Those Frightful Malfoy Scenes
Title: Those Frightful Malfoy Scenes
Rating: G, bar a bit of swearing
Words: 3661
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine. Not with those names.
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy meets his cousin Teddy.
Notes: My muse hit me yesterday with the bones of an incredibly long plotty Scorpius/Teddy auror fic. I don't have time to write it, so we haggled a bit and I wrote this instead. Scorpius is about twelve here, and this is his first proper meeting with Teddy.
It was a bright morning in August when Grandmamma announced, “My sister Andromeda will be joining us this afternoon.”
Scorpius’ father didn’t even look up from behind the Prophet. “I will make arrangements to dine at my club.”
Grandmamma sipped her tea. Scorpius didn’t know how she could bear to drink tea in this weather, even with the cooling charms that wafted around her like perfume. She seemed to enjoy it though, by the way her lashes dipped and her lips curved into a smile as she lowered her cup.
Except that was her difficult smile. Scorpius, being a Malfoy, wasn’t allowed to slouch, but he could try to disappear into the back of his chair.
“Actually, darling,” Grandmamma said. “Andromeda will be making a permanent stay.”
The paper went very still, and his father said, “I beg your pardon.”
“Please-may-I-be-excused-from-the-table!” Scorpius blurted out. This was going to be what his mother, before she left, had always referred to as ‘one of those frightful Malfoy scenes.’
The paper lowered to show his father regarding him, one eyebrow arched. “Certainly. Please excuse yourself so I may have a candid discussion with your grandmamma without the trauma causing you long term psychological damage.”
Oh, not the Ministry idiots and their insistence on inept Muggle therapy over minor political differences speech too. Scorpius hid a wince, and slithered out of his chair, snagging a few bits of toast as he went. He made sure to walk from the room. Neither Father nor Grandmamma approved of Malfoys who ran.
“Now her grandson has left home, Andromeda is lacking in company, and I find myself eager for company.”
“So you move your blood-traitor sister into my house without consulting me?” Father inquired politely.
He’d been to stay with Albus a few times now, and he knew that other families argued too. It was just that Al’s family actually raised their voices and threw things and then laughed afterwards. The only person who had ever thrown something in the manor had been his mother, on the day she left. His father had simply glanced at the wedding ring embedded in the silk wallpaper and said, I shall forward you the bill for damages, Astoria.
“Now, really, Draco,” Grandmamma was saying, a faint note of reproach in her voice. “I shall hardly be turning you out of house and home. Andromeda will have her own rooms, and you need not encounter her at all until you regain your manners.”
“Rooms?”
Scorpius sped up a bit.
“I thought the West Wing,” Grandmamma said. “It’s a little chilly in the mornings, but compared to that ghastly Muggle hovel-”
And he was at the doors and out of the dining room. They couldn’t see him now, and the house elves were probably trembling in the cellar somewhere, so he took off at a run. Today was going to be a good day to spend reading at the far end of the gardens.
He headed along the corridor and then swung down the shallow stairs to the entrance hall.
There was a stranger standing in the middle of the hall.
Scorpius stopped dead. The manor was thoroughly warded against dangerous and undesirable elements, and nobody who wasn’t a blood relation should have been able to get through. On the other hand, blood relations included most of polite Wizarding society, and Great Aunt Andromeda was due today.
Except this clearly wasn’t Great Aunt Andromeda, unless she’d changed a lot since Scorpius has last seen her, at Grandfather Lucius’ funeral. This stranger was a lanky young man dressed in what were unmistakably Muggle clothes. He had his hands in his pockets and was squinting up at the domed ceiling, lips pursed in a silent whistle.
He had blue hair, pulled back in a scruffy tail, and as Scorpius watched his nose slowly lengthened, curling at the end before it sank back to normal.
Scorpius must have made some noise, because the stranger suddenly swung round, eyes narrowing. He spotted Scorpius almost immediately, and relaxed.
“Hey, kid.”
Scorpius hesitated, but then winced as he heard the sound of his father’s footsteps. They were approaching so rapidly that he knew his father was still furious.
“Sounds like trouble,” the stranger said, grinning.
Father swept past him, robes swirling, and then stopped on the precise curve of the stairs.
“Merlin save us,” he said, sounding martyred. “I see the barbarians are already at the gates of Rome.” Then he apparated, with a bang and a flash of light.
“Blimey!” the stranger said. “Erumpent fluid in his pockets?”
“No, it’s on the heels of his shoes,” Scorpius said, and then realised that he was probably supposed to be hospitable. As Father hadn’t hexed the stranger on sight, he must be an acceptable guest. “Er.”
“You must be Scorpius,” the stranger said. “I’m Teddy. Gran sent me over with the first few boxes.”
That explained why Scorpius hadn’t recognised him. He’d only ever caught an occasional glance at his cousin, at the station or when visiting Al, but the metamorphmagus had, of course, looked different every time.
Trying to remember his manners, Scorpius bowed his head, and said carefully, “Welcome to the manor, Cousin Theodore.”
“Everyone calls me Teddy, kid. Don’t suppose you know where Aunt Narcissa is sticking Gran?”
“The West Wing,” Scorpius said.
“Righto. I’ve got some stuff in the back of the car, so let’s chase down some house elves and get going.”
“You’ve got a car?” Scorpius said, the words rushing out of him. “A real, Muggle car? How fast does it go?”
Teddy roared with laughter, the sound bouncing off the dome of the ceiling. “Much faster than it should. Haven’t managed to get it airborne yet, but the invisibility charms and the police repellents are pretty reliable. Yell for a house elf and I’ll show you the engine while they’re moving the boxes.”
Scorpius was down the stairs and calling for Figgy in seconds. When Figgy didn’t turn up, he tried calling Flippy and Guppy and Welly, but none of them appeared either.
“Let me guess,” Teddy said wryly. “They all take orders from your dad?”
Scorpius nodded, looking down at the floor. Why was everyone in his family so petty?
“Oh, well,” Teddy said. “We’ll just have to move stuff the hard way.”
The hard way turned out to involve driving Teddy’s low-slung sports car across the lawns to the West Wing, Teddy levitating shrunken boxes up to window level and Scorpius hanging desperately out the windows to snag them before they went soaring out of reach. They finished up with Scorpius lending Teddy a broom so they could retrieve the stray boxes.
“Play Seeker?” Teddy asked breathlessly as Scorpius snagged one from under his nose.
Scorpius shook his head. “Not old enough last year.”
“Try out this year,” Teddy said. “And when you do, change your grip.” He demonstrated. “Ups your speed.”
“Thank you,” Scorpius said, bewildered. Teddy didn’t owe him a favour.
“Now, me, I was a Chaser. Always was a speed demon. I remember a time...”
Scorpius listened, wondering how anyone could chatter so easily at a near stranger.
When Teddy went to Floo to Great Aunt Andromeda’s for everything else, they discovered the Floo was sealed.
“Doesn’t do things by half, your dad,” Teddy said, wiping useless Floo powder off on his jeans. “It was going to be quite a job, anyway, getting everything through the Floo. Not all Gran’s stuff is shrinkable.”
“He doesn’t want her here,” Scorpius said miserably. “We’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“Bugger that,” Teddy said, crossing his arms. “There’s no promise he’ll have calmed down by then. Nope, if we can’t do this the easy way, we’ll do it the Muggle way.”
Scorpius blinked at him.
“What we need,” Teddy said, digging into his pockets, “is a man with a van.” He produced a small Muggle device with a flourish. “And I happen to know just the bloke. Go and tell your gran I’m kidnapping you while I give him a ring.”
Confused beyond words, Scorpius nodded and did as he was told.
*
Twenty minutes later, they were heading towards London, leaving Grandmamma prostrate in a dark room, murmuring about her nerves. Scorpius was wearing hastily transfigured and terribly uncomfortable Muggle clothes, and his face was numb from the wind blasting past. The car was somehow pumping out music which made his ears throb, and he could feel it shake beneath him, eager for speed.
It was better than flying.
“Enjoying yourself?” Teddy yelled.
“Yes!” Scorpius shouted back and grinned into the wind.
“Machines are in the genes! Rebuilt a flying motorbike a few years back! Absolute beauty!”
Scorpius had only the vaguest idea what a motorbike was, but he bounced in his seat anyway and roared, “Wonderful!”
A hour and half and four speeding tickets later, they screamed to a halt outside a grimy block of flats somewhere on the outskirts of London. Scorpius, who had been both thrilled and horrified by the way Teddy changed both his face and his numberplates for every new policeman, stared up at the building in awe. He’d never seen anything like it before. How did the house elves cope with so many people in one building?
“Stay here and I’ll get the keys off Uncle Dave,” Teddy said.
“Uncle Dave?” Scorpius echoed. His ears were still fuzzing from the drive.
“Well, same sort of cousin you are, really, but on my grandad’s side.”
With a shiver, Scorpius remembered why Great Aunt Andromeda was a blood traitor. He had to run his teeth over his lips before he could speak. “Is he a Muggle? A proper Muggle?”
“Dunno about proper,” Teddy said, and then stopped. “You ever met a Muggle, kid? One who doesn’t know about our world?”
“Never,” Scorpius said, and he wasn’t going to ask outright, because that was undignified, but he looked as pleading as he could.
Teddy groaned. “Oh, bloody hell. I see what Aunt Hermione means, now. And cut that out. I get enough of the kicked puppy look from Albus these days.”
“I taught him,” Scorpius said smugly, feeling like his termtime self for the first time in weeks.
“Slytherins in the family,” Teddy muttered. “Come on then, and keep your mouth shut.”
*
Dave was the most exotic creature Scorpius had ever seen. He looked a bit like a goblin, wore a string vest with chest hair poking through the holes, and choked down every fourth word to avoid swearing. He and Teddy were engaged in what was probably banter, though Scorpius didn’t understand a word of it. Instead, he looked around Dave’s flat, trying to take in as much as he could. It wasn’t as if he’d ever be allowed to see a proper Muggle dwelling again.
The windows were covered with thin strips of metal linked by white chains. The floor was made out of some sort of shiny brown tiles, and there was dust in the corners. A huge box in the corner showed a constant stream of moving images. There was a pyramid of metal cans in the corner, and an open one on the table in front of a sagging chair. Scorpius sniffed carefully, and decided it must be something alcoholic.
“Who’s this then?” Dave said, turning to squint at Scorpius.
“Cousin on Gran’s side,” Teddy said easily and held out his hand for the keys.
“Yeah? What’s your name, kid?”
“Scorpius Malfoy,” he muttered, darting a panicked look at Teddy.
“Tough luck,” Dave said, and thumped him on the shoulder lightly. “Make sure this nutter drives safely, all right?”
Scorpius nodded, but then reconsidered. “Faster’s better, sir.”
“Don’t make him take the keys back, kid,” Teddy said, closing his hand around them. “I’ll be back for my car later, all right, Dave? Give my love to Auntie Kath and the rest.”
“Better be bloody back,” Dave muttered. “With my van in one piece, ta very much.”
*
The van bounced a lot more than Teddy’s car had, but it still went at a satisfying speed and the music was much louder. It had a little naked lady swinging off the mirror and smelt stale and musty. Teddy wound all the windows down and sang along to the music in an off-key voice. After a while, the songs started going around again, and this time Scorpius felt brave enough to join in.
Teddy had told Dave that Scorpius was his cousin, and that had been enough for Dave to accept him. Scorpius thought about his other cousins, the Greengrass ones, and the odd mixture of resignation and affection he always felt around them. He supposed Teddy might be feeling the same way about him, if that was how family was supposed to work, except he was beginning to think that Teddy was a thousand times better than the other cousins. The Greengrasses were so prim and prissy that they made Scorpius want to drop the sort of snide remarks that his father used around people from the Ministry, whereas Teddy just made him want to laugh and shout as if he was some mad Gryffindor.
They got stuck in traffic on a flyover somewhere, and Scorpius hung out of the window eagerly to stare at all the Muggles. Teddy tugged him back in before they went through a huge tunnel that made Scorpius’ ears pop. They took a corner too fast and a Muggle in a lorry yelled, “Learn to drive, you wanker!”
Teddy stuck a finger up in his direction and put his foot down again. “Like to see him on a broom!”
“Have you driven this before?” Scorpius asked. It really was much bumpier than the car had been.
“Yeah. Moved all my stuff out a few weeks back. My flat’s right in the middle of Muggle London. Bloody brilliant.”
“Isn’t that expensive?” Scorpius asked. His father had been eloquent on London prices when they’d had to give up the town house a few years ago.
“Nah. Been in the family for years. Belonged to Gran’s cousin first, bit of a black sheep. Then he went to Azkaban, poor sod, and Gran rented it out for a bit. Then Mum had it, until she died, and now it’s mine.”
“My Grandfather Lucius went to Azkaban,” Scorpius said. “My father says it sent him to an early grave.”
“Could be right. From all I heard old Sirius had a rough time of it, and he was innocent. It was a bad place, back in the old days.”
An innocent man had gone to Azkaban. Scorpius shivered and wondered how to close his window. He didn’t want to die young, like his grandfather, but he had assumed he’d be safe as long as he was very careful and didn’t read all the books in his father’s library.
“I don’t want to be a Dark Wizard,” he said.
“No reason why you should be.”
“I’m descended from an awful lot of them.”
“So am I,” Teddy said cheerfully, hitting a button which made the window whir up. “And I’m not planning to take over the world.”
“What do you do?” Scorpius asked, spirits lifting a bit.
“Auror training,” Teddy said, a note of pride in his voice.
Scorpius’ father had strong views on Aurors. All the same, he managed to say, “That’s great.”
“Cheers. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” Scorpius said, startled. No one had asked him before. “I suppose I could play Quidditch.”
“Good plan,” Teddy said. “Support a team?”
They talked Quidditch through an hour’s worth of traffic jams, and finally arrived in a little sideroad full of square Muggle houses. Scorpius spotted his great-aunt’s house immediately - its front garden was full of both people and furniture.
“Ah, the reinforcements have arrived,” Teddy said, slowing to a halt.
Scorpius took another look out of the window, and recognised two familiar heads of messy hair bent over an old piano. He tried to launch himself out of the van, forgetting that he was wearing a seatbelt. By the time he’d untangled himself, Albus was dragging him towards the garden, yelling insults in his ear.
Malfoys, of course, couldn’t stand for being mocked by Potters, so Scorpius thumped him, and they went rolling between chairs and cardboard boxes until James waded in to separate them.
“Take it you broke him out then,” he called towards Teddy.
“Glad I did,” Teddy boomed back. “First passenger I’ve ever had who doesn’t scream like a girl when I hit a roundabout.”
“I see the Black genes bred true, then,” a dry voice said from the doorway, and Scorpius scrambled out of James’ grip, trying to stand up straight. She sounded just like Grandmamma.
She looked a good deal less elegant, though, and she smiled at him just like Teddy had. “There you are, dear. I saved lunch for you.”
What was he supposed to say to that? She was family, which meant he had to be polite, even if it sounded stupid. “I’m delighted to meet you, Great Aunt Andromeda.”
She winced. “You’re making me feel old. Aunt Andromeda will do, or Gran Tonks if you think Narcissa won’t mind. At least I’m used to that one.”
Scorpius thought of his grandmamma, who by now had probably moved her nerves to the terrace with a plate of cucumber sandwiches. He didn’t think she’d mind.
The kitchen was almost empty, but there was one chair left. Chunky sandwiches were waiting on the sideboard. Gran Tonks chatted to him as he ate, and he gradually forgot to be polite and starting answering her questions. While he was eating James and Teddy came and took the fridge away, with a fair amount of swearing and name-calling every time they dropped it.
Scorpius tried not to laugh at them, but couldn’t quite hold it back. Gran Tonks hummed and came over to tip his chin up with her fingers, studying his face.
“Yes,” she murmured to herself. “I think Albus was right.”
Scorpius blinked at her, wondering what on earth his friend had been saying about him.
“Oy!” that same friend yelled through the open window a few seconds later. “Are you coming to help or are you just going to stuff your face all afternoon?”
Teddy finally did something only semi-legal to the van to get everything in, and at last they managed to chain the doors shut and pile into the front seat of the van. Gran Tonks took one look at them and announced that she would be apparating to the manor.
They drove back to Wiltshire at a slightly slower pace, with Scorpius jammed between Albus and James while their little sister bounced from knee to knee. Scorpius was amused to note that both James and Albus actually did scream every time Teddy went over the top of a roundabout, although Lily, who actually was a girl, just demanded they go faster.
Once they arrived, Teddy tried to preside over the unloading, but it turned chaotic fast. Grandmamma and Gran Tonks appeared briefly and then exchanged a silent glance before withdrawing to the terrace again.
Pausing for breath as they lugged a bookcase across the entrance hall, Scorpius demanded, “What did you say about me to Gran Tonks?”
Albus shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Al!”
Albus shuffled his feet and wiped his face on his sleeve. It was hot in here, but Scorpius knew an avoidance technique when he saw one. He gave Albus his best glare, the one he practiced in the mirror on rainy days.
“I just said that you were all right, but you got a bit squashed in the hols.”
“Squashed?” Scorpius repeated indignantly. “Do I look squashed to you?”
“Nah, but you’ve been Pottered. I bet you were squashed this morning.”
“I was not!” And to prove it, he hit Albus again, which he always thought proved something, even if it was hard to define what.
For the second time this afternoon, they fell into a fight, all elbows and fists and whooping laughter. Scorpius, who had never heard this much noise in the manor, was dimly aware that the others had come running and that at least one voice was cheering him on rather than Al.
It wasn’t until he rolled into his father’s legs that he reconsidered the wisdom of his actions.
“Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy,” Father said, with a weight of reproach that would have made Grandmamma proud.
Albus removed his arm from around Scorpius’ neck and grinned up at him. “Hullo, Mr Malfoy.”
Father, who Scorpius strongly suspected of actually liking Al, shuddered delicately and looked around. “Oh, really, not merely halfbreeds and blood traitors, but Potters as well?”
“Sorry,” Albus said cheerfully. “We’d have brought the Weasleys too, but we couldn’t get them in the van.”
Father twitched and flounced off, robes swishing. “If anyone should want me, I shall be barricaded inside the library until this place has been fumigated.”
Scorpius groaned and bagged his head against the floor.
Albus snickered and scrambled up, offering him a hand. “Thought you said he was in a bad mood.”
“He was,” Teddy said cheerfully. “And I thought you two were on bookcase duty.”
Albus muttered, rolling his eyes, but stomped off towards the bookcase again. Scorpius hesitated, feeling his stomach twist.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “He doesn’t like strangers much.”
Teddy snorted. “Oh, I’ve heard worse, kid. Just wait. Gran won’t let him get away with that for long.”
“He’ll just get rid of her.”
Teddy lowered his voice to whisper sinisterly, “Nobody gets rid of Gran Tonks.”
Scorpius made himself laugh, and Teddy squeezed his shoulder. “You’re stuck with us for the foreseeable future, kid.”
On reflection, Scorpius thought that was the best news he’d heard all summer. Grinning slightly, he went back to helping Albus with the bookcase. Maybe, if he was really lucky, they’d all stick around long enough for Teddy to teach him how to drive.
Rating: G, bar a bit of swearing
Words: 3661
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine. Not with those names.
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy meets his cousin Teddy.
Notes: My muse hit me yesterday with the bones of an incredibly long plotty Scorpius/Teddy auror fic. I don't have time to write it, so we haggled a bit and I wrote this instead. Scorpius is about twelve here, and this is his first proper meeting with Teddy.
It was a bright morning in August when Grandmamma announced, “My sister Andromeda will be joining us this afternoon.”
Scorpius’ father didn’t even look up from behind the Prophet. “I will make arrangements to dine at my club.”
Grandmamma sipped her tea. Scorpius didn’t know how she could bear to drink tea in this weather, even with the cooling charms that wafted around her like perfume. She seemed to enjoy it though, by the way her lashes dipped and her lips curved into a smile as she lowered her cup.
Except that was her difficult smile. Scorpius, being a Malfoy, wasn’t allowed to slouch, but he could try to disappear into the back of his chair.
“Actually, darling,” Grandmamma said. “Andromeda will be making a permanent stay.”
The paper went very still, and his father said, “I beg your pardon.”
“Please-may-I-be-excused-from-the-table!” Scorpius blurted out. This was going to be what his mother, before she left, had always referred to as ‘one of those frightful Malfoy scenes.’
The paper lowered to show his father regarding him, one eyebrow arched. “Certainly. Please excuse yourself so I may have a candid discussion with your grandmamma without the trauma causing you long term psychological damage.”
Oh, not the Ministry idiots and their insistence on inept Muggle therapy over minor political differences speech too. Scorpius hid a wince, and slithered out of his chair, snagging a few bits of toast as he went. He made sure to walk from the room. Neither Father nor Grandmamma approved of Malfoys who ran.
“Now her grandson has left home, Andromeda is lacking in company, and I find myself eager for company.”
“So you move your blood-traitor sister into my house without consulting me?” Father inquired politely.
He’d been to stay with Albus a few times now, and he knew that other families argued too. It was just that Al’s family actually raised their voices and threw things and then laughed afterwards. The only person who had ever thrown something in the manor had been his mother, on the day she left. His father had simply glanced at the wedding ring embedded in the silk wallpaper and said, I shall forward you the bill for damages, Astoria.
“Now, really, Draco,” Grandmamma was saying, a faint note of reproach in her voice. “I shall hardly be turning you out of house and home. Andromeda will have her own rooms, and you need not encounter her at all until you regain your manners.”
“Rooms?”
Scorpius sped up a bit.
“I thought the West Wing,” Grandmamma said. “It’s a little chilly in the mornings, but compared to that ghastly Muggle hovel-”
And he was at the doors and out of the dining room. They couldn’t see him now, and the house elves were probably trembling in the cellar somewhere, so he took off at a run. Today was going to be a good day to spend reading at the far end of the gardens.
He headed along the corridor and then swung down the shallow stairs to the entrance hall.
There was a stranger standing in the middle of the hall.
Scorpius stopped dead. The manor was thoroughly warded against dangerous and undesirable elements, and nobody who wasn’t a blood relation should have been able to get through. On the other hand, blood relations included most of polite Wizarding society, and Great Aunt Andromeda was due today.
Except this clearly wasn’t Great Aunt Andromeda, unless she’d changed a lot since Scorpius has last seen her, at Grandfather Lucius’ funeral. This stranger was a lanky young man dressed in what were unmistakably Muggle clothes. He had his hands in his pockets and was squinting up at the domed ceiling, lips pursed in a silent whistle.
He had blue hair, pulled back in a scruffy tail, and as Scorpius watched his nose slowly lengthened, curling at the end before it sank back to normal.
Scorpius must have made some noise, because the stranger suddenly swung round, eyes narrowing. He spotted Scorpius almost immediately, and relaxed.
“Hey, kid.”
Scorpius hesitated, but then winced as he heard the sound of his father’s footsteps. They were approaching so rapidly that he knew his father was still furious.
“Sounds like trouble,” the stranger said, grinning.
Father swept past him, robes swirling, and then stopped on the precise curve of the stairs.
“Merlin save us,” he said, sounding martyred. “I see the barbarians are already at the gates of Rome.” Then he apparated, with a bang and a flash of light.
“Blimey!” the stranger said. “Erumpent fluid in his pockets?”
“No, it’s on the heels of his shoes,” Scorpius said, and then realised that he was probably supposed to be hospitable. As Father hadn’t hexed the stranger on sight, he must be an acceptable guest. “Er.”
“You must be Scorpius,” the stranger said. “I’m Teddy. Gran sent me over with the first few boxes.”
That explained why Scorpius hadn’t recognised him. He’d only ever caught an occasional glance at his cousin, at the station or when visiting Al, but the metamorphmagus had, of course, looked different every time.
Trying to remember his manners, Scorpius bowed his head, and said carefully, “Welcome to the manor, Cousin Theodore.”
“Everyone calls me Teddy, kid. Don’t suppose you know where Aunt Narcissa is sticking Gran?”
“The West Wing,” Scorpius said.
“Righto. I’ve got some stuff in the back of the car, so let’s chase down some house elves and get going.”
“You’ve got a car?” Scorpius said, the words rushing out of him. “A real, Muggle car? How fast does it go?”
Teddy roared with laughter, the sound bouncing off the dome of the ceiling. “Much faster than it should. Haven’t managed to get it airborne yet, but the invisibility charms and the police repellents are pretty reliable. Yell for a house elf and I’ll show you the engine while they’re moving the boxes.”
Scorpius was down the stairs and calling for Figgy in seconds. When Figgy didn’t turn up, he tried calling Flippy and Guppy and Welly, but none of them appeared either.
“Let me guess,” Teddy said wryly. “They all take orders from your dad?”
Scorpius nodded, looking down at the floor. Why was everyone in his family so petty?
“Oh, well,” Teddy said. “We’ll just have to move stuff the hard way.”
The hard way turned out to involve driving Teddy’s low-slung sports car across the lawns to the West Wing, Teddy levitating shrunken boxes up to window level and Scorpius hanging desperately out the windows to snag them before they went soaring out of reach. They finished up with Scorpius lending Teddy a broom so they could retrieve the stray boxes.
“Play Seeker?” Teddy asked breathlessly as Scorpius snagged one from under his nose.
Scorpius shook his head. “Not old enough last year.”
“Try out this year,” Teddy said. “And when you do, change your grip.” He demonstrated. “Ups your speed.”
“Thank you,” Scorpius said, bewildered. Teddy didn’t owe him a favour.
“Now, me, I was a Chaser. Always was a speed demon. I remember a time...”
Scorpius listened, wondering how anyone could chatter so easily at a near stranger.
When Teddy went to Floo to Great Aunt Andromeda’s for everything else, they discovered the Floo was sealed.
“Doesn’t do things by half, your dad,” Teddy said, wiping useless Floo powder off on his jeans. “It was going to be quite a job, anyway, getting everything through the Floo. Not all Gran’s stuff is shrinkable.”
“He doesn’t want her here,” Scorpius said miserably. “We’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“Bugger that,” Teddy said, crossing his arms. “There’s no promise he’ll have calmed down by then. Nope, if we can’t do this the easy way, we’ll do it the Muggle way.”
Scorpius blinked at him.
“What we need,” Teddy said, digging into his pockets, “is a man with a van.” He produced a small Muggle device with a flourish. “And I happen to know just the bloke. Go and tell your gran I’m kidnapping you while I give him a ring.”
Confused beyond words, Scorpius nodded and did as he was told.
*
Twenty minutes later, they were heading towards London, leaving Grandmamma prostrate in a dark room, murmuring about her nerves. Scorpius was wearing hastily transfigured and terribly uncomfortable Muggle clothes, and his face was numb from the wind blasting past. The car was somehow pumping out music which made his ears throb, and he could feel it shake beneath him, eager for speed.
It was better than flying.
“Enjoying yourself?” Teddy yelled.
“Yes!” Scorpius shouted back and grinned into the wind.
“Machines are in the genes! Rebuilt a flying motorbike a few years back! Absolute beauty!”
Scorpius had only the vaguest idea what a motorbike was, but he bounced in his seat anyway and roared, “Wonderful!”
A hour and half and four speeding tickets later, they screamed to a halt outside a grimy block of flats somewhere on the outskirts of London. Scorpius, who had been both thrilled and horrified by the way Teddy changed both his face and his numberplates for every new policeman, stared up at the building in awe. He’d never seen anything like it before. How did the house elves cope with so many people in one building?
“Stay here and I’ll get the keys off Uncle Dave,” Teddy said.
“Uncle Dave?” Scorpius echoed. His ears were still fuzzing from the drive.
“Well, same sort of cousin you are, really, but on my grandad’s side.”
With a shiver, Scorpius remembered why Great Aunt Andromeda was a blood traitor. He had to run his teeth over his lips before he could speak. “Is he a Muggle? A proper Muggle?”
“Dunno about proper,” Teddy said, and then stopped. “You ever met a Muggle, kid? One who doesn’t know about our world?”
“Never,” Scorpius said, and he wasn’t going to ask outright, because that was undignified, but he looked as pleading as he could.
Teddy groaned. “Oh, bloody hell. I see what Aunt Hermione means, now. And cut that out. I get enough of the kicked puppy look from Albus these days.”
“I taught him,” Scorpius said smugly, feeling like his termtime self for the first time in weeks.
“Slytherins in the family,” Teddy muttered. “Come on then, and keep your mouth shut.”
*
Dave was the most exotic creature Scorpius had ever seen. He looked a bit like a goblin, wore a string vest with chest hair poking through the holes, and choked down every fourth word to avoid swearing. He and Teddy were engaged in what was probably banter, though Scorpius didn’t understand a word of it. Instead, he looked around Dave’s flat, trying to take in as much as he could. It wasn’t as if he’d ever be allowed to see a proper Muggle dwelling again.
The windows were covered with thin strips of metal linked by white chains. The floor was made out of some sort of shiny brown tiles, and there was dust in the corners. A huge box in the corner showed a constant stream of moving images. There was a pyramid of metal cans in the corner, and an open one on the table in front of a sagging chair. Scorpius sniffed carefully, and decided it must be something alcoholic.
“Who’s this then?” Dave said, turning to squint at Scorpius.
“Cousin on Gran’s side,” Teddy said easily and held out his hand for the keys.
“Yeah? What’s your name, kid?”
“Scorpius Malfoy,” he muttered, darting a panicked look at Teddy.
“Tough luck,” Dave said, and thumped him on the shoulder lightly. “Make sure this nutter drives safely, all right?”
Scorpius nodded, but then reconsidered. “Faster’s better, sir.”
“Don’t make him take the keys back, kid,” Teddy said, closing his hand around them. “I’ll be back for my car later, all right, Dave? Give my love to Auntie Kath and the rest.”
“Better be bloody back,” Dave muttered. “With my van in one piece, ta very much.”
*
The van bounced a lot more than Teddy’s car had, but it still went at a satisfying speed and the music was much louder. It had a little naked lady swinging off the mirror and smelt stale and musty. Teddy wound all the windows down and sang along to the music in an off-key voice. After a while, the songs started going around again, and this time Scorpius felt brave enough to join in.
Teddy had told Dave that Scorpius was his cousin, and that had been enough for Dave to accept him. Scorpius thought about his other cousins, the Greengrass ones, and the odd mixture of resignation and affection he always felt around them. He supposed Teddy might be feeling the same way about him, if that was how family was supposed to work, except he was beginning to think that Teddy was a thousand times better than the other cousins. The Greengrasses were so prim and prissy that they made Scorpius want to drop the sort of snide remarks that his father used around people from the Ministry, whereas Teddy just made him want to laugh and shout as if he was some mad Gryffindor.
They got stuck in traffic on a flyover somewhere, and Scorpius hung out of the window eagerly to stare at all the Muggles. Teddy tugged him back in before they went through a huge tunnel that made Scorpius’ ears pop. They took a corner too fast and a Muggle in a lorry yelled, “Learn to drive, you wanker!”
Teddy stuck a finger up in his direction and put his foot down again. “Like to see him on a broom!”
“Have you driven this before?” Scorpius asked. It really was much bumpier than the car had been.
“Yeah. Moved all my stuff out a few weeks back. My flat’s right in the middle of Muggle London. Bloody brilliant.”
“Isn’t that expensive?” Scorpius asked. His father had been eloquent on London prices when they’d had to give up the town house a few years ago.
“Nah. Been in the family for years. Belonged to Gran’s cousin first, bit of a black sheep. Then he went to Azkaban, poor sod, and Gran rented it out for a bit. Then Mum had it, until she died, and now it’s mine.”
“My Grandfather Lucius went to Azkaban,” Scorpius said. “My father says it sent him to an early grave.”
“Could be right. From all I heard old Sirius had a rough time of it, and he was innocent. It was a bad place, back in the old days.”
An innocent man had gone to Azkaban. Scorpius shivered and wondered how to close his window. He didn’t want to die young, like his grandfather, but he had assumed he’d be safe as long as he was very careful and didn’t read all the books in his father’s library.
“I don’t want to be a Dark Wizard,” he said.
“No reason why you should be.”
“I’m descended from an awful lot of them.”
“So am I,” Teddy said cheerfully, hitting a button which made the window whir up. “And I’m not planning to take over the world.”
“What do you do?” Scorpius asked, spirits lifting a bit.
“Auror training,” Teddy said, a note of pride in his voice.
Scorpius’ father had strong views on Aurors. All the same, he managed to say, “That’s great.”
“Cheers. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” Scorpius said, startled. No one had asked him before. “I suppose I could play Quidditch.”
“Good plan,” Teddy said. “Support a team?”
They talked Quidditch through an hour’s worth of traffic jams, and finally arrived in a little sideroad full of square Muggle houses. Scorpius spotted his great-aunt’s house immediately - its front garden was full of both people and furniture.
“Ah, the reinforcements have arrived,” Teddy said, slowing to a halt.
Scorpius took another look out of the window, and recognised two familiar heads of messy hair bent over an old piano. He tried to launch himself out of the van, forgetting that he was wearing a seatbelt. By the time he’d untangled himself, Albus was dragging him towards the garden, yelling insults in his ear.
Malfoys, of course, couldn’t stand for being mocked by Potters, so Scorpius thumped him, and they went rolling between chairs and cardboard boxes until James waded in to separate them.
“Take it you broke him out then,” he called towards Teddy.
“Glad I did,” Teddy boomed back. “First passenger I’ve ever had who doesn’t scream like a girl when I hit a roundabout.”
“I see the Black genes bred true, then,” a dry voice said from the doorway, and Scorpius scrambled out of James’ grip, trying to stand up straight. She sounded just like Grandmamma.
She looked a good deal less elegant, though, and she smiled at him just like Teddy had. “There you are, dear. I saved lunch for you.”
What was he supposed to say to that? She was family, which meant he had to be polite, even if it sounded stupid. “I’m delighted to meet you, Great Aunt Andromeda.”
She winced. “You’re making me feel old. Aunt Andromeda will do, or Gran Tonks if you think Narcissa won’t mind. At least I’m used to that one.”
Scorpius thought of his grandmamma, who by now had probably moved her nerves to the terrace with a plate of cucumber sandwiches. He didn’t think she’d mind.
The kitchen was almost empty, but there was one chair left. Chunky sandwiches were waiting on the sideboard. Gran Tonks chatted to him as he ate, and he gradually forgot to be polite and starting answering her questions. While he was eating James and Teddy came and took the fridge away, with a fair amount of swearing and name-calling every time they dropped it.
Scorpius tried not to laugh at them, but couldn’t quite hold it back. Gran Tonks hummed and came over to tip his chin up with her fingers, studying his face.
“Yes,” she murmured to herself. “I think Albus was right.”
Scorpius blinked at her, wondering what on earth his friend had been saying about him.
“Oy!” that same friend yelled through the open window a few seconds later. “Are you coming to help or are you just going to stuff your face all afternoon?”
Teddy finally did something only semi-legal to the van to get everything in, and at last they managed to chain the doors shut and pile into the front seat of the van. Gran Tonks took one look at them and announced that she would be apparating to the manor.
They drove back to Wiltshire at a slightly slower pace, with Scorpius jammed between Albus and James while their little sister bounced from knee to knee. Scorpius was amused to note that both James and Albus actually did scream every time Teddy went over the top of a roundabout, although Lily, who actually was a girl, just demanded they go faster.
Once they arrived, Teddy tried to preside over the unloading, but it turned chaotic fast. Grandmamma and Gran Tonks appeared briefly and then exchanged a silent glance before withdrawing to the terrace again.
Pausing for breath as they lugged a bookcase across the entrance hall, Scorpius demanded, “What did you say about me to Gran Tonks?”
Albus shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Al!”
Albus shuffled his feet and wiped his face on his sleeve. It was hot in here, but Scorpius knew an avoidance technique when he saw one. He gave Albus his best glare, the one he practiced in the mirror on rainy days.
“I just said that you were all right, but you got a bit squashed in the hols.”
“Squashed?” Scorpius repeated indignantly. “Do I look squashed to you?”
“Nah, but you’ve been Pottered. I bet you were squashed this morning.”
“I was not!” And to prove it, he hit Albus again, which he always thought proved something, even if it was hard to define what.
For the second time this afternoon, they fell into a fight, all elbows and fists and whooping laughter. Scorpius, who had never heard this much noise in the manor, was dimly aware that the others had come running and that at least one voice was cheering him on rather than Al.
It wasn’t until he rolled into his father’s legs that he reconsidered the wisdom of his actions.
“Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy,” Father said, with a weight of reproach that would have made Grandmamma proud.
Albus removed his arm from around Scorpius’ neck and grinned up at him. “Hullo, Mr Malfoy.”
Father, who Scorpius strongly suspected of actually liking Al, shuddered delicately and looked around. “Oh, really, not merely halfbreeds and blood traitors, but Potters as well?”
“Sorry,” Albus said cheerfully. “We’d have brought the Weasleys too, but we couldn’t get them in the van.”
Father twitched and flounced off, robes swishing. “If anyone should want me, I shall be barricaded inside the library until this place has been fumigated.”
Scorpius groaned and bagged his head against the floor.
Albus snickered and scrambled up, offering him a hand. “Thought you said he was in a bad mood.”
“He was,” Teddy said cheerfully. “And I thought you two were on bookcase duty.”
Albus muttered, rolling his eyes, but stomped off towards the bookcase again. Scorpius hesitated, feeling his stomach twist.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “He doesn’t like strangers much.”
Teddy snorted. “Oh, I’ve heard worse, kid. Just wait. Gran won’t let him get away with that for long.”
“He’ll just get rid of her.”
Teddy lowered his voice to whisper sinisterly, “Nobody gets rid of Gran Tonks.”
Scorpius made himself laugh, and Teddy squeezed his shoulder. “You’re stuck with us for the foreseeable future, kid.”
On reflection, Scorpius thought that was the best news he’d heard all summer. Grinning slightly, he went back to helping Albus with the bookcase. Maybe, if he was really lucky, they’d all stick around long enough for Teddy to teach him how to drive.