Taken by Surprise

Chapter 2

It was a short walk from the Academy and despite feeling very miserable at the moment Harry rather enjoyed himself. It was hard not to what with Scorpius’s entertaining talk and cheerful manner. Harry smiled to himself as he recalled a little boy, looking just like his father, standing on the Platform 9 and 3/4 on the first of September years ago. Who could have imagined back then that they would be walking side by side, laughing at Scorpius’s anecdotes? Who could have thought that Scorpius and Al would end up such good friends? Who would have believed that Scorpius, though with the same pointed face, blond hair and grey eyes, wouldn’t turn out as stuck-up as his father? It seemed that their similarity ended there. Harry’s relationship with the latter did not suffer material change throughout the years, even though their sons’ close friendship made it impossible for them not to meet on occasions and pretend to enjoy them, at least, for the sake of their offsprings. But while they acted without their Hogwarts-era animosity, they preserved enough coldness and distance so as not to appear particularly friendly with each other.

It was a nice flat, Harry thought. Or, it would have been nice, if someone took care to put all the things strewn around on their assigned places. But it seemed that the free spirit of the Academy was ever present here. Clothes, books and a number of unidentified objects cluttered every surface of the flat and Scorpius’s words that he must have the bottle of Ogdens somewhere didn’t sound so strange anymore. Harry rather dreaded going into the kitchen that seemed to be Scorpius’s destination. Surprisingly, it was the least messy place. It looked like it was hardly in use at all and therefore blessedly uncluttered. Harry sat down.

‘I’m afraid that neither Al nor I are particularly handy with household charms.’ said Scorpius when he caught Harry staring around. Harry snorted. Scorpius grinned and went back to rummaging through drawers and cupboards. ‘We rather tend to forget to clean after ourselves.’ he said. ‘And when we do want to put things on their proper places – occasionally – something always comes up to prevent us from doing it.’

Harry could very well relate to that. He remembered only too well how he didn’t bother to clear his trunk of all the mess gathered there up until his seventh year at Hogwarts and that was only because he wasn’t going back to school and therefore didn’t need most of the stuff packed inside. Years of married life taught him better, however.

As a matter of interest Harry decided to take a look inside the fridge and – froze. It was empty but for a stack of boxes so mouldy that Harry couldn’t be completely sure if it was their look or their stench that made him reel back and shut the door with a bang.

‘What?’ asked Scorpius at the horrified look on Harry’s face; his cheeks were flushed from the quest and a dusty bottle was held triumphantly in his hand.

‘Please, tell me that this is not what you and Al usually eat.’ said Harry, pointing at the fridge.

‘Oh that! We don’t use this thing. Does it work? I don’t think it’s ever been opened.’

‘You should have bothered at least.’ said Harry, shaking his head.

‘Why?’ asked Scorpius.

‘Well, let’s see – maybe because it smells like a foul-breathing dragon died there a century ago?’ replied Harry, brandishing his wand and muttering a few spells. He wasn’t sure they would be of any use here, but it was worth a try.

It took several attempts and once he could open the fridge without passing out, Harry turned his attention back to Scorpius.

‘Ok. Let’s go.’

Bewildered, Scorpius followed Harry out of the flat and into the nearest supermarket.

An hour or so later, the fridge was packed with food and placed under a sufficient number of preserving charms and the rooms acquired a more defined shape due to Harry’s intervention.

‘Scorpius, you don’t mind, do you, if I make it look less like a, well, a hovel?’ asked Harry, wincing as he stepped on something he didn’t want to examine too closely.

‘Well, I’m not fussed myself, but I can imagine how uncomfortable you may find tripping over my – er – underwear.’ said Scorpius cheekily, bending down and tugging at the offending piece of garment.

Harry felt his face heat up, which resulted in his being overzealous with the spells.

With that done, they relocated themselves to the kitchen and were half-way through the bottle of firewhiskey before Harry’s senses caught up with him and he tried to slow things down by putting away his glass. Scorpius, however, had other ideas.

‘Spill it.’ he said, refilling their glasses.

Harry, whose head was filled with a pleasant sort of buzzing by now and who felt as warm and dizzy as if he was stuck in the Floo, stared at him with absent-minded intensity until the meaning of Scorpius’s words caught up with him.

‘Excuse me?’ he asked at last, looking distrustfully at the glass that was being persistently nudged his way. He wondered if Scorpius was trying to set him drunk and shook his head in order to clear off the buzz. It didn’t work. Instead, Scorpius’s face split into a grin that was entirely too smug. Harry decided that he had to re-evaluate his opinion that Scorpius didn’t inherit anything but appearance from his father. Right now he looked like a right Malfoy git.

‘Come on, Harry,’ drawled Scorpius, taking a long sip and tasting it in a decidedly provoking way. ‘It’s obvious that something has happened. You look bloody miserable and you keep spacing out all the time. One moment you are here with me – the next your face all screws up in a bitter sort of grimace as if you are fighting with someone in your head and losing. I assume that it is nothing life-threatening or you wouldn’t be as calm as you are now; but something must have happened because you don’t normally come running to Al just to chat.’

Harry narrowed his eyes and pushed the glass away.

‘I understand that you and Al are very close and that you probably share everything there is, but I am not my son, Scorpius, so don’t presume to know me.’

‘Believe me, Harry, I know that you are not Al. But, really, you shouldn’t have given me leave to call you by your given name if you didn’t want me to pry into your personal matters. Besides, it’s not idle curiosity – I am worried about you. So, come on.’ insisted Scorpius, his eyes dancing. ‘Humour me.’

‘Why should I do that?’ asked Harry, wondering what Scorpius was playing at. He felt a sudden jolt when Scorpius placed his hand on his. Harry tried to backtrack and remember if it was their first bottle. He could never hold his liquor. Not unlike Scorpius it seemed, who was speaking again.

‘Because, for one, you look like you need to talk to someone about what’s troubling you and, secondly, you owe me.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Harry, swiftly prying his hand away (Why was it so sweaty all of a sudden?) and busying it with pouring drinks.

‘Well, look around the place,’ said Scorpius. ‘I have humoured you, haven’t I? I have let you clean it all up and now it’s unrecognizable. Can you imagine just how long it will take me to find my stuff in all this order? So, I think that it’s only common curtsey for you to do the same.’

‘I am rather surprised that your father didn’t teach you to keep things in better order. I certainly taught Al better than that.’ grumbled Harry. ‘Not that it made a huge impression on him, judging by the state of his room.’

Scorpius laughed, not taking his eyes off Harry. The hypnotising intensity of his stare was disconcerting. Harry decided that he needed another glass and gulped down the whole of it. It burned his throat and made his hands tremble. Scorpius was looking at him in rapt attention of a small child waiting for a bed-time story. But Harry knew that Scorpius was not a child anymore but a grown-up wizard with a rather snake-like attitude. He wasn’t sure what he was getting himself into – but he suddenly felt reckless and ready to plunge headfirst into whatever it was – and Scorpius was right: he did need to talk to someone and, besides, a thing like that could not be kept a secret for long. Not when your name was Harry Potter.

‘All right.’ he said at last, fight going out of his body, leaving him weary and strangely wound up. ‘You’ll find soon enough, anyway.’