your heart is a muscle the size of your fist

Forced medical leave wasn’t suiting Norah well. Sure, she’d complained plenty of times about having no free time to do anything because of work, but this was maddening. Only a few days into the week he’d been ordered to take to make sure she was fully back to strength and she already wanted to scream. A purple shadow still lingered under one eye where she’d taken a few hits, and there was a hairline split on her knuckles where she’d dished a few out the muggle way. The silence in her apartment was deafening after the bustle of the school campus, or the weird and wonderful world of Hogsmeade, but the gym didn’t count as rest and recovery.

He was so confused. It was….Friday? No….Tuesday? And he was at the bar tonight, except he wasn’t. He was at….He continued to look around to make sure but it looked like a cross between a charity event and hell, and he was more confused than ever because he was supposed to go to some kind of gala with Kate next week, but nothing added up and he honestly felt so slow processing he was thinking confundus or a concussion when he heard a voice talking to him, and that, well that was clear. It brought back an immediate association. “You!” He raised his wand so suddenly and erratically if she was standing near enough his arm may have hit her. “Stupefy!” he shouted the first spell he thought of.

“Damn it to hell!” Emma shouted loudly, dodging the curse. The smart thing to do would be another Memory Charm, or at least a Full-Body Bind, but Emma was angry and now this was personal. “Oppugno!” she shouted, sending three forks lying on the ground leftover from the dinner in Scorpius’s direction.

“Ah, there’s a sister as well?”

What is that look on your face?

“A little bit of both.” He ran his fingers over the keys again as he grinned at the woman. “Are you a musician as well?”

“No, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. But my sister got all of the musical genes.”

The water chased her for a moment, less than even, before concentration was lost as Scorpius diverted it all to his shield to take the first spell for him and then dived out of the way of the second. A third struck him, not in the head but the shoulder but he was then looking around bewildered, not bothering to duck anymore. Odd sort of place this was. Very loud. What was he supposed to be doing?

Emma let out a sigh of relief when she saw that the spell had hit Scorpius after all. She felt a little guilty that a random person was also about to have their memories messed with, but there would have to be sacrifices. Emma moved forward enough so Scorpius could hear here. “Get out of here as soon as you can,” she said. “And don’t answer anyone’s questions. Go!”

He’d been fixed on herding Kate toward the safe zone with more insistence as he caught the look in her eye of someone with something to prove. He knew and owned and at the moment had outgrown that look. You could prove more people wrong if you lived to cotninue your narrative and this was a more choreographed dance on both sides than he expected anyone working for the Ministry would admit. It was planned–all of it–the whole night a trap and they were bait. Merlin he was glad Harry Potter wasn’t a relative of his and it wasn’t his place to get upset at the guy’s memory beign used that way, though maybe, on second thought, the old Head of the Auror’s Department would have liked it. Harry Potter, all about herding up and beating the bad guys. No, Scorpius could focus on the whole rage over being collateral damage citizen caught in the middle because he was bait aspect. There was a very strongly worded howler being dictated in his future. He was moving as fast as he could and gently to not so gently pushing Kate ahead of him, renewing shield charms as he felt exposed despite just having cast them, when he caught out of the corner of his eye one of the maniacs in cloaks (They were adding a pop of color now to the black he saw. Great. Red cloak. What were these? The leaders? They should get a few more shades and have a whole homicidal pride month. Representation even amongst the murdering lunatic set) coming straight toward them. He threw weight into pushing Kate out of the way, and spun, shooting a blast of water out of his palm, not the most effective attack but one guided by instinct not thought, though at least he could congeal it together and wrap it around the attacker’s head if he got the chance, if his shield charm held against whatever it was they’d just fired at him.

Emma cursed under her breath and ducked to avoid the stream of water. Earth really was the most useless element, she thought to herself angrily, then started firing off memory charm after memory charm with little regard to whether they were effective or even going to the right person, but all were aimed at Scorpius, at least. 

“Keep an eye out, would you?” Allard inquired of the nearest person as he ran a few fingers over the keys of the piano he was seated at and played a short, one-handed warm-up piece that lasted only a few seconds. “Just let me know if you see someone who works here looking angry and coming over.”

Ok thanks… *he slides the list across the counter for her to check* It’s a good album. I love the second half of it, if I’m thinking of the right one. Is this right?

I got tired of it. Reminds me of a really silly stage in my life. 

“Mmhmm?” Hal nodded, trying to get them all down in time. “What was that third one? Sorry. I think I got the rest?”

Uhh... [mentally goes through the list again] Jillian and Dinah? I think it’s their second album, uh... Amortentia Pie I think is the title.