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No Exit	By : JBankai89 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Albus Severus/Scorpius Views: 1847 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, I gain nothing from this but a way to pass the time.

Chapter List
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Part III: Alone

“What just happened?” Albus demanded in the silence that followed, his eyes bulging in their sockets as he stared into the empty cell. “What the hell just happened?” He whipped around to face his brother, his usual meek calm gone, and replaced with grief-stricken fury. He shoved James, hard. “This is all your fault! If you hadn't made Teddy take us here, none of this would've happened!”

“How was I supposed to know that a mad ghost would kidnap him?” James snapped in return, shoving Albus back, hard enough that he stumbled back several paces and directly into Scorpius.

Albus straightened up and glared at his older brother.

“Stop it, both of you!” Scorpius snapped when Albus opened his mouth to offer up an angry retort. He snapped his mouth shut and turned to the young Malfoy. “Besides,” he continued, a faint tremor of fear edging his words, “I don't think it's a ghost, at least, not in the way you're thinking of it.”

“How d'you mean?” James blinked, puzzled. He looked over to Albus, who was eyeing the other Slytherin with momentary confusion, then his eyes widened in understanding.

“You think it's a vengeful spirit.”

Scorpius nodded, and looked over the cell that had held Teddy not minutes before.

“I do. It's the only thing I can think of that might make sense.”

“Hang on,” James turned to Scorpius, confusion written all over his face, “you said it's not a ghost, but it is a vengeful spirit? What's the difference?” Scorpius shifted his gaze to Albus, cocking a brow, but he merely nodded, inviting him to explain.

“A ghost is the imprint of a living soul that has chosen not to go on—”

“On?” James interrupted, looking more confused than ever, “on where?”

“I don't know,” Scorpius hissed exasperatedly, “just...on. To the afterlife, to the next life, however you want to call it. But a vengeful spirit is sort of...sort of like a jigsaw spirit. Partial imprints are left behind, and after some time they fuse together into something...dark.”

Scorpius frowned and fell silent suddenly—not that Albus could blame him—as at that moment the trio looked around at the sudden sound that filled the silence.

A soft skittering in the walls, like dozens of rats.

Albus was deeply unsettled that they couldn't hear the sounds of the wind and sea outside, but they could hear rats. Something about it wasn't right.

“Partial imprints are born of madness, anger, jealousy. The thirst for vengeance,” Scorpius whispered, his voice shaking, “Nothing good leaves partial imprints behind. If it truly is a vengeful spirit, we need to get out of here, now.” Scorpius glanced from Albus to James and back again, his wide eyes betraying his fear.

“There was one in one of the conference rooms at home,” Scorpius continued when neither Potter spoke up. “Father would not say where it had come from, or why it was there, but it was a room he wouldn't enter, and was furious when he found me in there one day.” The young Slytherin paused, looking away for a moment before returning his gaze to the pair, “We should consider finding a way out and getting to your father as quickly as possible.”

“Not without Teddy,” James said at once, his hard, forceful tone all but daring either of the younger teens to contradict him. “It's my fault he was taken, we can't just leave him here.”

“It would be smarter to look for a way out first, then come back for him. It won't do him any good if we're the spirit's next victims,” Scorpius said evenly, trying to plead to James's nonexistent common sense.

“I'm not going anywhere without him, what part of that did you not understand?” James's low growl of anger stopped Scorpius short, and he seemed to sense that arguing with James was a lot cause.

“All right, fine,” Scorpius said, the tone betraying to Albus that while he disagreed with the sentiment, he knew that arguing further wouldn't get them anywhere. “How do you propose we look for him?”

“Easy,” James said confidently, though his voice trembled slightly in the aftershock of losing Teddy. “I have this special spell I've been working on for finding people, like a Tracking Charm, but a little different. Watch.” James squinted his eyes as he focused, and flicked his wand sharply, “Investigare Metamorphmagi!”

At once, a tiny little pinprick of light flew out of the tip of James's wand, like a bright blue firefly.

James turned to the others and grinned, “What d'you think?”

Albus and Scorpius blinked and stared bemusedly at the tiny, floating light.

“You invented a spell just to locate Teddy? And you call me a fairy,” Albus said, smirking a little when James glared at him. Scorpius pressed his lips in a thin line to keep from laughing.

“Not just Teddy, you prat,” James snapped, his brow furrowed in annoyance. “It's a spell that locates people based on something unique to them. Teddy's the only Metamorphmagus we know, so it's sort of easy to single him out. You I'd just have to say the biggest bloody pouf I'm related to and my brilliant spell would find you in a heartbeat.”

“Or it would find me because I'm standing right here.”

“Is it me,” James said with an accusatory tone, “or are you not denying the fact that you're a great, big, cocksucking—”

“Can you please save your profound wit for when we're not trapped in a haunted prison?” Albus asked while he glared at his older brother. Scorpius's hand in his tensed a little, and he wondered if Scorpius thought James was being genuinely bigoted. Albus squeezed his hand, hoping he would find comfort in the gesture.

“Fine,” James replied with a snort, “But I have some excellent new nicknames for you when we get out of here.”

“Git,” Albus muttered under his breath, glaring at James's back as he turned around to face the little pinprick of light.

“It's such a comfort that your brother is so supportive of you,” Scorpius drawled. The return of the trademark Malfoy tone caused James to glance back with a grin.

“Damn right it is,” James said proudly, “Do you have any idea how many people I've had to curse to keep them off his back? It's no easy task being the eldest, let me tell you. And then, of course, there's you. Do you have any idea how many pranks I've had to hold off on because Mister Enormous Pouf here thinks you've got the softest hair and the prettiest eyes he's ever seen?” Albus went very red.

“I never said that.”

“You curse people for him, but then you go off calling him every synonym for Homosexual you can think of?” Scorpius asked, his eyebrows raised so high they were in danger of disappearing into his hairline.

“I'm not about to let anyone else call him those names,” James's mouth quirked into a grin, “I've got the monarchy on taking the piss out of him.”

“Monopoly,” Albus corrected, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“Yeah, that too. C'mon, let's get going.” James spun back round to face the door, while Scorpius leaned in close to Albus.

“Was he dropped on his head as a child or something?” Scorpius whispered, his tone soft enough enough that James did not seem to catch the words.

“Twice, according to Uncle Ron,” Albus replied in the same low voice, while they both watched the older teen refocus his attention on his conjured firefly.

“Lead us to Teddy Lupin,” James said confidently.

For a moment, the little light did nothing at all.

Then, as though suddenly charged with power, it zipped through the open doorway and down the staircase. James hastened to follow it, but Albus was again struck by a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He wasn't so sure going deeper underground was such a good idea, but before he could even begin to voice a protest, James had taken off into the gloom. They descended into the dark after him, while Albus's heart took up residence in his throat as his fear steadily became more pronounced.

The further down they walked, the denser the darkness seemed to become. The light of their illuminated wands still refused to stretch very far, and while they could still hear James' heavy footfalls ahead of them as he chased after his little light that he'd conjured, they could not see him. Around them, the skritch-skratch in the walls was becoming louder, and Albus was beginning to wonder whether it actually was rats, or perhaps something else.

When they'd reached the next landing, Albus felt his stomach drop and Scorpius's soft whisper voiced the question he really didn't want to hear.

“Where's James? Wasn't he just ahead of us?”

Panic replaced the fear, and without a word Albus rushed for the closed door that was just ahead of them, barely visible in the dark. Albus closed his hand around the handle of the door, only to lurch it back with a hiss of surprise.

Something wet, sticky, and warm clung to the metal. Even before using his lit wand to inspect it, he had a feeling that he knew what it was.

Blood.

“Albus,” Scorpius's voice sounded very far away, and when he looked up, the other boy's face was lined with worry.

“James...” Albus felt as though he would be sick, and without missing a beat, Scorpius drew him into a tight embrace. Albus clung back to him, and Scorpius kissed him once, hard, before breaking off with a sharp, frightened breath.

“We'll get him back. Him and Teddy. Don't forget, your father's coming, we just need to keep our heads until then.”

Scorpius held him close while Albus tried to calm down, but blind panic had begun to set in, and all he could see was the solitary fact that Teddy and James were gone.

“What are we going to do?” Albus asked him hoarsely, “I—my dad's good at stuff like this, not me. My God, what if James—” Albus's voice cracked, and he felt close to tears.

“Albus,” Scorpius tried, but he was too far gone as he backed out of the offered embrace and clutched his head in his hands; his eyes bulged as he began to hyperventilate. “Albus!” His head jerked up at the sharp hiss, and he stared at Scorpius with the same wide-eyed terror. “You need to calm down. James is not dead. We'll find him, your father will find us and ‘save the bloody day’, as my father always says.”

Albus couldn't help but smirk a little at that. Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter's lifelong rivalry was not lost on either of the boys, and at the moment it was strangely heartening to hear.

“We just need to think about this logically,” Scorpius continued, “chances are Teddy and James were taken somewhere, we just need to work out where the spirit may have taken them. And we need to arm ourselves.”

“Right, arm ourselves,” Albus whispered, straining his memory as he thought back to his Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons, both at school and with his father. “Vengeful spirits need to be purified to get rid of them—salt, iron, amethyst, quartz, fairy tears.”

Albus rattled off everything he knew that could possibly help them, and struggled to keep the cynicism in his tone to a bare minimum. As if they had any of those things handy.

“Let's start with iron,” Scorpius replied evenly, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapping it gingerly around the handle of the door. With Albus's help, they shouldered it open.

They were faced with another impossibly long hallway, and at once Scorpius stepped over to one of the cells. With a quick Severing Charm, he cut a few of the bars from the whole and levitated them into the air. After a few quick transfiguration spells, Scorpius handed Albus a iron baton, similar in size and shape to a fencing sword, though much heavier. He did the same for himself, and transferred the iron rod to his free hand.

“That's the best we can do for now,” Scorpius whispered, “unless we suddenly come across a cache of crystals or something.”

Albus snorted, but nodded, grateful that Scorpius seemed to be keeping it together, at least more than he was at any rate. His thoughts were still stuck on Teddy and James, and how utterly hopeless finding them seemed to be.

“I think it's likely that the spirit may have dragged them down, not up,” Scorpius whispered as they began to advance down the hall, their illuminated wands held high in an effort to see through the dark.

Albus's stomach churned at the words, the idea of his brother and Teddy being dragged anywhere in this place filled him with cold dread. If those two weren't able to stand up to this thing, what chance did they have, really?

“Albus? Are you listening?” Scorpius's voice snapped him out of his daze, and he turned to him, his angular face thrown into sharp relief by the wandlight.

“Yeah, sorry, I just...” he shook his head as he trailed off. “Never mind, let's just go.”

With their wands held high, they continued down the passageway, the only sound in the air their fevered breaths and shuffling footsteps. The scratching in the walls suddenly stopped, and the silence weighed heavily upon both of them. Albus felt terribly cold, and sick, and he was beginning to feel as though this whole endeavour to find the others was fruitless. He opened his mouth to voice his doubts to Scorpius, when out of the dark loomed a figure he'd only seen during his Defence lessons with his father.

The Dementor towered over them, hidden beneath a ragged, black cloak. Glistening, scabbed hands extended towards them from under its tattered robe; cold, rattling breaths drew closer as the Dementor swept towards them, and a bone-deep chill he'd hoped he'd never have to feel outside of a Defence lesson enveloped him. Albus struggled to focus. He knew this. His father told him what to do, and for the first time since they'd arrived in this horrid place, Albus felt a small spark of confidence fill him.

“Expecto Patronum!” He cried, and focused as hard as he could on a happy memory, any happy memory. Barely a wisp of silvery vapour escaped the tip of his wand, and he hissed a curse as the Dementor bore down upon him.

“Damn it,” Albus growled to himself, “come on, you know this!” The image of his family, happy, safe, and together floated into his mind's eye, and he tried again. “Expecto Patronum!”

A silver fawn sprang from the tip of his wand and promptly chased down the hulking, horrid creature, successfully driving it well away from him.

The warmth of the dank passageway did not return, but Albus's heart felt lighter, and that told him that the Dementor was indeed gone. He turned to smile with relief at Scorpius, but instead found himself staring at dead air.

He was alone.
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