Soldiers and Serpents //Scorbus

70 Thank You

Scorpius gave up the search for instinctual magic. It wasn't the answer to preparing this little group for a fight against Selwyn. But Occlumency was. And every day, Scorpius made a point to have both Albus and Raven shield their minds from him. And even after the day was over, at dinner time, he'd try to tickle his way into Raven's mind. And he could feel her pushing against him. It was mentally exhausting. But after a few days with this intense practice, Scorpius felt his own Legillimency becoming easier to him. And Raven? She constantly was throwing up a wall in her mind to fight off that invasion.

She'd gotten better at it than Albus. Scorpius figured it was because their father had also been good with Occlumency. Still, he didn't disclose the location of the resurrection stone to either of them. And Teddy helped as well. Especially when explaining initially how to block out other's from getting into their head. How to tell when someone was trying to read their mind.

It was hard to convince Michael that it was important to learn such a thing. So Scorpius focused in training Michael with defensive and offensive magic. He had a long way to go compared to the others. Raven, Albus, and even James and Rose were decent at Defense Against the Dark Arts. It seems like Scorpius's luck to be soul bonded to the one person who sucked at this kind of magic.

It was just a couple weeks until Selwyn's meeting, but everyone was preparing in their own way. Raven was spending time with Ashton, who had gotten so comfortable at Andromeda's that it almost seemed like he had lived there his entire life. Albus on the other hand, seemed reserved while he was staying there. Narcissa wasn't exactly receptive of the fact he was staying with Scorpius. She seemed to ignore that they were more than friends.

Not that they specified how much more. At the moment, Scorpius and Albus were just mending their friendship. They kept their hands off one another until the dead of night, when one of them couldn't help but crawl into the other's arms. It seemed like their bedroom after dark was the only place that they could just forget everything and be at peace with one another. The moment the lights were on, it went back to being real.

After the words that Scorpius and Raven swapped about Albus, Raven backed off from judging the situation. Not only did she realize it wasn't really her business, but she'd been too busy caught up with training and Ashton to really focus on much else. Actually, it was the happiest that Scorpius had seen her since Draco. He could see her light shine brightly again in the same room with Ashton. He just hoped it would stay that way after the meeting.

Scorpius had already made his plans for the upcoming meeting. Not that he could share them with anyone. But he knew what he planned had to be done. Every time that he'd gotten confident to think that he was ahead of Selwyn, he'd fail. Whether it was underestimating him or Aries or even Daniel. No more.

He wouldn't watch anyone else die. And truth was, he always knew that it would come to this. He'd known for a long time, but was never ready to make that leap. He could do it now. Scorpius wasn't afraid to embrace the darkest parts of himself, and that's exactly what he'd have to do to take down Selwyn.

Scorpius leaned against the wall in the hallway as Orion walked out of the bathroom, wet hair and fresh pajamas. His thoughts were swimming with prospects of the next few days. The few things he still needed to wrap up.

"Hey." Orion greeted. Scorpius looked up at him, as though out of a daze. "Need the bathroom?"

"Oh, yeah." Scorpius nodded, watching as Orion toweled his hair. "I need to thank you."

"Whatever for?" Orion's eyebrows met in the middle of his forehead. Scorpius stick his hands into the pockets of his joggers. Whatever tension was between him and Orion before, seemed to have dissolved recently. Sure, that physical attraction would always be there. But Orion was serious about not being a relationship guy, and for obvious reasons the two of them would never work out. Whether in secret or publicly, it would be a scandal. Scorpius knew he wouldn't spend the rest of his life with someone like Orion.