Chapter 3
To prevent his breathing from being too loud, Scorpius slows to a walk. He lifts his hand to brush a few stray pieces of damp hair glued to his face and is struck with the realisation that he has lost his knife sometime during the chase, rendering him defenceless. Panicking, he gingerly pats his pockets just in case he had placed it there by accident.
Empty.
He was completely defenceless in a forest filled with deadly monsters and the world rests on his survival.
He is halfway done, almost home, he reminds himself sternly. He can’t let fear stop him. He knows Albus wouldn’t have.
He cautiously rounds a cut of rock and almost yelps with surprise, but releases a breath of relief when he realises it is just Hermione. Hunched over on all fours, Hermione is breathing heavily and convulsing like she is about to vomit. Her bloody axe lay discarded next to her.
Scorpius furrows his brows worriedly. He takes a tentative step towards her, careful not to startle her. She must be catching her breath, he reasons. He takes another step. Hermione doesn’t turn but does lift off her hands, perching on her knees. She releases a deep breath. Scorpius’ nerves fray slightly. If she is sitting up, then she must be alright.
Like she can feel the weight of Scorpius’ gaze, Hermione whips her head and looks at him. Scorpius gasps, his heart stopping.
The skin of her face twisted like the veins from the tree, like she had been struck with lightning. Her eyes, sunken deep into the sockets, are oil black, as if the pupil has swallowed everything else. Upon seeing Scorpius, she bares her teeth into a growl, spit dripping from her mouth. Before he has time to react, she lunges at him with a piercing screech.
Scorpius screams and tumbles backwards as she grabs him, her nails digging into his skin. He frantically grabs her arms, holding her as far away as possible as she shrieks and attempts to sink her teeth into his neck. A huge bloody chunk is missing from the crook of her neck and yellow vines twist beneath her skin, where she must have been bitten.
“HELP!” Scorpius screams. His arms shake as Hermione inches closer to his face. Her face is angry and twisted and horrifying. Scorpius screams rip from his throat, erratic and terrified. He isn’t even sure if he is breathing; he is just screaming and using every ounce of adrenaline-powered strength to keep the wreathing Hermione from biting him.
Hermione jerks, and Scorpius’ hand slips from her shoulder. Her mouth is wide. Too wide—like a snake unhinging its jaw to strike—seconds away from sinking her teeth into his face.
But suddenly, Scorpius hears a sharp crack and hot blood spatters across his face. Hermione goes stiff like a puppet with its strings pulled too tight. She releases a low, rasping noise, wireless and awful. Blinking through the blood tinting his vision a milky red, Scorpius sees the tip of a sword poking cleanly through the centre of her face.
With Hermione no longer trying to attack him, he flings her limp body off him with a cry and crawls away. Scorpius regards her infected face and her glassy, unseeing eyes, the blood pooling around her head in a puddle; it is so dark in the forest it looks black. He hadn’t realised he was crying until he felt the fat drops of tears and sweat drip onto his hand.
Panting, Scorpius looks up to see Ron, his hand still on the hilt of the blade, which he had driven straight through the back of her head. His face is ashen and painted with pure shock, as if the gravity of his actions has not sunk in yet.
Ron slowly turns to Scorpius.
“What did I do?” Ron whispers, terrified. His eyes are wide and unseeing. His breathing is so rapid that he is almost gasping. Scorpius doesn’t know what to say or do. He isn’t sure if Ron would be able to hear him even if he did.
“What-what did I do?” Ron turns to Hermione, trembling, and croaks, “‘Mione?”
Scorpius feels the acidic taste of bile rising in his throat as he looks at Ron’s expression of pure heartbreak. It was so similar to the one his father wore when they found his mother dead. Ron’s vision tunnelled to Hermione’s body, slowly oozing blood into the crimson-stained grass.
Scorpius releases a strangled cry when Ron pulls the sword, which Scorpius finally recognized as the Sword of Gryffindor, from her head with a sickening squelch. Ron looks at him, troubled and shellshocked, the lines of age on his face deep rivets. Breathing quickly and trembling, Ron raises the sword and slits his neck with no hesitation, his skin parting like a crimson smile.
Scorpius whimpers as Ron’s body twists and falls to the ground near Hermione. Scorpius doesn’t know what to do but stare at the bloodied mass of the two people who just died for the slim chance Scorpius will make it home.
The twig snap breaks him from his daze and, frantically, Scorpius whips his head around, scanning the dark forest for a monster. Stomach churning, Scorpius picks up the bloodied Sword of Gryffindor lying abandoned near Ron and takes off running. Without glancing behind him, Scorpius urges his legs forward, despite his fatigue. The space between the trees is narrow and twigs grab at Scorpius’ hair and snag his clothes, leaving stinging scratches. But, he didn’t want to stop until he was far away from this once-magical forest.
The sky deepens from blue to a gloaming purple as Scorpius trudges through the skinny, black-barked pines. The ground slopes downward, and Scorpius distinctly hears the rush of running water. He follows the sound. The forest’s winding river eventually spits out into the Black Lake, and, thus, Hogwarts. He is close.
Scorpius slows to a walk, completely breathless. He runs a hand over his slick brow, blinking when fat beads of sweat roll into his eyes.
It is very quiet here.
Scorpius realises he can hear the river so clearly because there is no birdsong. It is dusk. There should be birdsong, sparrows, and crows singing to the coming night. The eerie trills and squalls would have been a small comfort. But there is only silence.
Scorpius’ skin prickles like he is being watched.
As far as he can tell, he is alone. Still, Scorpius tightens his grip on the sword, the metal cold against his sweaty palm. He reaches the bottom of the slope, where the trees thin and give way to the river bank, with more trees on the other side. The slow-moving water is black, sparkling in the bright reflection of the white-faced moon.
The river seems shallow but Scorpius hesitates at the edge. The only plan he can think of is to follow the river until it breaks from the forest; though, his aching body begs for rest. But Scorpius has no choice. He has to keep moving. Branded on the back of his eyelids are the twisted corpses, and he isn’t going to give up. He did not want them to die in vain.
Scorpius shakes his head, stealing his nerves, as he steps into the icy water. The water is so cold that it burns his skin, turning it an angry red, but he forces himself to take another step.
He is exactly halfway across when he hears a croak. He freezes and looks up as an infected emerges from the trees. It hobbles on the opposite bank, right ahead of him. It has the same build as the ones they had fought against earlier, with all traces of humanness removed. It has no eyes, but its body is facing him. Its blood-stained mouth hangs open, exposing its pointed teeth.
Scorpius can’t think. His mind is completely blank. This is the first time he’s faced an infected without Ron or Hermione. All he can do is stare at the infected as it picks its way out of the trees and down the river bank. The thing was a wizard once, like himself.
A croak sounds from behind him, and despite himself, Scorpius turns to look. He immediately wishes he hadn’t. There is another twitching infected on the bank he just left. It is facing him, too.
He is trapped in the centre, the perfect prey, frozen with terror. He tries to think. He really did try. But his brain isn’t working. Of course, he excelled at school but went stupid in the face of real life. All he can think about is running downstream, following the river—but he would be slow moving through the water, and after a while, his body would shut down from the cold.
The infected in front of him reaches the edge of the water. It is barely twenty paces away. It takes a step into the water.
Fear paralyses him. Scorpius trembles violently, even though he tries to make himself silent. But the pounding of his heart must betray him because the infected releases a train of clicks and lunges at him. Scorpius doesn’t—he doesn’t think; really, he just reacts. The slick sound of the blade meeting flesh rings through the air. He watches, wide-eyed and sickened, as the infected limply falls into the water. He just killed someone. Even if their brain had been taken over, it is still a wizard, a prisoner of the Death Eaters.
Scorpius whips his head as the other infected shrieks at the splash and throws itself into the river. Scorpius doesn’t hesitate to run forward, pushing as hard as he can against the water’s grip until he reaches shore and begins sprinting once again through the damp, clustered forest. Branches whack him in the face and his feet catch on rocks and roots, but it doesn’t slow him down. The ground inclines but the trees thin until it opens into the tilted grassy plains of the Hogwarts grounds.
Not far behind him are the infected. Scorpius crosses the tree line and feels the sudden icy wall pass through him. The infected runs right up to the ward, but when its body collides against it, the monster is propelled backwards and is lit aflame.
The infected screams as it burns. Scorpius pants, his hands braced against his knees, as he watches the infected turn into a charred lump. He antsily throws a glance around, waiting for more danger to strike. But the only thing around him is the stubby grass and whispering patches of lavender stretching for miles over the rolling hills. In the distance, he can see the teetering bridge leading to the glowing Bell Tower.
Snape, he remembers suddenly. Scorpius, with the bloodied Sword of Gryffindor still in hand, sprints towards the oweltry tower, where he knows Snape is waiting.