"We should follow them!" Scorpius whispered urgently, making a move towards the Forbidden Forest. Albus yanked him back.

"I don't think we should," he said, "there is a reason it's called the Forbidden Forest full of werewolves and... ahh... other dangerous things. Plus I don't think that we should be eavesdropping on their private conversation. It looked intense."

Scorpius just rolled his eyes. "What, like centaurs? You are such a Hufflepuff. My father said that the forest is only forbidden so that we don't sneak down to Hogsmeade."

"Well my father said that there are Acromantula, those giant spider things, in the forest. He even went to their lair and talked to them." Albus retorted.

"Your dad's still alive so clearly they aren't that dangerous. Plus we would only be following de Valernois and Blackwood, soooo we couldn't possibly run into any danger." Scorpius answered, with an angry shake of his head. "I'm going," he said definitively, "are you coming with me?"

"No, I will not." Albus replied just as stubborn. "You could die, or worse, be caught by de Valernois."

Scorpius rolled his eyes again, before turning away again, towards the Forbidden Forest. This time Albus let him go.

Albus began making his way up to the castle when he saw the straight black hair of Elizabeth Zorren. He ran to catch up with her. They chatted as they made their way into the castle, mostly speculation about the reason the quidditch match had been cancelled. Elizabeth had never seen a quidditch game before and was really disappointed.

As they crossed the threshold into the Entrance Hall, Albus spotted a few of the Ravenclaw first years walking towards them. They were being led by Margaret Harndel, an extremely bright witch who Albus had decided wasn't particularly nice. She had an eye for those who were a little on the sidelines and delighted on picking on them. Her roving eye hadn't yet noticed Albus but it seemed like that was about to change.

"Oh look what we have here, a couple of Hufflepuffs. Are you guys disappointed about the match?" Margaret's voice was high and clear, dripping with condescension. "It must get boring in Hufflepuff, I mean, it's not like you guys really do much is it?" She laughed, as did the Ravenclaws around her, as if she had said something incredibly witty.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, "Albus, let's just leave it. She's just jealous that you beat her on that History of Magic test. " She grabbed his arm, pulling him down towards the Hufflepuff common room before Margaret could reply.

Albus didn't have a chance to see Scorpius until the next day in Herbology. It was a foggy, sleepy Monday morning, where even the sun didn't seem like it wanted to wake up. Today, Professor Longbottom had decided, it was the perfect day to learn about the importance of different fertilizers for common magical house plants. Despite the absolute boredom of the class as a group, nobody began fidgeting or whispering to their neighbour. Even after over a month of school, everyone was still in awe of the Neville Longbottom, one of the heroes of the Battle of Hogwarts who had stood up to Voldemort himself.

As Neville (Albus could never seem to get used to calling him Professor Longbottom) began explaining the differences between using dragon dung and that of a unicorn, Albus wrestled with asking Scorpius about what he had heard, no overheard from de Valernois and Blackwood's conversation. He didn't want to make it sound like he approved of eavesdropping but he was dying to know.

Finally, curiousity won and he whispered to Scorpius "So did you...um... hear anything during your walk through the Forbidden Forest?"

Scorpius smiled smugly, "I thought that you didn't want to eavesdrop on de Valernois and Blackwood."

"Well, umm... I don't approve of the umm... method by which you... acquired the information but that doesn't mean that I don't want to hear it. " Albus responded.

Scorpius' smile grew even bigger, turning into a large grin. "I don't know, I'm not sure if Helga would approve," he teased. Seeing Albus splutter some more, torn between what he believed and what he wanted, Scorpius gave in. "There isn't much to tell. It was really hard to get close enough to hear anything because the leaves have been falling off the trees and they were crunching every time I walked. There was this one time that I swear I thought they'd caught me and I was just about to come up with some excuse. It was terrifying." Despite the danger that he'd gone through, Albus thought that Scorpius looked more thrilled than scared.

"I think that they were arguing though," Scorpius continued, "about some thing in some room. It was really confusing." He paused, trying to gather his thoughts. "I think that there was a something in a place called Iramor, no... um..." His face screwed up, as he tried to remember. "No wait, it wasn't Iramor it was Irelamor," he said excitedly. "Something in a place called Irelamor I think. And de Valernois was trying to find the place, maybe Blackwood knows where it is."

Albus was puzzled, "Irelamor, I've never heard of that before. I wonder what it could be, where it could be. "

"Potter. Malfoy. Is there something more important than dragon dung that you would care to share with the class?" They heard Neville's voice calling to them. He was wearing a stern expression that looked odd on his face.

Albus face turned red, as he blushed profusely. "N-no Professor," they chorused back to Neville. For the rest of the class, Albus listened intently, the mysterious Irelamor interspersed with magical feces in his thoughts.

As Albus and Scorpius were packing up at the end of class, Neville called to them. "Scorpius, can I speak with you for a moment?" Albus glanced at Scorpius, shrugging before quickly shoving his books and notes into his backpack. Scorpius told him he would see him at lunch and Albus quickly left.