She sat in shock for a fraction of a second, before the awful rumbling beneath her shook her to her senses. "Stop!" Sariah yelled. As awful as Scorpius had been, she didn't want him crushed.

The Anglia halted. Sariah shot out the passenger door, and raced to other side of the car. "Scorpius! Scorpius?"

He didn't reply. Scorpius was curled over on his side, pinned tightly against the wall. His robe sleeve concealed his face, as his chest moved in big, gasping movements. No sound came out.

She pushed at the Anglia's side furiously. "Move it. Come on, move! You're hurting him."

The Anglia revved its engine in indignation. It did not move away. She knelt down next to him. "Scorpius? Are you okay? Oh god, please be okay."

"Just leave me alone," he said thickly.

Sariah was stunned. Here he was, pinned against a wall, unable to reach his wand, in the middle of the bloody Forbidden forest... and he still didn't want anything to do with her?

"No," she said.

"I mean it. Go away." he said, his voice cracking.

"Not until you tell me what's the hell is going on," she said. "You've been a real jerk lately."

He didn't reply. A shudder wracked through his body. Were his lungs were filling with blood? What if both his legs were broken? She'd have to drag him out of the forest on a pile of branches like a Bear Grylls episode.

"Get off of him, please?" she begged the car, pushing it uselessly.

The Anglia was resolute and unyielding. Cold shivers raked down her spine as she realized she had no control over the car. She had repaired seven hundred kilos of stubborn metal that now held Scorpius pinned like a Macadamia in a nut cracker.

She sat next to Scorpius and wedged herself into the crevasse that had been created between the car and the tree root, with equal amounts of hope and prayer that the car wouldn't see fit to crush her too.

"Can you breathe okay?" she asked.

Scorpius nodded, his robe sleeve still concealing his face. "I thought I told you to go away," he grunted, wiggling pointlessly to free himself.

"Not until you tell me," she replied.

Stalemate. She wasn't going anywhere, the Anglia wouldn't, and Scorpius definitely couldn't. Sariah breathed deeply, and tried to get into a comfortable position. Even her dreadlocks weren't enough to cushion her back from the uncomfortable tree trunk. The coldness of the ground began to seep through her jeans. She listened to the birds flitting through the trees.

Beside her, Scorpius sucked in a breath. "Fine," he said scathingly. "You want to know what's wrong? I'll tell you." He ripped his arm away from his face, catching her in his icy stare. "What's wrong, is that half the school thinks my father set a bunch of dragons loose on muggles. What's wrong, is that some people are patting me on the back, congratulating him." Sariah hadn't seen anyone so livid that tears leaked out from their eyes. "What else? Let's see. Despite all this, you obviously prefer the company and chocolates of James F*cking Potter. Oh, and nothing important, but last night I got jumped by a group of Gryffindors whose relatives were burnt by dragon fire. Ever seen a suit of armour enchanted to attack? Because I have." He rubbed at his cheekbone and eye; his pale skin seemed to evaporate as angry purple bruises bloomed across it. "So there you have it. A bunch of people think I'm the son of a freedom fighter, and the rest of the school hates my guts. You should just let your stupid car finish me off before someone at the castle does."

Sariah felt her words evaporate. What could anyone say to that? Her jaw teetered open and closed several times, before she reached out to hold his shoulder. He flinched at the contact.

"I'm sorry," she said. The words didn't do any justice to the thoughts in her head.

Scorpius rubbed his eyes again. "You shouldn't be the one apologizing. I've been a jerk to you lately."

"You have, a little," Sariah admitted.

"Sorry." He looked away, and his gaze trailed down the axle responsible for pinning him down. Scorpius' eyes widened. Without hesitation, he jammed his free arm under the vehicle, his mouth twisting with the effort. He grabbed a hold of something, and began tugging at it.

"Hey, what-" Sariah began.

Scorpius pulled again, and a shrieking metal sound echoed after it. It sounded like iron was being forced through a cheese grater. With an almighty tug the piece came free. Scorpius appeared to be holding a rusty frisbee in his hand. His mouth dropped in surprise.

She angled around to get a better look. "What is that?"

"It's a death eater mask," he said. He rolled it over curiously in his hands, before gaping at the car with a dumbfounded expression. "This thing ran over death eaters?" Suddenly, he looked much more panicked. "Sariah, get me out from under here. I'll never say a word against it again."

Sariah pushed her knees into the car's side. "Come on, will you move now?"

The car grudgingly sidled away, like a fire crab. Scorpius rushed to his feet and out of the shelter. He stared between the car and the mask. It was crusted in dirt, and its mouth had been ripped away. The twisted hole was what had wrapped around the car's axle for so many years. He looked like he was about to bolt off into the forest. Sariah couldn't think of a worse thing for him to bring back to the castle, given what he'd just told her.

"Will you stay out here with me?" Sariah said, leaning against the car's bonnet. "For a bit, I mean. This has kind of freaked me out."

He nodded stiffly without looking at her, and rubbed a hunk of dirt off the mask. "I haven't seen one of these for ages."

"You've actually seen one before?" she asked.

He scowled. "Just the one."

Something in his tone of voice stopped her from asking whose. While he wouldn't come back down to the car, Scorpius sat at the entrance to the shelter. He kept her company as she worked on the car's back seats. "I'm starved," he announced, sometime around one. He seemed to have regained his composure, and the bruises that purpled his skin had been charmed away again.

 "I'll come back with you," Sariah said. When she came up out of the shelter, she saw he'd cleaned the death eater's mask. It glinted maliciously in the sunlight, mouth-less, its deformed scowl looked monstrous with the sharp edges of the tear. Scorpius asked her to store it in the car's glove box, unwilling to even approach the Anglia. Sariah shivered as it made contact with her skin.The wizard who had worn that mask would have wished her dead.