Albus (A Next Generation Harry Potter Fanfiction)

You'll Be Missed

"St Mungo's?" Scor repeated, turning whiter than he already was (yes, that was possible).

Al nodded, stretching out over his bed, still wearing his shoes. "They said they had to send her there," he said, picking at his blanket. Scor's eyes were wide and scared.

"So we can't visit her," he stated, frowning like he always did when something was going through his head. "Can we write a letter?"

Al started. Scor volunteering to write to her? A beam stretched across his face as he enthusiastically agreed. "Yeah, we should. That would be nice," he said, his grin making Scorpius scowl again.

"What?" Al retorted.

Scor continued to sneer. "Just because now I regret it, doesn't mean you can act all 'I told you so'."

Al tried to keep a straight face, but he couldn't help smiling a little. All his nagging and manipulating had worked! Scorpius rolled his eyes dramatically and flopped over the other side of his bed.

"Alright, alright," Al said quickly before he got completely shut off. "I won't say I told you so. Even though I did always tell you to stop saying it and now you know you should have listened earlier," he finished triumphantly, his little speech earning him the biggest glare yet.

Scor sat back up and crossed his arms. "Remember that time you betted me I couldn't make Mrs Norris go rainbow? Well I still haven't shown you I can do that spell, and if you carry on like this I might suggest your owl had better watch its back," Scorpius threatened.

Al chuckled. "Shut up. You still can't. I'll just hide my owl."

Scorpius raised his eyebrows knowingly. "There aren't many places you can hide an owl, Albus Potter."

Al huffed and threw a pillow at him, which he caught and threw it back weakly, making them both laugh. "Fine," Al agreed, promising to stop. "Come here, there's something else I have to tell you."

Scor's smile dropped a little as Al beckoned. Whenever they had to talk about something private or important, they were always quiet, because you never knew who'd put a charm on the room, or hidden something. That kind of stuff happened in Slytherin all the time, and Al had found out the hard way that actually a lot of kids wanted to know Harry Potter's son's secrets.

Unfortunately they hadn't discovered this before they'd freely spoken in the dorm about Scor's parents, but they'd been lucky with that. Al didn't know what they were expecting to find out from him but it was frustrating because he really didn't have anything to say worth listening into. The only things they'd found out had been silly, trivial things, like when him and Scor had been complaining about Sylvian or someone else that annoyed them, or what prank they were planning. Scor shuffled over to Al's bed and crouched close to him. He smelled of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and it wasn't a very nice smell, so Al recoiled a bit. "Flipping heck, Scor, not so close," he hissed.

Scor shifted away, ignoring him. "What is it?" He asked quietly.

"Basically, I was outside the hospital wing, and I heard McGonagall and the rest of them in there talking about this, so I think it must be serious," he whispered. Scor nodded, showing he'd heard. "So they were saying there were five more people with what Matilda had," he explained.

Scor turned to him, frowning. "I thought they said it wasn't contagious?" He whispered back, confused.

"Yeah, they did," Al replied in the same quiet tone. "I think something has gotta be giving it to them. Oh, and they're all Slytherin Muggleborns, so it isn't coincidental. It must be something in the house, a spell maybe? It could be anything, though. I bet it's a cursed object, possibly the common room because only Slytherins are getting it, and it must be something old because nobody except you cares about getting rid of Muggleborns nowadays," he added.