Raindrops on Roses

Chapter 9: Fifth Year Part 2: Moonsilver

2022-2023

~*-S-*~

~*-S-*~

Scorpius felt a bit guilty when he found himself looking forward to Christmas at the Longbottoms' before he had even been asked. He was very sensible of the fact that they had, for three years now in a row, offered to share with him a day that was usually reserved for family. Of course, the pub had hundreds of visitors on Christmas, and they always claimed that one more made no difference, but it wasn't as if the pub guests got to sit with the family in their own dining room.

"Course you're coming," Lizzie said, when he tentatively and awkwardly enquired. "Thought you knew that already." She tossed back her long blonde hair and turned their Tamerine bush towards her. Scorpius, despite all his best efforts, was still no great shakes at Herbology. For a Ravenclaw he was positively dismal. Sitting with Lizzie in class helped, since she was a natural with plants and was able to explain things more patiently than Albus or Rose would have. "Everyone's looking forward to seeing you," she said now, stroking the leaves with her wand and smiling when they quivered in response.

"Everyone?" Scorpius said, raising his eyebrows.

"Well, Mum is," Lizzie conceded. "And Alice will too, I expect, when she sees you."

Scorpius doubted rather that the three year old girl would remember him in the slightest since last year. "Will Tony be there?"

"Oh yeah, he's coming back for a week. Mum will be fussing over him a lot, fair warning, but it's own fault for running off to Africa as soon as his NEWTs came."

Scorpius privately thought that being a Cursebreaker in Africa would be a pretty awesome job. Tony had come top in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology and Potions, much to his father's obvious delight, though of course he couldn't boast about it except to other teachers.

"You have to take NEWT Herbology to be a Cursebreaker," Albus pointed out cruelly when he brought this up at dinner.

Scorpius sighed. "Yeah. I wasn't really considering it. It'd just be nice to have an excuse to travel around a bit. See more of the world."

"You could do that without an excuse," Rose suggested. "Just for fun."

Scorpius shrugged ruefully, thinking that no matter how many NEWTs he got, his father would not be okay with travelling 'just for fun' under any circumstances.

It was difficult as usual to say goodbye to Rose and Albus as they left for the Christmas holidays. He moped around Ravenclaw tower for a few days, doing homework in dribs and drabs and occasionally borrowing a school broom to go flying. He had resigned himself to the fact that he would never be much of a Quidditch player, but he thought cross country flying might not be out of the question.

As usual there were very few Ravenclaws left in the tower, which made for a very lonely holiday.

Finally he woke up on Christmas day to a small pile of presents on his bed. He sat up eagerly and turned them over, surprised to find that there were more than usual. He opened Rose's first. A Muggle book - as if he didn't already have enough of those to read - and he smiled ruefully when he saw the title. He must have told her that he liked Robin Hood, right? She couldn't have just known that...

Albus had sent him a book on musical charms that had him engrossed for at last half an hour as he flicked through the pages. Eventually he had to force himself to put it down in order to look at his other presents. There were two more, one large and one small. The large one turned out to be from his father. The note attached read:

Scorpius,

This box is spelled to keep anything you need safe. Use wisely.

Intrigued, he unwrapped the plain paper to find a wooden box, quite heavy, with iron hinges and a small round keyhole. There were some strange runes around the side of the box, burnt black into the wood. He studied them for a moment but was nonplussed. If only he hadn't dropped Ancient Runes in third year! He could ask Rose or Albus when they got back, he supposed. He opened the box experimentally, to find it lined with velvet, and a small scroll with instructions for using the box in a just-legible spidery script. The keyhole was for a wand, it turned out, and only the first wand to close the box would be able to open it again.