Albus (A Next Generation Harry Potter Fanfiction)

The Search

Again, they turned to look at Rose, who seemed as clueless as they were. Al's blood started rushing through his head again, as Scorpius stepped closer to Rose, clenching his fists to try and appear bigger than he really was. Al suddenly felt cut off, like he was watching a scene that had already happened and was playing over and over, out of his control, simply an apparition of events occurring one after the other. The only thing he was sure of seemed to be what side he was on, and even then Scor's actions were way out of his commanding. He was useless, a statue in the middle of a busy crowd.

"Must've dropped it," Rose said simply, before picking up her things and leaning back on the table in the centre. "Too bad you don't get your new broomstick, or VIP tickets to the next Quidditch match. How awful that must be for you, Malfoy," she snarled. She still had no idea? Albus silently questioned her cleverness, still standing stock still, wondering if all those top test scores took up her capacity for empathy.

"You idiot, Weasel. That was genuinely important!" Scor almost shouted. Snapping out of his daze, Al shushed him quickly. Getting caught would make this night even worse, if that was possible at this point. Rose's neutral expression turned slightly, softening, Al hoping she finally got it.

"Yeah, Rose, you didn't know what was in that," he piped up, unexpectedly but immediately finding his voice in amongst the wide expanse of silence he'd been lost in. Scor gave him a tiny nod, showing Al he valued his support, and Al inwardly beamed, his chest swelling with pride. He was on the right side of this argument. "You shouldn't have done that," he said a little more aggressively, his confidence suddenly turned up a few notches. Who cares if Rose gets upset? She deserved it.

Rose had fallen silent. Scor turned back to the window, peering out of it into the black. Al followed, trying to make out shapes or movement in the dark, but there was nothing.

"What if someone finds it and reads it?" Scor whispered so only Al could hear.

Al frowned, pondering over that scenario. Scor turned to him, waiting for an answer, Al's newly set-in confidence fuelling his adrenaline. Suddenly he wanted more than anything to impress Scor by retrieving the letter, for reasons he couldn't really figure out. Perhaps it was because Matilda had brought something out of Scor he'd never seen before, or because his cousin, his family, had been the one that lost the letter in the first place.

Anyhow, those were the only reasons he could come up with at that point, in the middle of the night up a tower with the window open.

"We'll find it, Scor, don't worry," he reassured him. They'd just have to get up before breakfast, before anyone went outside.

"We have to go now," Scor replied.

Now? Al took a second to register the statement, peering out the window into the deathly cold night air. There could be werewolves. They could all be ripped apart...

"Weasley can come too, considering this is all her fault," Scor formulated, and from the tone of his voice Al suspected that arguing would not diffuse this situation in the slightest. He watched his friend from a mental distance once more, watched him feed his owl and carry him away from the window to an open perch, then double back to where Al and Rose were still standing quite uselessly, not contributing at all.

"I am not coming outside at this time of night with a couple of Slytherin boys," Rose scoffed, making Al's eyes roll.

"Can you do Lumos?" Scor asked aggressively.

Rose nodded slowly. 

"Then there's another reason why you're coming. I can't deal with any more of Al's attempts because he'll get us all killed when we trip and break our necks."