Eyes closed are not sufficient to block the flash of light, and although maybe whatever was coming for him would in fact have been the type of thing that could have emitted said flash of light just before killing and eating him, he finds himself remarkably uneaten after the flash is gone.

Then he finds himself forcefully grabbed, dragged back in the direction of his own room, and shoved inside somewhat unceremoniously.

"What the fuck," are Scorpius Lake's first words to him after having saved his life for the fourth time.

Edmund opens his eyes, blinking away spots. Stares at his savior.

Fuck.

"...you patrol at night?" he asks, stupidly.

Scorpius turns around, then, now that he has confirmed that Edmund is in fact still possessed of (some of) his wits and has not in fact been literally possessed by anyone or anything else, and shuts the door after casting a couple of spells under his breath. Then he turns back to look at the sophomore.

"Sometimes. When I'm bored. Or can't sleep. I really don't need that much sleep. Your turn to answer."

"I..."

He is absolutely unequipped to answer this question. He sits heavily on the floor. "I'm sorry."

Scorpius runs a hand through his lack of hair and slides onto the floor, more slowly, dropping into a cross-legged seat. "...Edmund, right. Peter and Susan's little brother. Creative writing track."

He flinches at their names. "...yeah. Creative writing."

"Peter... told me not to thank you when you save my life. He's usually right. So. Sorry."

A little strangled giggle escapes Scorpius's throat before he rubs that same hand against his face. "He gave me a gift the first time I got something out of his way. And the second. It was vexing." He lowers his hand and looks at Edmund again. "I'm just... trying to think if I should have anticipated this. Usually kids with family here don't... don't. It really does suck in here, doesn't it."

"It's... very, yeah, not my favorite place in the world. Or out of it."

He doesn't engage with the implicit question. Maybe most kids with family here don't; he did.

"Creative Writing is nice. Just kind of wish I was taking it at Eton or someplace."

Scorpius runs a hand against his scalp, again. A nervous tic, maybe. "I don't, don't really know how to do this. There's not much point? It's usually more obvious than, than this was, so usually I..." Let them, he doesn't say. "The part of me that was raised by my mother wants to apologize to you but every other part of me wants—" He shakes his head. "Something else."

"...apologize for saving my life, you mean."

A corner of his lips twitches. "Yes, I do mean."

"Well. I... accept your apology... but I think that the rest of you is probably on the right track. I guess it probably wants to pick me up and shake me until all the idiot comes out."

He giggles again, a little bit less strangled this time. "Almost word-for-word what I was thinking."

"Would that it were so easy. I've tried half a dozen times to just... forget about it. My affinity's great for utility, but it can't quite manage that."

"Should I assume your affinity is not water-weaving, then?"

"Ha. I bet it looks that way, doesn't it? No, I do memory. Write, rewrite, erase. It's saved my life more times than you have, I think."

He raises both of his eyebrows. "Was there anything specific you wanted to forget?"

"I was a linguistically inclined child. By the time my parents caught on I had scraps of Spanish, Italian, Japanese... Dad traumatized me out of languages, but my seat was in serious jeopardy until I got my first mana spurt and ripped them out by, heh, the roots."

"Is my name an infohazard, then?"

"I've got Latin and Greek. You've got to have something, even for creative."

He grins for a second but then gets more serious again. "I feel intensely selfish asking this, but... Are you going to try again? Should I just... get out of your way?"

"This is the first real conversation I've had in three months."

Scorpius chokes on his spit and has to spend a few seconds recovering his breath. "Three months? You—how about your enclave, your siblings?"

"My enclave - Nigel's the only one who gives a shit and he doesn't really, even, he gives a shit about me because he knows without me he'd have no one, and Ella and Adrian are a clave within the clave. And. I can't talk to Peter. It's almost the end of term. And he'd, he'd drop what he's doing in a second, he'd let a sword cool brittle if I walked into shop, he'd kill himself to get me out of this funk. I can't talk to Peter. And Susan - Susan's lucky, she's got a million allies, but I know she's working herself to the bone keeping them together because she's Susan and she'd never let herself let go of one. And - it's all more important than me. And if I tried to talk to anyone else it'd be - politics or charity - not real."

"Do you think they would agree that it's all more important than you?"