The Flower and the Snake

Rose didn’t know what to say. She just let him hug her. She was still in shock over what her grandmother had pretty much announced to the entire table. Her whole family wasn’t even here yet. They would have to do this again, she knew especially when George walked in the door. He was right too. Not only was he making them rethink the normal and the safe, he also had bad news to tell them, news they wouldn’t want to hear at all.

“Lets…just…go upstairs.” She said softly, still trying to find the words for what was going through her head at that moment. She took his hand and took him with her, not giving him a chance to protest or say a word. When they finally reached the shelter and seclusion that the room offered them she sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands.

She wasn’t crying but she was thinking, and she was thinking hard.

“She’s never spoken about him before.” She said quietly, her arms going around herself as if she was trying to hold herself together.

"Your uncle you mean?" Scorpious sat on his trunk, now on the floor and watched her. "I'm sorry." he repeated.


--

Downstairs an owl had arrived with a letter from Lucius malfoy, though it had been made to look as though it were from Draco.

I apologize for any inconvenienced Scorpious has caused your family during this holiday. While as far as we are concerned he is welcome to stay with you, we ask that you have him come home at least for one evening during the recess. We have some family traditions that just could not be complete without him around!

Much thanks, and Happy Holidays
~Draco Malfoy

Rose nodded, her arms wrapped around herself tightly.

“I asked her once. About him. She burst into tears when I did and my dad told me never to ask again. That he had died in the final battle. That’s all I know about it. And she talked about Sirius too…” She said shakily mentioning Harry’s godfather who had been killed by Draco’s aunt Bellatrix. She knew that Harry wouldn’t be able to be okay tonight. He’d be in his room with Ginny, and Lily and Albus would play Exploding Snap in the living room and try and ignore the fact their father was locked in his room dealing with his memories however he dealt with them.

=====================================================================

Ron was downstairs with Hermione when the owl came and Hermione took the letter and opened it. She read the letter with confusion on her face.

“Ron, read this.”

He read it quickly, his face darkening as he read what seemed to be Draco’s letter. “Yeah what of it.”

“This…isn’t Draco’s writing.” She said softly, staring at the letter hard.

“What do you mean. Looks like to me.” Hermione shook her head no, knowing for a fact it wasn’t. Of course she couldn’t tell her husband exactly how she knew it wasn’t.

She folded up the letter and put in her pocket, resolving to talk to the two of them in the morning.

"..." Scorpious frowned. "Rose, where is your grandmothers room?" he asked. "I think I owe her an apology too..."

Rose looked up at him then, and simply said “It’s the last room in the house. Top of the stairs. She’ll be there with grandfather.”

She didn’t want him to go but she recognized his need to apologize. To say something to try and make up for what had happened at the table. She wouldn’t stop him from leaving.

Rose knew once he left that room she would have an even harder time holding herself together. The stress of that night, of the last few days, was really starting to get to her. She nodded to herself and swallowed before smiling saying as cheerfully as she could, “I don’t think she’s angry with you for anything. Just don’t be surprised if shes not that talkative.”

"... Alright." he said pushing her hair out of her face. he kissed her forehead lightly before tilting her chin up kissing her lips. "I'll be right back." he promised before standing straight once more. he turned his back to her, stepping out into the hallway.

He closed the door behind him quietly and began to head up the steps.

Rose laid down on the bed and tried to calm herself. It would do no good to freak out or something. She closed her eyes and attempted to calm herself. Before she knew it, she was fast asleep.

Hermione walked up the stairs heading to her room leaving Ron in the kitchen to think. He was still worried about his mom, and what she had said had struck a chord with him. She didn’t get far however, before she noticed Scorpius going up the stairs, leaving the room he was sharing with Rose.

“Where you headed off to?” She asked, startling him.

Scorpious stopped climbing the steps and blinked down at her. "I was going to apologize to Mrs. Weasley." he stated. "Since noone else from my family seems to have..." he trailed off seeing the letter in her pocket with his fathers seal on it. "What's that?"

Hermione looked down and pulled the letter out of her pocket. She stared at it, took a deep breath and turned to look back at him.

“Something I wanted to ask you about actually. Come downstairs with me?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"..." Scorpious seemed uneasy but nodded, following her obediently. "It isn't like my father to use green wax. He usually uses silver..." he noted aloud as he followed, curious as to what the letter said.

Hermione led them to the kitchen, where luckily Ron no longer was. He had probably gone to take a walk she mused to herself, taking a seat and gesturing for him to take a seat as well.

“I’ll say this point blank. I want to know who wrote this letter. I know it wasn’t your father so don’t even try.” She said, handing the letter to him to read over. Her expression was stern though she didn’t seem angry at him. No, Hermione sensed something wasn’t quite right. Ever since the two of them had walked in she could see something was off. It was in the way Rose held herself, how she reacted to Molly’s words. Everything screamed that she was hiding something, and Hermione always knew when her daughter was hiding something.

Now this letter shows up when she knew on no uncertain terms that Scorpius was welcome in their home the entire holiday. Not that she would willingly give up how she knew that.

He opened the letter and glanced at the writing. "It's Grandfather's writing." he said simply. as he began to read the letter, he froze, his eye glazing over suddenly.
Something wasn't right.
Scorpious handed the letter back to Hermione, his long fingers loose on the page. "I suppose he thought you woudl welcome a letter from my father more readily than from him." he said. She could tell right off the bat, he'd been bewitched. She had heard him speak at dinner, knew he was much less formal with her and her family.
"It's his polite way of saying come home. Looks as though I should get my things..."

Hermione pulled out her wand. She’d seen this spell too often too not know it when it was in her very kitchen. It was a rather simple curse to cast on a piece of parchment so that when the intended recipient read it they would do whatever was asked of them in the letter. She didn’t know why she was seeing this again. She hadn’t seen this particular curse since the war, and she’d be damned if she let this boy out of her sight under the influence of spell.

She muttered her own spell, the curse lifting from Scorpius rather quickly, though leaving the residual side effects of confusion and not knowing what they were doing. Pushing him back down into his chair she took a step back.

“Do not leave that chair or I will tie you to it.” She said sternly, her tone brooking no room for argument.

She sat down heavily, seeming to age ten years in that moment. She let him gain his bearings a bit, pushing a bowl of chocolate towards him to help him regain himself.

“Now. I want an explanation, and I want the truth.”

Scorpious' facial expression went form dazed and confused to slightly perplexed to angry to utterly horrified. "I.... well, Rose and I wanted to tell you in the morning." he stuttered slightly. He couldn't believe his grandfather woudl cast a curse on him.

He stood up. "I need a knife." he said suddenly. "Or, sheers." he reached up, taking his eye-patch off, the gauze till covering his stitched eye. his grandfather had paid for the implant and he was positive that he could see through it. That meant, it needed to come out and be destroyed.

“Whoa whoa. Wait up. What are you going to do?” Hermione asked, suddenly concerned. She had just watched quite a few emotions cross over his face and she didn’t like where his mind might be going at that moment, and what was about them both wanting to tell her something?

Hermione wasn’t called clever for nothing. Something big was going on and Lucius Malfoy had something to do with it, and all over again he was dragging an innocent boy into the fray.

Though she didn't know what he wanted the knife for she got up and got it for him, knowing that whatever it was it must be important. He couldnt apparate out of the burrow so she wasn't worried about him running off to hurt someone and she wouldn't let him leave the kitchen without telling her what was going on.

Scorpious took it and thanked her, headded to where Rose told him the bathroom was. He took off the gauze and closed the door haphazardly behind him, allowing her to enter if she wanted as he bent over the sink, using the mirror carefully as eh cut the stitchs holding his eye shut out. he swore, letting the blood drip into the sink before pulling the glass eye out, having needed a moment to get past the pain to do so.

One hand clung to the sink for support his knuckles white, the other hand holding the black glass eye, the iris a dark red shade. "Ah.... damn." Scorpious dropped the eye into the sink, pressing his hand over his eye. that had hurt. almost as much when his real eye had burst. As the doctors had said, the reason they kept his eye sewn shut was so it woudl connect to his optic nerve. He had just severed the beging growth.

“Scorpius?” Hermione said, knocking on the door when he had taken too long for her liking. “I’m coming in.” She said firmly opening the door. She gasped when she saw what he had done to himself, immediately pulling out her wand and sitting him down on the toilet.

“What the hell did you do to yourself?!” She exclaimed, using her wand to numb the area and cast an cleansing charm to clean the wound. He didn’t get a change to protest as she pulled gauze out of the cabinet and quickly sewed the gaping hole shut and put the clean gauze on. She cleaned him up rather quickly, very glad for the umpteenth time that she had learned healing charms so well.

http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&global=1&q=evil+eye+ball#/d1mexlr

Scorpious kept his hand over the gauze. Though she had numbed it, that sort of pain went deep. "The eye." he said. "He paid for the eye-- he can see through it." he said still keeping his hand in place. He was pale, and the blood on his cheek wasn't making him look any better.

The eye in the sink rolled and swiveled, stopping with it's iris aimed at Hermione.

Scorpious was a bright kid. The eye could indeed see her.

Hermione went red, but not red like Rose did. No Hermione was pissed. She pulled out her wand, and cast a nonverbal spell that caused the eye to explode into a million pieces and then burn. The porcelain of the sink was stained with blood and smeared black where it had been burned but Hermione didn’t care. With her wand she cleaned his face off and grabbed his arm, bodily lifting him off the toilet and dragging him back to the kitchen. She tried to calm herself, taking a deep breath before she turned towards him, her brown eyes determined and dangerous.

“What have you brought to my family?” She said simply, almost cruelly, though it wasn’t Scorpius she was angry with.

Scorpious had to take several deep breaths before speaking, his voice low and slightly shaky. "Rose said you woudl be the only one who woudl listen. If I went to the ministry they woudl either lock me up and send me away, either way I'd be dead." he said. "Long story short, we think my grandfather is trying to raise a new Dark Lord to power."

He didn't dare look at the witch in front of him. "I received a letter two months ago inviting me to the initiation ceremony. Like I told Rose, it isn't something you can just turn down. I planned on staying on campus and just avoiding it, but she insisted I tell you."

Hermione took a deep breath, her mind going a mile a minute. She was processing the information. Part of her wanted to believe it wasn’t true, wanted to think he was lying, but what she had just seen with her own eyes wouldn’t let her. Besides, she could never take such an accusation without looking into it. Not after the war. Not after so many died. It was smart of them though, she had to admit, coming to her. She was one of the few people in the world who probably would listen.

“I’m glad you listened to her. Otherwise who knows where you’d be right now.” She said softly, watching him carefully.

“What initiation ceremony?”

"Most likely 6 feet under for dating a mu- muggle born." he quickly corrected his word choice.

When she asked what the ceremony was for he looked up, then to the left, reciting what he had told Rose, about the Knights of Lefay. He told her how his grandfathers stories as a child always spooked him, even mentioned how his grand father once suggested he be the new dark lord.

"Was after that day I got the tattoo.." he mumbled. He pulled out his wand. "Accio Malfoy letters." he said, summoning three enveloped. he had only shown one to Rose, the initial invite. the other two were threats- not signed but with deadly intent written on the pages. One even threatened Rose and her siblings if he refused to comply. "I've been attacked thrice in my sleep now by housemates who were also invited. had my scarf try to strangle me--" Scorpious put his head in his hands, stressed now more than ever as eh recounted everything. "I didn't even want to tell Rose, but she insisted I tell her why I had planned on staying at school."

“Have you told her about these incidents?” Hermione asked, getting the feeling he probably hadn’t. They were definitely disturbing, especially the threats towards her own children. Even if he hadn’t told her exactly everything, Hermione was pretty sure that Rose had some kind of idea what was going on. It would explain how jumpy her daughter was.

He shook his head. "No. She only knows about one letter they arrived during the ball last night." he explained the scenario that took place the night before. "I havn't slept in weeks, I've been living off of bottled sleep." he said holding up his hands to show her how horribly they were shaking. "I'm afraid if I go to sleep I wont wake up or worse, I'll wake up and be under someones curse..." he said.

She coudl see it now. he had done a good job hiding the stress and sleepless bags under his eyes. She had mot likely even dismissed his pale complexion as a Malfoy trait, though he was usually at least two shades darker.

Hermione sighed and stood. She walked over to him and did the only thing a mother can do in that situation. She hugged him. Hugged him and let him for that one moment know that someone believed him, knew what was going on, and was going to help him. She was very worried now, mostly about this boy and his life. She’d seen this before and she knew the signs. He was definitely in danger as was her daughter. Though, from what she’d heard Rose had risen valiantly in the situation to defend him, proving that she was more than ready for this situation. More than Hermione had ever given her credit for.

“Listen to me.” Hermione said, letting him go to look him in the eye. “First and foremost, you need to trust your girlfriend, yes my daughter, with everything. Whether you realize it or not she knows you’re hiding things from her. I could see that very clearly tonight. If I’m not mistaken she is probably in that room holding herself together the best she can.”

She took a deep breath and continued, her expression serious.

“Secondly, you are going to sleep, and rest while you are here. I will give you a few days before I make you talk to the rest of us, because yes they need to know.”

She sighed then and said calmly, “And we need to tell your father.” Holding up a hand to stop his protests she smiled.

“There’s a reason I recognized that it wasn’t your fathers handwriting.” She said languidly. “I’ve been in contact with him for years, keeping tabs and what not. He wrote me five years ago I believe now, apologizing for quite a lot and I’ve kept in contact since. No, no one knows and I doubt very much he told your mother. And no there’s nothing going on between us.” She added seeing the suspicious look on his face.

“It was a precaution really. He wanted me to know about something going on, some suspicious activity he was sure revolved around his father but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He needs to know about this.”