#gordon millar

Albus picks at his fingernails and scans up and down the road. He’s bouncing his knee, the incessant movement rubbing against Scorpius’s leg. Scorpius can barely restrain himself from snapping at Albus to calm down, but he knows he’d be a hypocrite if he did. He’s done far worse over the years, and he knows how Albus must be feeling right now — stomach twisted into sickening knots, heart clenched, helpless as someone he loves and needs teeters on the brink of life and death.

Scorpius tucks his frostbitten fingers into the pockets of his coat and watches a pair of bats dart low above the road, their dance silhouetted against the peacock blue sky. As he watches, his thoughts flit around inside his head, quick and restless. He runs through everything that might happen. Everything that might go wrong. Everything they could have done but haven’t. Everything they might still have to do.

And he thinks about his dad. They haven’t had chance to talk since his dad herded him from the lake up to the castle, scolding him all the way.

He’d give anything to have his dad telling him off right now. He’d give anything for one last conversation. One last chance to say sorry. Sorry for not being able to stop Delphi. For probably resigning them both to spend their lives locked in that bleak other world, where everything was cold and awful. Hot chocolates by the fire traded for formality and salutes and secrets.

He gets caught somewhere between the feeling of his dad’s fingers pinching his skin as he pressed him into the dark varnished wood of that desk and the look in his dad’s eyes, the tremble of his voice when he said those words. ‘I can’t lose you too.’

Scorpius hasn’t been safe, he hasn’t been sensible, he hasn’t followed his dad’s orders. Now he might be lost. Everything might be lost.

He stares down at his knees, Dementor fog swimming in his head and his chest, and it takes him a second to realise that Albus isn’t next to him anymore. Albus is on his feet. By the time Scorpius looks up, Albus is running.

“Mum!”

“Albus Severus Potter, are we pleased to see you.”

That’s Harry’s voice. Harry Potter. Here. Now. In Godric’s Hollow. It’s impossible. But there he is. There Ginny is. There Albus is, hugging his parents as they swamp him in desperate love and relief.

“You got our note?” Albus mumbles into his mum’s shoulder as she crushes him against her.

“We got your note.”

Albus melts in her arms, and Scorpius doesn’t know if he wants to beam with joy and relief or burst into tears because he wants that. He wants his dad. After all this, he doesn’t know how he can go on any longer without him.

As he turns away to stop the gnawing ache in his heart, he sees a black blur flying straight at him, on a collision course. He turns and runs without a thought, assuming it’s a Dementor, or Delphi, or-

He’s not sure how he knows he’s not being followed, but after a couple of steps down the street, he grinds to a halt.

Silence. No pursuing footsteps. No flap of wings or rustle of a cloak. No rattling breaths. Cautiously he glances over his shoulder and sees the person standing behind him.

His dad looks just the same as always. Neat black mourning robes, hair scraped back into the most precise of ponytails, grey eyes reflecting the heavy October sky. His mouth is slightly open, frozen halfway to speech. He’s staring at Scorpius, one hand out in the clenched fist of someone who doesn’t think they’ll manage to catch the thing they’re reaching toward.

Scorpius doesn’t know what to do or what to say. He’s rooted to the spot, limbs stiff and sore from hours in the cold. His heart and mind have gone very still. Normally they’d be flapping at him to do something, say something, to panic and try to garble his way out of the situation. But now they’ve abandoned him and he’s powerless to make the first move.

His dad opens and closes his mouth. Swallows. Glances back at the Potters, who have stopped hugging to watch, and then beyond, to Hermione and Ron, who have their arms around each other. Finally he looks back at Scorpius, and his expression is no longer heavy with unshed snow but bright with the final silver rush of sunset.

“We...” His dad stops and swallows. He unclenches his fist and gestures between them, then back to the Potters. “We can hug too. If you like.”

And with his mind and heart still in free fall, Scorpius doesn’t even have a decision to make. Of course he likes. Of course he wants. This is his dad. His dad is here.

He flings himself back down the street and tackles his dad in the tightest hug he can muster.

There might be tears. There might be joy. There might be relief. All Scorpius knows is that his dad’s arms are wrapped around him, squeezing him, pushing the shattered fragments of him back into place and clenching them there like a brace.