As is likely obvious by now, this is not canon to the Cursed Child. My personal canon is seven books long, and that is to what this story holds true. Please understand.

Yeah, so. ^ That message was written about two years ago, and all in all I started this story so long ago it feels like a different life. With all that being said, at every step of the way I've known exactly where I was going and that hasn't changed at all. It's just the adult life and adult responsibilities and the personal writings and everything else getting in the way.

Nonetheless, something that has me routinely returning to this story to chug along is the ending that's waiting on the other side. If you're still out there, please bare with me and try to keep me going. I don't know how long it'll take, but by Merlin, we're going to get there. Someday.

18

The fact that Albus Potter was going out with Rhystara Malfoy did not interest anyone, precisely because exactly no one knew. Which – while mutually considered the best way to cope with best mates and brothers in the interim – was unequivocally the most shocking thing about them, since Rhysta thought them blatantly obvious to anyone who happened to be paying attention.

She didn't expect them to be so transparent. Yes, she'd privately clutched his jacket to her chest behind the secrecy of her four-poster curtains all night after Hogsmeade – unable to sleep or even escape from the mind-numbing, knee-weakening memory of his lips blazing a path across her skin because, quite honestly, his glorious green eyes alone aroused her – but, still, she'd never before been the type to throw herself at some bloke whenever possible.

Albus was different. And now that she had admitted all of her feelings to herself, she was shocked how enslaved she'd become to her desires.

It had started out silently memorizing each others' schedules, free periods, breaks, and routes, and then very soon afterward had deteriorated into the rather childish and delightful game of jumping each other from behind pillars when nobody was watching and stealing into the nearest broom closet. Rhysta had a fairly extensive knowledge of Hogwarts' layout, but she'd never before realized how many of those magnificently-placed closets there were. The founders had possessed incredible foresight.

For the first time in her life, though Professor Donovan waved it off, she was late to class. Not because they'd tarried carelessly, but because she was too lost in the feeling of his scouring hands and scouring lips to care about anything else until they came up for air. As a result, it took far too long to comb the dishevelment from her hair and right her clothing. Had it been less enjoyable, she may well have minded. Nevertheless, Albus' ability to straighten his tie and be off as merry as ever was certainly infuriating. As was the way she couldn't seem to remember the importance of schoolwork as soon as his arms were around her.

"What are you smirking at?" she snapped as they pulled back on one such occasion.

The git jerked his shirt straight and peered down at her ever the smugger, taking her hands into his and pressing them back against the closet's wall. "Just admiring my handiwork. I'm entirely delighted by the way you just can't get enough of me."

"Shove off, Potter," she growled, forcing herself to stare at his eyes instead of his approaching lips, half-heartedly dodging the advance despite the urge to do the utter opposite. "I've had quite enough of you. In fact, this may be..." She shivered as his lips brushed against her jaw, then groaned when they slipped to her neck. "...far too much... of you..."

"That's right, Malfoy," he muttered huskily between ministrations. "Keep lying, please..."

She shoved him off with a hiss and slapped his arm when he laughed, storming out of the broom closet before she completely lost control and jumped him. His laughter followed her into the mercifully empty hallway that she hadn't checked, as if he knew she would only be back for more. And, sure enough, when she realized they had five minutes to spare, she almost pivoted and marched right back inside.

Merlin, but she hated him.

The toughest thing about it was that a purely physical relationship would have been enough to stand being outrageously attracted to him, but for all of that they spent every moment possible snogging – because it might be a whole afternoon before they'd get another opportunity – they actually spent more time talking than devouring. And that was what made Rhysta's stomach squirm with delight and terror and delicious apprehension all at the same time: that Albus Potter made her melt on the outside and the inside, and he did it almost without exception.

Their studying sessions in the library continued, and it was here that they interacted by speaking. The overall layout of their time there didn't change, and only to a very acute outside observer would the differences be notable, but she detected the alteration very finely. Their chairs were suddenly inches closer than they would have been normally. Before, a hand or a knee might have brushed once an hour and hastily retreated from personal space; now, his fingers toyed playfully with hers so much she had to bat them away to get anything done, or even her leg casually hooked over his knee and never unhooked.

That was physical, too, she supposed. The way they spoke was not. Their voices were softer now, their words more tender. He smiled more, and she squirmed more when he did so. She didn't get so frustrated when he failed to take immediate comprehension of a subject, and he didn't lose patience with her when she had trouble grasping a concept he had instinctively mastered. Their sessions lasted longer and often stretched until Madam Johnstone had to shepherd them from the library.

Which had a startling tendency only to induce more broom closet visits, as it so happened. Which made worth mentioning her valuable memorization of the prefect patrol schedules.

Angelica and Natalia noticed her hyper-elated mood. Their eyes narrowed when she wished them a bright good morning and widened in surprise when she told them to lighten up over schoolwork. More than once, they asked her if she was feeling all right, going so far as to insinuate life-threatening disease, polyjuice potion, and the Imperius curse. Cora was the first one to guess that it was about a boy, and then she was forced to lie. That wasn't even the most dangerous part.

"Potter, eh?" Sylvia whispered to Rhysta at breakfast the Saturday morning two weeks after the fateful Hogsmeade visit. The Ravenclaw had joined the three Slytherin friends at the end of the Slytherin table, and had chosen a moment when Angelica and Natalia were arguing loudly over something ridiculous to strike.

Rhysta absolutely choked on her pumpkin juice and ended up dribbling half of it over her chin. Neither of her other friends noticed, which was a miracle. Frantically wiping herself clean, she swung to glare at the smirking Ravenclaw and played dumb. "Potter? What's Potter?"

"You and him," the blasted girl murmured knowingly. Then she winked. Rhysta's jaw almost fell open. "You've crossed a line, the two of you, haven't you?"

She made a show of blanching, and quite convincingly, in her opinion. Sylvia's smirk didn't lessen one bit. "You mean me and him? As if. He's hopeless, as hopeless as ever at Ancient Runes. Besides, he's a Gryffindor, and you know I can't stand him..."

"I know you couldn't stand him," Sylvia corrected, "but come on, Rhysta, I'm sure half the castle has noticed the way everything has changed since Christmas. Ever since you started tutoring him."

"Have you been listening to me at all lately? All I ever do is complain about him!"

Sylvia shook her head. "And then he disappeared in Hogsmeade right after you got your animagus license, and you followed suit right after that."

She rolled her eyes. "I've told all of you, nothing happened, I just met him on the way up to the castle—"

"And then Angelica set you two up," Sylvia deadpanned, closing her book and propping a beaming face on one palm. "And then you both ran out after each other. And now you haven't once cried, complained, or snarled about a boy named Potter since."

Rhysta gaped, for a long moment, and then humbly closed her mouth. Her chin swung to regard her quarreling friends and then hastily retreated. Neither of them had said a thing – and she'd utterly forgotten Angelica had been involved, through some magical obliviation by infatuation – and hadn't thought of it until just now. She hadn't asked Albus what had happened after she'd run out, either, and his smug brain hadn't thought it fit to warn her. Her senses were abandoning her. She blamed his smirk more than his lips. "Does everyone know, then?"

"Nah." She went right back to her book, obviously pleased with herself. Rhysta would have hexed her if she were any less abruptly horrified. Turning pages, Sylvia nodded at the snarling couple, who were lobbying Cora on each of their behalves, in prime Slytherin form. "I assume those two cooked it up together. They haven't even told Cora. I'd wager they're waiting for you to go to them."

Rhysta snorted. "Why, they were all about shoving me into his face before—" She clamped her mouth shut, far too late to prevent another widening smirk. Merlin, but people were doing that a lot to her lately. And ceding free information to a Ravenclaw was like using a dragon to shepherd thestrals. Outcomes were negligibly harmless. "Nothing happened. He apologized and we went our separate ways."

"Until Monday night." The bitch didn't even look up.

"N.E.W.T.s are coming."

"I didn't know your studious prowess shone most in Filch's third-floor broom closet."

Naturally, Rhysta had deemed that very moment a safe chance to take another drink. This time, she showered the three nearest plates, and the adjacent argument froze to regard her. Natalia rubbed her shoulder. "You all right, love?"

"Never better," Rhysta croaked. Sylvia winked at her across the table, and she almost choked on air this time. She wove a soothing charm around her aching throat and wondered how difficult it would be to smother a Ravenclaw in their sleep. Never better, she thought sarcastically of her chances. The argument reserved, her nonchalant answer accepted. At least she hadn't lied.

She avoided them all after that. They had the excuse. April dawned. Quidditch was over – to her silent relief, for Albus' sake – and her unspoken seventh year status was matched by a majority of her classmates. Two months until exams had most of the castle sweating, and none more than her. Albus seemed less concerned but never complained when she rattled on about the necessities of study. He was probably used to it, growing up with Rose. Between school and the aforementioned red-headed cousin, Rhysta never even saw Scorpius anymore. A blessing-in-disguise, that, though Albus made no mention of it, either.

Difficult though it was, Rhysta set everything aside when it came to her studies with McGonagall. She had, quite naively, expected their efforts to ease up considering N.E.W.T.s and licenses, but if the Headmistress had a broom, its only speed would be Nimbus. There were no delighted compliments for her on her clever leaf charms or her aggressive exercises in self-transformation. McGonagall pushed her immediately, so hard that Rhysta complained to Albus nearly to the point of tears one evening in the Astronomy Tower.

It seemed that the strain was paying off. Less than five weeks after she'd acquired the license, her hair could morph into sleek golden feathers. Talons were another matter, but she'd already had to send an emergency care package request to her mother after she progressed too far and shredded a pair of flats. She practiced barefoot from then on, and never near her books. It was, all in all, an encouraging beginning, but she found it difficult to enjoy underneath the erumpent of runes and dangerous magical creatures being piled her.

There were bright spots to her day. Sometimes they reached out from behind pillars and whisked her away safely to other worlds of thought and feeling.

Likewise fortunately, schoolwork made it simple to come up with an excuse for the penultimate Hogsmeade weekend in late April. Angelica and Natalia whined unsuccessfully when she relayed her plans, but they conceded that she had a lot on her plate and relented. Then again, she could have sworn a knowing glint passed through their eyes like a portrait occupant hopping frames. Sylvia was conspicuously absent, but one never knew.

And she wasn't ready. The world wasn't ready to handle a Malfoy dating a Potter.

She never told them where they were studying, luckily, but did make sure to bring her bag. Once the majority of the school had vanished through the front hall doors, she stole up the main stair to the fifth floor. Shortly after the prefects' bathroom, she was peering around for a statue of Tellot the Turgid when hands snaked out from behind a tapestry of the four founders and yanked her under with no small yelp.

"You said a statue!"

"I lied," he whispered in her ear. Even that made her shiver. She elbowed him in the ribs, which made his arms fall away. She even almost regretted it.

He wasn't even wearing his school robes, the unconvincing menace. In a tan jumper and trainers, book-free, he might as well have been out for a midday stroll. Cocky smirk in position, leaning back against the plain stone backdrop behind the cover of the tapestry, he gave off the precise, egotistical aura that had long led her the opposite direction from attraction. Then again, the thought of her and Albus Potter sequestered behind a tapestry on the fifth floor would once upon a time disgust her. The times changed as quick as the stairwells.

Nevertheless. She rapped the back of the tapestry with a raised eyebrow. "You intend to spend the day snogging behind Godric and Salazar?"

"Of course," he answered, rolling his eyes. "What did you think we were going to do, dance up the roof to the Owlery?"

"No," she snapped, shifting. Shapes on the other side of the tapestry weavings were moving, and the thought of being eavesdropped upon by the ancient heads of house did nothing to quell her worries. "But this isn't even hidden. A teacher could walk by. Some first year might sprain a wrist and head to the hospital wing. A house-elf might come by and beat down the tapestry itself. How are you going to look when a three-foot housekeeper pulls back the tatters and finds you with your tongue—"

She broke off, blushing sharply. His smirk inched wider and the only thing she wanted more than to slap it away with her books was to kiss it off. Snickering at her, evidently delighted by her helplessness, he turned to face the wall. "Relax. Thick I may be, but a fool I am not."

Catching his wand from up one sleeve, he touched it to a gap between two bricks and began tracing a trail through the mortar. It had no pattern that Rhysta could follow—he crossed over a previously drawn-path twice—but he evidently knew what he was doing, pausing at every corner to carefully select the next path.

He finished quickly, and stuck his wand back up his sleeve. Rhysta found herself holding her breath, waiting in anticipation. Nothing happened. They stood for a few moments, her glancing between the bricks and the wizard haplessly.

"Huh," he said. "That usually works."

She sighed. "I'm beginning to see why Scorpius never tells me about the secret passageways you two know about."

"No, I'm serious. Look, you see this crack right here… look, when you touch it, it gets a little darker, and then down here it's discolored again… you see it?"

"Move," she growled, shoving her books into his hands. With her own wand, she touched the spot he indicated, and saw the color change he described. "Now what?"

"Now's the tricky part. You have to follow bright spots three times, dark spots twice, brights spots another three times, and then the last dark spot."

She groaned. "And then what happens?"

"You'll see."

The pattern was nonsense, evidence why the Hogwarts history of pranksters rarely made it out of seventh year with enough N.E.W.T.s to warrant a mark card. She had to bend close and focus to even see the discoloration he described, and he had to describe the pattern twice more before she thought she had it. After she traced the last bright spot—having gone through a completely different pattern than his—she released a pent-up breath and stepped back. Nothing happened.

"Are you sure there's nothing more to the pattern?"

"Yeah," he answered. "James and Fred took me up here a dozen times."

"And did you ever do it?"

"Well..."

She whirled in disgust. "And this is your plan for—"

He was leaning against the opposite wall, smirking, and next to him there was a doorway that hadn't been there before. At her slacked jaw, he feigned surprise at the sight. "Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, it shows up on this side."

She lunged, but he was already cackling and through the door. He dropped her books just on the other side, perhaps in an attempt to distract her. She just tossed her bag down beside them and reached for him again. Yelping in surprise, he took off down the expanse they had just entered, giggling freely, carelessly. No, wait. That was her.

He ran, and she pursued. It was a narrow way, lightness except for a week ambience that seemed borne of magic, everywhere at once. They were between classroom walls, it seemed, stone on all sides, with wooden beams crossing and jutting from every which way. Thousands of years of dust coated the floor, disturbed by old footprints that already had a few dust layers of their own. There were other obstacles, too—piles of magazines, forgotten candy wrappers, the occasional croak of a forgotten Chocolate Frog—evidence of those brainless pranksters she'd just written off. Albus weaved his path between the obstacles as if he had planned every step in advance, glancing back every step and prancing a bit further if she gained ground.

The sound of her laughter echoed through the narrow crevices, a sound so foreign that she couldn't remember ever having heard it so loud. In seconds she had left the confines of whatever prim life she had led up to the current point. She was chasing a Gryffindor through the walls of the castle, shrieking in delight and mock anger, plotting a number of choice things she would do to him when she caught him. It was a shocking feeling. Some unknown weight receding. Some unrealized freedom that she felt in her heart.

Around one corner, annoyed with his speed, she shot a tripping hex at him. He cursed as he went sprawling, coincidentally crashing into, of all things, a deteriorating wooden cage. It crumbled on contact, but athleticism let him regain his feet before Rhysta could get on him. A burst of light from his wand disoriented her and bought him an extra step, and then she had to pause to wonder what in the world his family had been doing with a pack of knarls, and where they had fled to, before she could take off after them again.

He scaled a rickety ladder, and then another, always glancing over his shoulder to see how far of a lead he had. He was more prepared for the next few jinxes, throwing up shields in time and shooting taunting grins back at her every time she swore something she would do to him when she caught him.

That didn't happen until he tripped a second time, this one all on his own. An ancient copy of the Prophet had been left lying completely over a stone floor, and while glancing back over his shoulder the whole thing slid out from underneath him. She pounced and managed to catch him by an ankle and bring him down again. Then she lost herself in struggling arms and cradling hugs, laughter and a sudden tickling blitz that he set on her with no warning. And that led to other places.

When they came up for air, he was on his back, grinning up at her. One of them had dispatched her of her robe, which now had both their legs in a tangle. One of his hands was under her shirt, tracing patterns against hot skin that the act was only making hotter, the other curled in her hair. She must've looked a mess, hair tousled, clothes askew, face flushed. In his deep eyes she only saw a fire that had her feel like he was blind to everything else.

It was one of a number of things that left her struggling to breathe. "You prick."

"My pleasure," he answered, retracting both hands to thread behind his head. "Was wondering if those little legs would ever be fast enough to catch me."

"I was worried your thick head would crack on one of these beams."

"Maybe you could get a Pensieve fast enough and soak up some of my brilliance."

"There's only so much value one can glean from nineteenth century Quidditch statistics."

"Now you listen here, you little—" She kissed him, lifting him by the collar to capture his lips. It did its job, silencing him grandly, even though when he fell back to the floor he looked all the smugger. "Well, I just thought I should be the one to run away from you for a change."

She snorted and rolled off of him, half-hoping he would try to pull her back. He didn't, but she also didn't go far, untangling herself from her shed robe to peer quizzically about their dark surroundings. The light here was different; shade up and down either short passage from where they lay shone with the dull radiance of reflected daylight. It illuminated more of a mess, but the walls here were also less smooth, speckled with imperfections and apathy. They were above the classrooms now, maybe near the height of the towers, where they would begin to run out of wall to occupy. She'd been down most corridors in the castle, but she couldn't say that she'd ever been inside the castle. Here, too, there were signs of human activity, but not active occupancy.

"What is this place?"

"A secret of our own," Albus answered. She was aware that, while her eyes curiously traveled the walls and the wreckage that marauders past had left behind, his soft gaze remained on her. "James and Fred found this in their second year."

"So young? How troublesome were they that they were breaking down walls in the second year?"

"You should hear the stories of what they didn't get caught doing that early," he muttered in a grave tone. "This place, they found by accident, basically trying to break the castle. I don't really buy that. I kind of think they busted a hole in the wall behind the tapestry some weekend and bribed an older student into patching it for them. Either way, when I was a third year they brought me here once. No one else knows about this place. When they came here the first time, no one had been in here for a thousand years, since the walls went up. It was all theirs. This little passage isn't even on the Marauders' Map."

"The what?"

"Never mind." Climbing to his feet, he reached for her hand. "Come on."

He led her around a bend, where it was lighter, still. At a short wall, he tapped it with his wand three times and a rope ladder fell over the side of a ledge, above. This, she had some trouble with; the rungs had obviously been spaced for taller individuals. But, after him, she managed to pull herself over the ledge, a small space only a few meters by a few meters. At the end wall, however, a crude door had been fashioned from the side of what had once been a crate, stamped with a bright 'WWW' that changed color every few moments with the fatigue of a charm running out of power. From around the door edges, bright light shone.

Albus reached for the door, but paused to take her hand. He shot her an innocent, gleeful smile, and then slid the door aside and led her through.

She was unprepared for what awaited. It was less room than attic, a space hardly larger than the ledge they'd just left. It had three sides—the other stood open to air. The space was tucked into a corner between converging sections of the castle, where the straight structure of the corridors met the North Tower, which loomed at their backs. Blankets and pillows, and even a mattress, were strewn over the space, rounded off by a more complete heaping of trash than that which they had woven their way through in between the walls below. Three or four knapsacks with broken straps were strewn about, some still carrying books Rhysta recognized from mid-year potions and charms. All three walls were plastered with Quidditch posters, some even overlapping, and she recognized some beat-up equipment lying around as protective pads, and even a dented beater bat. A dusty Muggle television set that may have still worked and a huge turntable record player with a split horn sat in the corner. Above their heads, at least twenty translucent umbrella awnings had been sewn together and, obviously, magically-reinforced to form a sheltering roof.

The coziness of the forgotten setting paled when Rhysta turned to the open air. A sort shelf of shingling declined some twenty feet before yielding to a heart-stopping drop, but the moment she peered beyond the edge she forgot about how high they were. The North Tower obstructed the view to the west, and the edge of the wall opposite the tower blocked the southeast, but straight before her lied almost the entire north and eastern grounds. Out beyond the edge of the school's land stretched the Forbidden Forest, then onwards to the higher slopes of the neighborhood mountains and their glistening, frozen rivers. At the southern edge of vision, the lake shone in the late morning sunshine.

Far more prominently, the quidditch pitch sprawled below. From above, it looked larger and closer than Rhysta had ever seen from the castle. From their vantage, they probably would have been able to see every goal scored better than they could have from the cramped stands.

After staring beyond the castle for perhaps too long—and reminding herself to breathe—she turned back to Albus. His eyes gleamed, innocent joy tucked into every corner as she turned to meet his stare. She'd never seen him more happy. She wondered what she looked like in that moment, and hoped she could show him at least a bit of how weak her knees felt at that moment.

"Do you like it?" he asked her.

"How did they find this?"

"Just a hole in the wall," Albus shrugged, gesturing to the crate door. "They don't know how it got there. Maybe a blast from the War that the castle decided not to grow back. Whatever it was, the two of them found this place and made it their own. If they brought you up here, they trusted you with more than their lives."

"It's incredible," Rhysta told him, shaking her head.

"Here." He cast a cleansing spell on a few blankets near the edge of the shingles and pulled her into his lap. She wrapped one of his arms around her waist as he pointed out his favorite sights, from a gargantuan black heaping of foliage sprouting from the forest that his brother had nicknamed the Spiders' Nest to a copse of soft trees near the northeastern corner of the grounds that Rhysta had never even realized was there. It was evident that he had been there hundreds of times before, and evident just how much he loved it by each thing he pointed out to her.

She was not unaware of the fact that every time he pointed to something, he had to point past the Quidditch pitch, and that several times he almost seemed to hesitate before moving on.

"This is incredible," she said, when he finally ran out of things to point out. She meant it. She was amazed. The wind was surprisingly gentle for them being so high, but still brisk. She snuggled deeper into his chest for warmth as she watched the sky and ground below. "They must've spent a ton of their time here."

"So much time we wondered how they ever managed to get to class," Albus chuckled. "People always thought James just refused to go to games that he wasn't playing in. To psych his opponents or something. They never knew how he seemed to know their game plans even though he never watched them play." He nodded to the pitch below, evenly. "He was just up here. Him and Fred would watch every other game from up here. I would, too, most of the time. It was way easier to see the game… to know the players you'd be playing next..."

He trailed off. Determined, Rhysta twisted in his arms until she could look him in the eye. Slowly but surely, he dragged his gaze off of the field and met her stare. She trailed her fingertips down the side of his face, hardly able to believe they were this close. "So this place belongs to you, too."

"Not really. I was always welcome, but it was theirs. They left a lot of their stuff here when they graduated, for me, but it just wasn't the same without them. I never even told Scorp it existed."

She grinned. "If only he knew how much you were hiding from him..."

He huffed nervously. She giggled and buried her face in his neck. Just like the night atop the Astronomy Tower, the cold didn't seem to touch him. He resumed tracing patterns over her lower back, above her shirt this time. "It wasn't ever much of a place, you know, but I can see why they loved coming here."

"How did they get some of this stuff up here?"

"With them, I figured out pretty quick that if you asked to know their methods, you would be burdened with having to deal with the knowledge of what they'd done."

Warily, she crinkled her nose and eyed the mattress. "Is any of it that bad?"

He followed her gaze and laughed when he followed her thought. "They wouldn't bring anyone up here that wasn't absolutely special to them. Tricksters as they were, and damn shameless ones at that, they weren't all about showing stuff like this off."

"So it was a place for special moments?"

"Yeah. I had my first kiss up here." She lurched back and reached for her wand. He caught her wrist gently and chuckled. "I'm kidding," he whispered, leaning in. Moodily, she weakly evaded, but he just went for her neck instead, prompting sighs that embarrassed her into curses. She landed on her back on the blanket with crossed arms and him smirking down at her. "But even if I wasn't kidding, it was long before us, so what does it matter?"

"Should I relate every time I snogged a guy?"

"Well, I saw, like, three times, so there should be only three or four more to go..."

She punched him in the arm, ineffectively, and his full-throated cackle warmed her chest despite her irritation. When he fell over in his mirth, she sat up to cross her arms again, muttering obscenities on the wind until he laughed himself out.

He resumed drawing his patterns when he was done, humming happily. "You can't possibly be jealous of anyone. There's no one in the world that can compare to Rhystara Malfoy."

"And just how many other people have you brought up here to say such a thing?" she snapped back.

"I told you," he answered innocently. "They only ever brought people up here that they would trust with more than their lives."

She turned her head to glare down at him. "So?"

He propped himself on an elbow to hover centimeters from her lips. "So, there's never been anyone I felt that way about before…" His eyes were nothing but honest, and she felt her annoyance slip away at what he might have been saying. "...well, except maybe Scorp, but—"

She growled and pushed him away by the face. "Great, make me think of my brother."

"I mean, he's a handsome git."

"Well, then why don't you bring him up here and snog him instead?"

"Who says I haven't? I never said anything about the second kiss..."

She started hitting him then, to keep from laughing, but that quickly devolved into another flurry of skin, breath, and need. It was this way—a way of getting lost in him so entirely that there was more than their bodies, but nothing that needed to be said with words—that was truly scary about Albus Potter. Mistakes of her heart's past beside, Rhysta knew how powerful emotions could be. Emotions could turn the tides in wars—had, in fact—could turn lovers into killers and back again, and made up one of the few things she truly believed could rival magic for its influence on humanity. Whether he knew it or not, Albus Potter knew her emotions better than she knew them herself. To her, it seemed like he knew them better than his own. She had learned that no matter what happened she would never be helpless, but with every kiss and touch he was, if unconsciously, burying himself in her soul. She should have been too young to feel what was happening to her. It was beyond her control. And for all it felt as if she was drowning, drowning in this sea of emotion brought a sweet and agonizingly wonderful torment. She wanted nothing more than to know if he was drowning with her. She was too afraid to ask. She hadn't been born Gryffindor like him. But she could taste the desire on his lips and see the care in his eyes. Maybe that was indicative enough.

When they calmed again, they'd each shed a jumper and drawn a blanket overtop. She laid on his chest, listening to his heartbeat as his hand, back under her shirt, resumed its maddening work. The soft wind played with her hair as she watched his eyes watch the sky through the layer of umbrellas. The day had grown cloudy, but perhaps not yet enough to rain. Above them, the North Tower loomed, all of its outward facing windows angled away such that it would be impossible to sight their small sanctuary below. She could hardly stifle a giggle at the thought of Trelawney fretting over her tea leaves above, oblivious to the activities under her very nose.

"Isn't it supposed to be awkward?" she muttered.

"Huh? What?"

"This. Us." He craned his head to meet her eye. She shrugged while prone. "Isn't it supposed to be… less..."

"Natural?"

She wrinkled her nose. "That makes you sound supernatural."

"Aren't I?"

"Be serious."

"You were the one that said—"

"I know, but just shut up and be serious for a second."

He settled down, silent for a long moment that made her wonder if he'd forgotten to speak. "I would think that you just haven't been with someone before that you cared enough for, that didn't have themselves in mind first."

As she figured she would, she found both arrogance and a reason to be jealous in his answer. "And you've had it that often."

His answer was far softer than she expected. "I've never had it before."

She enjoyed that one for a while. "Then how did you know the answer?"

"I asked myself why it's so natural for me, too." He settled back and closed his eyes. "I tried to think of something that made me as happy as I feel right now, in this moment. I thought it would be difficult. Quidditch is..." He sighed, and then grunted in annoyance at himself. "...was… it would be in the conversation. But that's not the same thing, anyway. It's… just different. You're..."

His hand paused its work, as if representative of how anxiously she hung on his next words. She lost her patience, softly prodding, "Yes?"

The fingers picked back up, and she felt his next sigh leave his entire body. "Different."

"That's not what you were going to say," she poked, hopefully.

"No, it's not," he agreed, "but I don't know what I was going to say. I shouldn't say it, anyway, I'm sure, or you'd go off and run away, for real, this time."

She reached over and threaded her fingers through his. They closed over her hand like a glove, a perfect mold. "Are you sure?"

He shrugged. "No, but I'd rather not risk it. Not risk this. Besides, there's time. There's no need to… to rush..." He trailed away without there being an obvious reason, his eyes clouding over like the sky he watched.

Propping her chin on his chest, she waited to regain his attention. When it didn't return, she sat up to observe him. His eyes found hers again, in a murky way that left her wondering what suddenly separated his thoughts from his words. They watched each other for a while. Without conscious effort, she found herself reaching out, her fingertips brushing his temple. He shifted ever so slightly to lean into her touch as she traced where his hairline disappeared behind his ear.

"Tell me," she told him.

He shook his head lightly, dislodging her fingers. "It's nothing. Maybe."

Folding her arms, she peered out over the grounds. "That's a really good way of making me not worry about things."

He reached for her, pulling a hand out of the fold so that her posture naturally relaxed as he rethreaded their fingers. "It's not about you or us, I promise."

"I'd still like to know what's bothering you."

Eyes returning to the clouds, he sighed, his thumb stroking the back of her hand. Merlin, couldn't he stop rubbing some part of her skin for five seconds so that she could concentrate? "Everybody knows. There's something going on."

"What do you mean?"

He pointed at the sky, then threw a gesture towards the forest. She knew the physical markers weren't what he meant. "Out there. Beyond the grounds. In the real world." Sighing again, he sat up. After he crossed his legs, she crawled back into his lap, back pressed to his chest. A smattering of raindrops struck the umbrellas above, but failed to evolve into a real shower. His voice softer, tickling her ear, continued, "My father… isn't telling us anything. Even hints, even warnings. Nothing. People are dying and he's mum about the whole thing. That scares me. That means he doesn't know what's safe anymore… or he doesn't think anyplace is. And I don't even know what it is that's happening."

Knowing what she was about to say wouldn't matter, she told him, "We're safe here."

"For how long?"

Not an unexpected reply, but Rhysta was caught off guard by how real it sounded. "Hogwarts has always been safe. In the last war, it was the only safe place in the wizarding world."

Albus exhaled, a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, until the Last Battle came. Then even this castle was a battlefield. And the way things are panning out, that I can see…" He pressed his lips to her shoulder, shaking his head. "I don't know, Rhys. The way the people who fought in the last war are reacting to this, it seems worse than it was before."

"How can it get worse than Voldemort?"

"And that's the scary part."

A loaded silence followed. She pulled his arms tighter around her middle. Some more drops fell from the sky. She could hear the sounds of spring songbirds from their distant perches at the forest's edge. The hole that had brought them to this place had likely been ripped in the castle's wall in the battle they were talking about; but it was difficult to believe. From the tension in his arms – a stiffness not of discomfort but something akin to anxiety – she knew Albus felt the same way. The thought that where she was sitting could actually be dangerous was unfathomable. But he was right: how long would it stay that way?

"That peppermint tastes bad, by the way."

"What peppermint?"

She felt his smirk. "The leaf glued to the roof of your mouth. Not my favorite, by any means. I would've gone with something else."

Scoffing, she clipped back, "Well, I'll consult you the next time I find reason to charm a taste that we're sharing, if you're ever so lucky as that situation should arise."

He shrugged. "You could just charm it to something else now."

"I'm already getting sick of peppermint. I don't want there to be other tastes that I have aversion to for months."

The rain returned, a light mist of the traditional Hogwarts variety. It came and fell across the fields ahead of them rather quickly, like a descending veil of transparent fog that marked an unwavering transition from one moment to the next. Falling to the southeast, they had shelter from it, but the students returning from Hogsmeade wouldn't be so lucky. It would also help obscure them from below, though if the elder Potters Weasley had managed to keep it hidden for so long she doubted it would be this particular day when the Felix Felicis of hidden treasures ran dry.

But. "Why exactly are we keeping this a secret?"

He squeezed her gently. "I know what you're thinking."

Her eyes rolled on their own, though she would've sent them that way anyway. "It's a little unsettling how often you do, these days."

"Well, I have that effect on people." He tapped her thigh and lightly pushed her off. "Move for a spell. My back's not feeling great."

She leapt off his lap, alarmed. "Sorry!"

He waved it off with a placating grin. "No worries. Just a little stiff. Let me lie down for a mo'." He did, sighing in relief and closing his eyes once he was down. "We're not hiding this, I would say. It's not a secret because we don't want—I guess I should say I, because I'm not one hundred percent sure if you agree with me—it's not because I don't want people to know, it's just that… I don't know if some people would react the way I want them to right now. So..."

"You mean Scorpius?" she observed dryly.

"I mean Scorpius," Albus agreed.

She peered at her hands. "And..." It was difficult to find the words to put it the way she wanted to. "...and it's very important to you what he thinks about you."

When his eyes found hers again, she knew that once more he could read her thoughts. "Nah, Rhys, I'm not going to choose him over you." A dead bullseye, like jinxing one-legged gnomes. His accuracy and her self-esteem made her glance away. "He wouldn't make me. He would come around to it. Eventually..."

She almost scoffed. "You don't sound sure."

"It's Scorpius," he replied. "I'd probably be much more upset if he was running around with Lily than he'd be about us."

"Would that upset you?"

"I guess not," he admitted with a sheepish smile. "As long as I didn't see too much of it."

"I wonder if she likes peppermint," she teased him, poking his ribcage. "I know Scorpius does. Maybe she'd be interested in an Animagus license..."

"I'll start tickling you. Don't think I won't."

She leaned close to whisper, "You'd have to catch me first."

And then that took a while, and she was glad the rain picked up so that no one below would hear her shrieks and start loosing Patronuses at the sky. His back stiffened up again, so they had to relax the extracurriculars sooner than she would have liked. Once N.E.W.T.s were over, she would start studying wizarding spinal ailments. There must be something that could ease his discomfort, if not make his condition any better. After N.E.W.T.s were over… after his last days at Hogwarts… after he would be faced with the real world…

He was perched on pillows, and drew her gaze back to him with a cocked head, shaking her arm at the same time. "This is very real to me. Here and on the outside, too."

She shivered. "Stop fucking doing that."

"What?"

"Knowing what I'm thinking."

He smirked. "Worried I'm inside your head?"

"Quite a lot," she snapped as she punched him in the arm, and then the other arm.

He took both stoically, never looking away from her eyes. "If it's different for you… then I understand. And, honestly, I don't really know how to do this, but… you know me, and I know you, and I hope you can feel that this isn't just a… a 'thing' for me, you know..."

If it's different for you… She almost laughed incredulously, but contained herself. "Yeah, you really don't know how to do this, do you." When his mouth fell open in temporary speechlessness, she leaned over to kiss him. "I'm just kidding."

He grunted. "You should do that more often."

"Tease you?"

"Kiss me."

"Sounds like a good reason not to."

"Seems like you could use a few reasons not to, Malfoy. Does Slughorn have potions that help keep one's hands to themselves?"

"Then when is Scorpius going to be ready?" she asked him apprehensively.

"Well," Albus replied, shrugging his shoulders in a very resigned fashion, "there will eventually come a time when he'll have to be ready." He met her eye. "And then he'll have to deal with it. He cares about us both so much that he'd just have to cope with it."

"But not now because..."

He sat up, sighing. "I don't know. It's not time. He's got a lot going on, we've all four of us got term coming up, and the world's quite possibly ending on the outside. Throw all of that together, and a Potter-Malfoy relationship might bring the tabloid animagi to Hogwarts in mass migration. It's not the right time to deal with it. But that time will come."

She raised an eyebrow. "All four of us… including Rose? Because it sure seems like a Malfoy-Weasley relationship would be just as explosive and yet hasn't made one person bat an eye in the entire castle."

"Yeah, well, I think all of us knew the two of them would get together in the end, just the way they played on one another that whole time. My uncle, on the other hand, may well start a wizarding war himself when he finds out..."

"And how are the two of them any different than us?" Rhysta pointed out. "We were at odds from the moment we met until… probably right up until you stumbled into that corridor." Despite the pause, her voice didn't waver, and she took great pride in that.

"I think we were more unlikely," he replied, a soft squeeze of her hand acknowledging that he had noticed the reference. "In any case, my parents already know who you are and they'll get on with you great. My father will love you, my mother will be put off for a while that you don't like Quidditch but she'll adore you after that, and everybody else couldn't care less as long as you offend as much as you defend at the dinner table."

"It's just Scorpius, then," she murmured.

With both hands, he lifted one of hers to press his lips against it, and then opened her palm and did the same there. "We'll tell him. I promise."

She knew he was telling the truth, couldn't help but wonder how long it was going to be, how long she even cared to keep it a secret—especially since all her friends already seemed to know and hadn't blabbered about it to everyone in earshot—but knew that whatever Scorpius thought about it, it wouldn't change a thing for her. It wouldn't change how relaxed she was, how reluctant she would be in some hours to sneak back to the library to fake her alibi, how she could've possibly waited there with him until the leaf was ready to pop and potionify without a complaint in the world.

"I'm more worried about your parents than mine, anyway."

"Don't worry," she told him. "I know where Dad keeps the poison."

"That's somehow even scarier than simply knowing there was poison to begin with."