Rose looked over at the two brothers as they talked, before they started a mock fistfight that ended with an embrace.
Scorpius had been right. They needed to handle this themselves, like brothers. She hoped the next time something like that happened, it wouldn't have to take a kidnapping of one of them for them to reconcile.
"Do you know where in the world we are?" Scorpius asked. "It was high sea when I was taken out here, so we just sat inside in darkness. I don't even know what pier I started from."
"I don't know if you came from the same place we did, but we found the boat in Peterhead in Scotland. It took us about three hours to get here, almost straight north. So, we are probably somewhere in the North Sea. But the island itself is Unplottable, so we couldn't even find the Tracker."
"I was about to ask about that. How did you find us anyway?"
"We didn't. We found the impostor. I found your last note eventually, the one taped under the desk and that led us to search Dawson's house. The real Dawson was kept prisoner in a suitcase. In the bedroom was a very realistic dummy that looked like you. It gave us quite the fright." Scorpius held on even tighter as she said that. "Either way, we discovered that Dawson owned a boat and we managed to locate it with the help of the Muggle Coast Guard. Then we realised that the boat had been to the Unplottable island several times and we could make it take us there even if we didn't know where it was."
"That is genius. Though it shouldn't surprise me. You are quite brilliant after all."
"I had help from my mother."
"Still, it was your idea. And thank you for believing in me, enough to stop me from attacking everyone around me. I thought it was all a lie, an illusion, until you touched me."
"I figured as much. And I don't blame you. I can't even imagine what it has been like."
"Let's not talk about that now." Scorpius said. Then he kissed her again. He had done that quite often since they were reunited, but she didn't complain.
"You need to shave," she said in a teasing voice.
"I tried to find a razor, but it seems none of the others there needed one," Scorpius said. "I didn't even know I could grow a beard. Doesn't it make me look older and wiser?"
"Older, certainly. You look like an old warlock. And smell like one too."
"Well, at least you can't complain that I smell of booze this time,"
"I would rather have booze than this smell."
"I'll remember that" Scorpius said with a smile as they kept snogging.
"You two need to get a room," Albus said as he came over to them. They ignored him.
"Seriously. Everyone is watching, aren't you at least a little ashamed?"
"Of what? Of showing the world that I love my wife?" Scorpius asked. Albus just rolled his eyes.
"Hey, cut the man some slack. He hasn't seen his wife for over two weeks." James said with a grin.
"Two weeks? Hasn't it been longer than that?" Scorpius asked.
"Roughly two weeks, depending on how quickly the impostor took you there after he arrested you. Or she, I mean."
"How did you know about that?"
"I would say that was her first mistake. If she hadn't arrested you publicly, it would have been a lot harder for us to find out you were truly missing, not just busy. Was that your idea?"
"No, it was Dawson's idea. He used that as an argument to make me go along. I figured it might be a good idea for Lehrer to get into a bit of trouble with the Ministry, since some had started to whisper that I was a bit too close to the Potters. I should have been more suspicious about the fact that he wanted to do it so fast. I suspect he made sure to suggest it at a time when both you two and Harry weren't around for me to notify. I think he… sorry, she had been waiting for that for some time. How long had she been impersonating Dawson?"
"At least three months. We don't have a specific date just yet." Albus said.
"Why did she start with you though? Given who she is, I would have thought she would go after Ginny first." Rose said.
"I don't know. When I tried to ask her what she was doing, she said that I would finally get what I deserved. The only time she said anything to me after I was pushed down that hole, was once when she came down to gloat, trapping me against the wall. She said something about me being a danger to the Potters and pointed to the Dark Mark. She didn't make sense, most of the time. She claimed to be working for the Ministry, though I don't know if she actually believed that or just said that because I still thought it was Dawson saying those things. I saw her start to go back to normal, but she took a swig of Polyjuice Potion before I could see enough to see who it was. But that was how I knew it wasn't really Dawson. That was a bit of a relief, I didn't really want to think that someone I've worked with could hate me that much."
"She went back and forth between talking as herself and pretending to be Dawson on the way out here too," Albus said. "But she ignored everyone but my dad. She is either insane or bewitched. My money's on insane."
Scorpius didn't say anything. He didn't want to think about all of that just now. It was a lovely day, he was headed home, and his wife was with him. What more could he ask for?
***
As they finally made it to shore, Hermione led the group of women off the boat first. Albus volunteered to take the boat back to the island to pick up the others.
"But what do we do with Vane?" he asked Hermione. "Should we just leave her there until they're all back?"
"No, I'll take her now as well." Hermione said. She quickly gave orders to the Aurors that had met them as they came into the harbour. Two of them would return with Albus, the rest of them would deal with the impostor. None of them seemed to harbour much sympathy towards the person who had impersonated and imprisoned one of their own.
It seemed Vane followed the Aurors up on deck with no protest. When they started escorting her off the boat though, she tried to get back on it.
"No, wait, I can't leave yet, Harry's going to miss me!" She continued protesting for several minutes as the Aurors tied her up and Disapparated with her. None of the other women said a word. When they were gone, one of them finally spoke up.
"I had no idea her obsession had taken her that far. I mean, she has been obsessed with Harry ever since we were at school, but I never thought she would actually try to kidnap members of his family because of it."
"I started to worry about 6 months ago," one of the others said. "She began to talk about very specific details, what would be needed, who needed to disappear first etc. It was creepy."
"The only one who seemed to even want to help her hurt the Potters was Marietta. She's been missing for weeks."
It seemed one of them daring to speak up had opened a floodgate. Soon, the whole story came out, from all of them at once.
"She's been on and on about this ever since we were at school!"
"We've never encouraged her in it, but I suppose we should have tried harder to dissuade her."
"She's mental! All her life she's gone on and on about the one man she couldn't get."
"I hope everyone else she hurt will be fine?"
"What will happen to her now? She needs some serious help; she isn't safe to have around others."
Hermione let this go on for a few minutes, then she raised her voice and asked them to be silent.
"As I've said, none of you are under arrest for anything, so you are free to go. I would, however, recommend that you all come with Malfoy and Malfoy here to St. Mungo's to make sure that no lasting damage has been done to any of you. After that is completed, I would also greatly appreciate it if you would talk to one of our Law Enforcement personnel about what you know about this situation. Make an appointment with us before you leave St. Mungo's."
The women nodded again, and Rose reluctantly took charge and led all of them to St. Mungo's as her mother had said. Scorpius didn't leave her sight though. A few of the women gave him strange looks, but none of them said anything. He needed a bath and a shave, but he wasn't ready to leave Rose just yet. He could wait until they were home.
Luckily for them, St. Mungo's had been alerted and had Healers ready to assess them. There was very little Rose had to do, other than take down everyone's name and availability. Scorpius was checked out by the same Healer he had seen when he had been hit by the Confunding Curse four years ago. He was quickly deemed to have a healthy mind, at least as far as enchantments went. What he needed was some rest and nutrition. Rose was going to make sure he had that.
By the time everyone had been checked out at St. Mungo's, Albus had come back with the 2nd round of people from the island. It went a lot faster once they knew where to go. Scorpius saw several Healers standing around a bed with Marietta on it, frowning and talking amongst themselves. He had also caught a brief glimpse of Sam, still restrained but not quite as severely as when he had tied him up, being checked out before he was taken away by one of the Aurors. At least he didn't seem to be let go just yet. Sam looked up at him for a brief moment and he seemed terrified and looked down again quickly. Scorpius wondered briefly what his part was in all of this before he again decided he didn't want to know. Rose was finally able to leave the administration to someone else.
"Come on Scorpius," she said as she took hold of him again. "Let's go home."
Scorpius would never get tired of hearing those words. Home.