.

Good riddance to Albus, I thought. I never like him anyways.