Brute.

When Albus was in a bad mood, it was best to leave him and let him do whatever he wanted. At this moment in time, it was to let him lead the way back - even though it was clear that he didn't know which way he was leading the group.

"Does he know where he's going?" Scorpius whispered to James, not wanting the shortest of the three to hear and get more irritated.

"Obviously not, just let him think he does."

The way Albus had taken was one that nobody had recognised before. The stones that presumably once formed a path, were now ran down and almost buried in the dirt. The trees covered sunlight from reaching it, only allowing little strings of sunlight to reach the ground.

Scorpius was clearly feeling a little unsettled by the sudden change in scenery, he took a gulp before looking at James - who was roughly the same height as the blond.

"This is getting a little eery now, I say we stop him." Scorpius spoke in a mutter, being well aware of his surroundings.

James let out a sigh and shrugged, clearly unsure of what to do, "He'll probably end up hitting you if you try and stop him."

"I can take a punch, besides, he can't be that strong."

James opened his mouth to answer Scorpius' sassy comment, but stopped when he noticed that Albus had stopped walking. Almost in shock. James immediately started to hurry his walking into a swift pace, concerned for his brother.

"Al?" James called out, which Albus only held up a hand to signal James to stop talking.

Scorpius had noticed what Albus was looking at, and it seemed to be a female and a male silhouette far enough to be unrecognisable, but close enough to be heard.

"Well done, Al, you lead us into dodgy pedestrian area!" James shouted in a whisper, making Albus turn around and cover his mouth.

"Would you shut up for once?" Al had whispered, shoving his brother behind a very convenient boulder.

The three were hiding behind this boulder, everyone but Albus confused. The group were quiet, despite not knowing who these people were and why they were in such a dodgy place.

"You were meant to kill the eldest!" The man had shouted, a raspy voice.

"The eldest wasn't in sight, I couldn't simply walk away without doing a single deed!"

"The girl was the least of our problems, the boys are our problem! Now they have put up their security! The Malfoy chap is involved!"

James and Albus had then turned their heads to Scorpius, who was now intrigued after hearing the male voice shout his name.

"Malfoy isn't a worry, none of them are. What problems have Potters caused for us ever?"

"Harry nearly killed Voldemort."

"Voldemort?" Albus whispered to the two of the boys.

"Tom." Scorpius informed.

"These are his followers?" James kept his voice as low as he could, earning a nod from Scorpius.

"The Potters are apart of the bloody prophecies, the lot of them! If we don't kill the boys we are in trouble, the lot of us." The male voice approached closer, which made Albus clasp a hand over his own mouth.

"The prophecy doesn't state that they are about them-"

"When the moment comes that The King rises to the sky, the young son shall mark depravity and kill the darkness." The man had sighed, "We have to kill the sons, then Potter."

"I've seen the Princes, they are both scrawny boys who can't handle their own lives. I can assure you, they are no threat to our master, to my father."

"Listen to yourself, Delphini!"

Albus let out a loud gasp, somewhat unaware of the noise he had just made. He suddenly felt dizzy, like he was going to collapse at any moment and fall to the ground.

"Delphini killed Lily." Albus breathed out, his mouth agape.

"That's a big assumption to make, Al-" James tried to speak, but it was only moments after he started talking to Albus that the boy had stood up, storming towards the two people.

A mumbled of curses came out of Scorpius' and James' mouths, and the two had never ran so fast towards Albus in their lives.

"Your Grace." Delphini smiled when she had seen Albus approach her, "You shouldn't be out in this area, it's unsafe."

"You killed her..?" Albus choked out, almost at disbelief of what he had just heard.

Delphini had an unsettled look on her face, looking at the man next to her for some sort of help.

"You were her maid, she trusted you!"

James and Scorpius appeared behind Albus, whispering in his ear for him to just leave it - because it was clearer than glass that Delphini was The Dark Lord's followers.

"I found her dead, Your Grace." Delphini tried to act it off, but Albus wasn't up for lies. He never was.

Albus' mind was foggy, like he couldn't process any of the other words being said to him. Lily's own maid had killed her, in the most brutal way possible. Delphini had left nothing but her decapitated head in her bedsheets, nothing worth of a burial. James heard a yelp and then with a flash of moments, Delphini was on her back, on the floor with a bewildered look on her face. Albus stood above her, panting, his hand still curled in a fist.

"Al!" Scorpius dragged him back, seeing the other man get his wand out of his pocket, "Al, we need to go, now!"

"She killed Lily!" Albus argued back, shoving Scorpius off him - in which James was about to help Scorpius get Albus away from Delphini.

However, moments before James could get ahold of his brother the man had shouted out something none of the three would ever forget.

"Crucio!"

Albus had let out a scream of pain, a red light illuminating his face, before holding his stomach and falling to the floor. Delphini and the man had immediately ran off now that the attention was now all on Albus. It felt like one thousand white-hot knives, boring into the skin. His screams were clear that he was being put through an excruciating type of pain that he had never felt before, not even when James would shove him to the ground in their duelling battles.

James and Scorpius were in complete shock, frozen in their place from what they had just seen. Fear was riddled on James' face as he kneeled down to his brother.

"Whats happening to him!" James shouted out to Scorpius in panic, which was barely audible through Albus' cries of pain.

Scorpius couldn't answer, the blond wasn't capabale of any movement and his knowledge wasn't enough to stop Albus' pain. He knew plenty about the Cruciatus Curse, but he never knew how to stop the pain.

"Scorpius!" James was pleading, his eyes swelling with tears. His voice shaking with fear.

"The Cruciatus Curse!"

"Stop it!" James pleaded again, "Please, Scorpius, make it stop!"

"I don't know how!"

"He's going to die!"

A couple of moments later, Albus' screams and cries were eventually getting quieter, until it had stopped. It was too much for him, too intense. He no longer knew where he was, or who he was with.

"Al?" James didn't shout, but the sound of his voice startled Albus, "Merlin, are you ok?"

The first person Albus looked at was Scorpius, who was paler than usual. He almost looked sick, yet nothing compared to the look on Albus' face.

James was in a state of panic, which was shown through his repetition of 'Are you ok' to Albus, which he could only answer to by nodding as a reply.

"James, I think you should bring the horses down here." Scorpius' tone was a lot more relaxed than James', though his face was a lot more panicked than James'.

"They know we're here, they're going to try and kill us." James replied to Scorpius, pulling Albus into a hug.

Normally Albus would shove James off him, but he was somewhat enjoying the comfort and felt too weak to pull him off him.

"And we'll get nowhere if we're trying to get back with someone who has just been under a curse. With horses we can flee, if you run it will be minutes before you're back."

James let out a heavy sigh and nodded, ruffling Albus' hair before pulling away from the hug and standing up. He walked towards Scorpius.

"Keep that wand in your hand." James advised, before running as quick as he could towards the direction where the horses and knights were.

Albus was breathing heavily, eyes heavy as an overwhelming tiredness had just hit him. His body was still in pain, of course, but not the excruciating pain he had just been put through.

"It's ok." Scorpius walked over to Albus, kneeling down next to him, "Are you ok?"

"Just about." Albus grunted out, managing to put a smile on his face.

"Sorry I couldn't do anything."

"I didn't expect you to do anything, you're just my knight."

"We can let your Dad know." Scorpius wrapped an arm around Albus, somewhat acting as if that would protect the boy, "About Lily."

"He won't listen. Ever since Lily died my father has just been more and more distant." Albus spoke in a raspy voice, his voice perfectly matching his tired face.

"Well.." Scorpius sighed, looking at Albus, "My Father was always distant with me, ever since my mother died. Even to this day, I'm not sure what he is up to. Probably nothing too good, I left to live with my Aunt. Daphne."

"I mean.." Albus let out a heavy breath, scrunching his face when he moved to be sat up more. He looked up at Scorpius, "He's always been distant with me, unless if he wants to scold me for something, but now he's just totally abandoned James and Mother. I feel as if he never did like me much."

"Then we can tell your Mother, if that makes you feel any better. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable with telling your Father if you feel like he won't listen." Scorpius smiled down at Albus, rubbing circles onto his shoulder to try and comfort him.

Albus nodded, rubbing his right eye, "You said your Mother died?"

"She died when I was 13, a blood curse than ran throughout her family blood line. It was incurable. My Dad was distraught about it, and after the funeral he sort of just drifted away from me. I thought it was best to leave him be and become my own person with my Aunt, Daphne. Daphne taught me everything I know today, she's a great witch."

"Maybe Daphne can teach me how to defend myself from whatever happened then." Albus half joked, chuckling at himself.

"Curses are hard to block, Al." Scorpius informed, tapping his wand on his thigh, "I can teach you whatever your Mother would like me to teach you, because knowing you, if you got your hands on dark magic you'd most likely use it just to defeat your enemy."

Albus let out a small laugh, shaking his head, "I would never use Crucio."

"Hurts doesn't it?"

"You've had Crucio casted on you before?"

"When I was 15."

Albus nodded to this, "What are the other curses?"

"Well there are three unforgivable curses, as some people call them. The torture curse is The Cruciatus Curse, which puts its victim in a deep state of pain. Of course you have the killing curse, Avarda Kedarva and then you have The Imperius Curse."

"What does that do?"

"Controls it's victim to do whatever you need them to do, people say that you can see through your own eyes but not be in control of your own thoughts or actions. Often people use it to murder and frame someone for it, but it's somewhat clear when someone is under the influence of the curse."

Albus took a deep breath before letting out a sigh, closing his eyes for a minute, "You wouldn't kill me, right?"

"Merlin, Al!" Scorpius almost sounded shock at the words that came out of the princes mouth, "I'm here to protect you, not kill you."

Albus was playing with his fingers, tangling them together and tapping them intensely together, "I don't want to die before I avenge Lily."

"And we will avenge her, me and you. Trust me, Al, you won't die under my watch, nothing will happen to you."

Albus gave a genuine smile to Scorpius, who returned it and opened his mouth to say something - before he was interrupted by the sound of James panicking in the distance.

"Oh thank goodness you guys are alive!" James called out, his voice raspy from all of the sprinting he did to get to the horses.

James dismounted his horse, patting it gently on it's side before walking over to Scorpius and Albus.

"Can you stand up?" James questioned, looking down at his brother who was sitting on the floor beside Scorpius.

Albus gave his brother a nod, a nod full of uncertainty and he was most definitely not convinced that he felt good enough to stand up.

Scorpius immediately stood up when he saw Albus' nod, almost reading him like a book, he stood in front of Albus, "Fetch me his horse, please, Your Grace." He asked James, who quickly spotted Albus' horse as it was younger and stood out from the Knights horse.

Scorpius offered a hand out to Albus when his horse was close by, Albus gratefully took it with another thankful smile on his face, "Take it easy." Scorpius ordered whilst pulling him up, immediately putting a hand on Albus' waist as Albus' arm went across Scorpius' shoulders.

"This is a little humiliating." Albus mumbled out, taking a moment to get used to the sudden motion of being stood up. He never knew such an intense amount of dizziness when he stood up before.

"You're actually handling it rather well," Scorpius comforted, slowly guiding himself and Albus to his horse, "I was lead down on the ground for a solid 4 hours."

Albus chuckled and shook his head, his eyes hooded as if he was going to fall asleep at any moment. Scorpius helped him mount his horse, before getting on the horse himself in front of Albus.

"Hold onto me, wouldn't want you to fall off the horse." Scorpius looked back at Albus, who unsurprisingly had his eyes closed and gave a half nod to the blond.

~

When they had gotten back to the palace, Albus was almost falling asleep on Scorpius' back and even though it wasn't too comfortable with the metal of Scorpius' armour - it wasn't any pain compared to the curse he had been through today.

Albus raised his head from Scorpius back, squinting his eyes from the quick adjustment of lighting. He then noticed a carriage, his parents were outside.

"It's Uncle Ron." James was already off his horse, holding his arms out to Albus.

"Great." Albus mumbled, taking James' help and before he knew it he was off his horse and so was Scorpius.

"You can go up to your sleeping quarters if you want to, I'll explain to Mother what happened."

The younger shook his head, "I'll just say hello."

When the three had approached the carriage, Scorpius had never heard of, or seen, any of the people there. However, he had immediately locked his eyes onto a ginger girl - who was wearing such a glamorous dress. The dress sits upon her skin as soft petals, its shade the many blacks of a midnight sky. In the sunshine her hair, long and loose, reflected the sunlight as well as any bonny sea wave, a beautiful shade of ginger. Freckles were dusted onto her face, shining in the light as she nodded at The King.

"It's a great loss, truly." Her voice was so soft, her tone was so relaxing.

The King was going to say something in response to this girl, before Queen Ginevra had spoken first.

"Goodness!" She almost sprinted towards Albus, feeling his forehead, and then his cheeks, "What's happened to him?"

"He had a curs-" James started to explain, however Scorpius was quick to cut him off his sentence.

"I think it's best if we talk about that inside, Your Majesty." Scorpius finished for James, giving him eyes that spoke for him to stop talking.

The Queen gave a worried look to her husband, Albus staying quiet throughout this exchange of looks.

"Hermione, come with me." The Queen spoke, wrapping an arm around her very, very tired son, "And you two."

Scorpius and James then both sighed deeply, Scorpius walking behind Hermione, Albus and The Queen with James - giving the girl one last glance as she was chatting away to The King.

When the group of five had reached the closest private room, they all scurried in.

"Mother, please, I'm just tired!" Albus pleaded when she had gave intimate look to James and Albus.

She shushed him before turning to James, "You explain this, right now!"

James glanced at Albus, who was looking at the floor. There was no way for him to know if Albus wanted to hide what happened to him, or if he wanted to tell his Mother, "He's just tired, Mother!"

"A man casted the Crutiatus Curse on him." Scorpius mumbled out, loud enough for it to be audible for everybody in the room.

Hermione and Ginevra both gasped out loud, turning towards Albus.

"And why would somebody cast Crucio on a boy?" Hermione spoke in a thick accent, it almost made everybody else's voice in the room sound somewhat Northern.

"Delphini Riddle killed Lily, according to Al." James explained, earning a groan from Albus.

Albus was leaning against a wall, remaining looking at the floor, "Let me explain, please." He took a deep breath, finally making eye contact with his Mother, "We got our wands and everything was fine, but I was in one of my moods because I nearly got assigned a wand that held dark magic - or something similar to that. So, I lead us into a little bit of a dodgy area. An area where the sunlight barely lit past the trees and I heard two voices so I hid behind a rock. It was Delphini and she was talking with another man, scolding her because she shouldn't of killed Lily. She should've killed James and then me. I then lost my temper and confronted her, and the man then casted the curse on me."

"And what did this man look like?" Hermione questioned, in a very intimidating tone that almost scared Albus more than confronting Delphini.

"Erm-" He stuttered, knowing that he wasn't entirely examining the man as much as Delphini.

"He had the dark mark, Ma'am." Scorpius helped Albus out, "A dark cloak on, his wand seemed to look like an Ebony wood and he had grey hair with no facial hair. His skin was a ghastly white, almost as if he was dead."

"The dark mark?" James whispered to Scorpius, who nodded.

"It's his mark. The mark that you're one of Tom Riddle's followers." Scorpius whispered back to him, watching as Hermione was whispering to The Queen.

"Ok, James you stay with us. Albus, get some rest." Ginevra had ordered, watching as Albus and Scorpius exited the room to go towards his bedroom.