Disclaimer: Anything written here in relation to the HP world does not belong to me at all.

A/N: Excuse the rambling, confusingness of this whole chapter - it's officially the longest piece of crap chapter I've ever written!


Chapter 1: Just a lot of staring

Feeding the Flame

The beginning of sixth year for Rose Weasley began like it usually did with saying goodbye to her parents who insisted on still dropping her off at the platform and later nagging her younger brother with a difference of three years to finish off his Summer homework on the train, but this year was actually going to be completely different for her and her friends.

This year would be the year where her and her family would find themselves love, new people to hate, things to sell, mistakes to make and irritate the absolute shit out of each other, but that's over the course of a whole year.

"Let me take a wild guess and say you've still got half of your homework to get through?" She asked her brother, moving along the corridor to look for one of her friends and/or cousins.

"Three-quarters," He said with a grimace, expecting a telling off from Rose who simply sighed.

"I am not helping you," She replied sternly, stopping and turning to Hugo.

"I know, I'm going to get Lily to help." Hugo said with a shrug, before Rose shook her head and continued to walk down the corridor.

"Well, you look out for her and I'll look out for -"

"Rose!" Her eyes widened as she realized Louis, who was in the year above her, was standing before her. She didn't have time to reply though as Louis brought her into a bear hug.

"Hugo," He said, still grinning. "I thought I saw you shuffling along here, we're in here."

"Does 'we' include Lily?" Hugo asked hopefully, eyeing who was in the carriage. Louis checked inside the carriage, as if he had forgotten who exactly was inside, turning back to Hugo with a shake of his head.

"I won't be sticking around then." Rose folded her arms, giving her brother a disapproving look.

"What?" Hugo asked, looking offended by her stare. He continued walking along the corridor, ignoring the fact that Rose was still staring at the back of him.

"Wait, so who is this guy you've been seeing over summer?" Rose heard Albus saying this and decided to finally enter the carriage where several of her cousins and her very best friend, Esmeralda Gremler sat. She sat next to the window and opposite her was Albus. Next to her was a very bored looking James, who was situated next to Molly. On the other side was Fred and Louis took the seat next to him.

Rose was hoping someone would be able to move up, because she was doing a fantastic job of it right now, but there was a slightly knotting of her stomach of what was to come when they reached Hogwarts and to be left alone for any length of time would send her into a spiral of panic.

Molly glanced up from her book, realizing Rose had entered and there was no seat for her. "You can take my seat… I've got to go for my Head Girl meeting anyway."

"Are you sure, Mol-?" Rose's question drifted off, as Molly simply shrunk out of the carriage as she continued talking. Rose stared off at her wondering if it was just 'one of those Molly things'.

'One of Those Molly Things', or OoTMT for a confusing abbreviation, was something Rose and some of the others had come up with when they simply couldn't explain Molly's actions, including things such as skulking out of rooms, managing to sit in on conversations and not contribute with a single sentence in the space of three hours and not laughing at a single one of their very funny jokes. It possibly originated from being OoTPT (One of Those Percy - her Dad - Things).

"ROSIE!" Came the shout of Esmeralda, who looked certainly relieved at Rose entering. As soon as Molly stood up, Esmeralda shoved James so he would move to the far side of the seat. "Save me from your cousin."

"There are only cousins here." James commented in a deadpan voice, as he got comfortable once more after Esmeralda's vicious shove. He opened up his book with a shake of his head. Rose was slightly taken aback by the fact that James was not being the leading voice in this conversation and was reading? This was something she had rarely seen James do prior to this, but was brought back to the current matter at hand as her best friend threw her arm around her dramatically.

Esmeralda rolled her eyes, "I'm sure she knows who."

It was true Rose knew exactly who she meant. The smirk on Albus' face would have been explanation enough, yet he always took joy out of causing trouble with Esme.

Esme and Albus always acted like this. Albus couldn't resist be a cocky little git to her and Esme couldn't resist be a loud-mouthed violent person to him.

"Me? I was only asking a simple question." Albus said innocently enough, which caused Rose to smile as she knew exactly where this was going.

"Please will you two refrain from -"

"You still haven't answered it by the way." Albus nonchalantly, yet persistently reminded, completely ignoring Rose.

Rose often felt like an invisible person when Albus and Esme were interacting. A swift glance at the rest of her family showed that she wasn't the only one who felt like that either. They were all invisible when Esme and Albus decided to argue with each other.

"He's nobody you know." Esmeralda said with a scowl.

"Well, that's not right… I know everyone." Albus leaned back, crossing one of his legs over the other in an overly-casual way that was obviously irritating Esmeralda.

"Forget it, Potter!"

"Seriously, Gremlin? Look just answer the question and I'll leave you alone."

"He won't," Rose and James said in unison, both struggling to hide their sighs.

James still had his nose in his book, but with this response to Albus it was becoming clearer that he wasn't actually reading. Fred and Louis stared on with little amused faces, knowing that no pranks or jokes ever had to be told when Albus and Esme were getting into a big, old argument; all you needed to do was feed the flame for a fun time for the whole family to enjoy.

"I know,"

"Albus, are you only just discovering the fact that Esmeralda has a boyfriend?" Fred asked in mock shock, his face turning into pure delight as he saw Albus' quick-changing expression.

Consider the flame fed.

"Boyfriend? I thought this was just a Summer fling?"

"Well, is it really a summer fling if it starts before the summer?" That earned Rose a smack on the arm from Esmeralda and got all the others much more interested in the matter than they were mere seconds ago.

"Shall we make this a game?" Fred suggested with a mischievous smile.

"No!" Esme snapped, crossing her arms and giving her signature thunderous look.

"Yes," Another slap from Esmeralda. "I know everything about the mystery boyfriend, so I can play for her."

Yet another smack.

"You know smacking me is what got you in to this trouble in the first place?" Rose tried to say this in the most playful way, whilst rubbing her painful arm in the most inconspicuous manner. She got scared that Esme would realize how strong she actually was one day and use it for evil, instead of good… Well, the somewhat good that she currently served.

"I just slapped you when you agreed to this game."

"Ah, the memory loss due to violent outrages… I forgot Esmeralda suffered from that." Louis commented from the sidelines, slouching further into his seat as he got ready for the game ahead.

"You slapped me three times!"

"Once," Esme defended, seeming slightly too nonchalant with her response for anyone to actually believe that.

"It was actually three times…" James remarked, sitting more forward in his seat and finally giving up on the pretense of reading.

"Fine, it couldn't have been more than twice."

"Definitely three," Fred supplied, with a laugh.

"You slapped her as soon as she revealed that you had been dating this guy since before summer… Can we please get on with the fucking game?" Albus asked, not liking the fact that everyone was forgetting the game they were supposed to be playing. Esmeralda responded by folding her arms and looking out the window.

"Okay, so he goes to Hogwarts?" Fred asked, as Rose gave a careful glance to Esmeralda.

"Yes…" Rose could feel Esme's glare burning a hole in her face, so she turned to her with a pleading expression. "I don't even know how you kept it a secret for so long… And I wasn't aware you two were secretly dating?"

"We're not; I just don't see why they all get to find out before the gossip spreads?"

"Because we're your friends?" Louis asked, not as good as the others at keeping up with jokes, thus failing to hide the slight hurt in his voice.

"Well, he's not." She said, scowling in Albus' direction yet again.

"Slytherin?" Albus asked, ignoring Esme's scowl and smiling in a very pleasant manner at her.

"Why is that your first guess?"

"Seems like your type to be honest."

"Hufflepuff?" Esme snorted at this question, refusing to give an answer.

"Ravenclaw?"

"Name one male Ravenclaw who isn't boring as fuck?"

"Uhh… Me?" Louis asked, the hurt now extremely clear in his voice. Rose gave him a sympathetic pat on his lap, mouthing 'She doesn't mean it', as Esmeralda expressed no apology.

"So it's a Gryffindor?" Albus asked.

"How did you guess? By methods of deduction perhaps?" Esme asked sarcastically.

"What year is he in?"

"Seventh," Rose answered. Esmeralda turned her head towards her with the slowest movement, making sure Rose could see the anger in her face with painful intensity.

"Well, now you've made it far too easy." Albus said, cracking his knuckles as he thought about it whilst Esme raised an eyebrow.

"Well, guessing it's not Fred or James."

"Unless I've kept it a secret for all this time…" James commented in a slightly conspiratorial voice, rubbing his hands together with a mock laugh that was quickly cut off.

"Esme?" All heads turned to the door of the carriage as seventh year student, Kyle Hedley, stood at the carriage door.

"I was going to guess that," Albus said through gritted teeth as Esme hopped off her seat and walked towards Kyle with a smile. He immediately brought her into a tight embrace, kissing her softly in front of everyone else. This gathered a round of 'UGH' and 'YUCK' noises from the gang that sat in the carriage, apart from Rose who smiled fondly at the picture before her.

Rose had always been a not-so-secret romantic. She tried to never talk about boys or anything and always played off relationships, saying she would be forever single, but she always wanted to experience a world of romantic gestures and sweet nothings and cute dates to Hogsmeade… And that's all that love and relationships were in her head. It sounded like the greatest damn thing, but she felt eternally doomed to be single as everyone else her age had at least gathered some kind of interest from the opposite sex.

And she hadn't. Definitely hadn't. Nobody. Nope.

"You boys are all immature which is why you've never gotten a solitary date in your lives," She said, pulling away from her welcoming kiss with Kyle to give the boys a particularly smug look.

"Uhh… apart from me?" Louis asked, shaking his head in confusion at the fact that Esmeralda appeared to know so little about him. Esme had the grace to look a little ashamed at the fact that she had forgotten about that.

"Err… right, because you've been in a long-term relationship for the past year. Sorry." She gave a small shrug, before linking her hand with Kyle's. "Anyway -,"

"And I've been on dates!" Albus suddenly blurted out, looking extremely pissed off.

"Oh yes, I remember that one date you went on in Hogsmeade and the girl vowed to bat bogey hex you if you ever spoke to her again. How could I let that slip my mind?" Esmeralda said, her smile growing wider and wider the further she got with her sentence. She curtseyed before swaying out the room dramatically.

"Give it a month." Fred commented, as soon as Esmeralda had shut the compartment door behind her.

"A week," James supplied, looking bored once more.

"A day; how can you spend more than that amount of time with Gremlin?" Albus said, still scowling at where Esme had just been.

"Come on, boys! I think her and Kyle are cute. Extremely cute!"

Fred, James and Albus all stared at her. Rose returned this with a surprised expression, but as they continued to stare with their blank expressions, she gave a defeated sigh.

"Fine. Till Christmas break, I guess."

Rose should technically have felt awful about betting on how long her best friend's relationship would last, but she also felt like she was totally justified for knowing this wouldn't last long. Rose had been there through all of Esmeralda's different boy obsessions and there had been a lot. Saying Esme was boy-crazy would be a slight understatement – she loved them, yet hated them. She saw herself as a hugely independent witch, but also needed some male attention when she wanted it.

Rose knew every single boy that Esme had liked, sadly some of these being her family members, and every single boy she had kissed, again sadly one of these being a family member, and dated, thankfully none of these being her family members.

Sure, she had never been in anything official as Kyle, but the reason why Esme was boy crazy and never just 'one boy crazy'? Boredom.

She was easily bored and so this was never going to last.

"I just can't believe she couldn't remember that I've been in a relationship for a year!"


Noticeable

"Chlo, we need to just stop right now!"

Chloe Li, ever the obedient one to Dominique's wishes, stopped right there. However she raised an eyebrow and pulled her cutest, most quizzical expression to let Dom know that she needed more of a reason to continue standing there.

"Are we really going to talk about you making Gertrude McGimmons cry right now?" Chloe asked, after she couldn't take watching Dominique breathing in the forest air in a deeply spiritual fashion for another second.

"No, besides she always cries! This is the last first time we'll ever walk up to the carriages." Dominique explained, slightly irritated that she even had to explain herself, as surely this information should be known.

"Oh, how are we getting there after Christmas Break then?" Chloe asked, the smallest smile playing on her lips.

Dominique pursed her lips in annoyance, before making a sucking sound and continuing on.

"The first last time we'll ever walk up to the carriages at the start of a year. Happy?" Chloe giggled, grabbing her hand and dragging her along to the nearest carriage before everyone else left without them.

"I was never unhappy about it! And you know I don't care about that stuff, I'm not a sentimental freak like you." Chloe didn't have to even pay proper attention to what Dominique was saying next to know that she didn't like that statement.

"This isn't me being sentimental! This is a sad situation and frankly you're the freak if you can't feel any sort of emotion about this being our final year here. Look at this place!"

Chloe let out only the tiniest of exasperated sighs, before turning around to look at what Dominique was gesturing to with her perfectly manicured hands. The sight of the castle through the heavily wooded area still took her breath away and so, of course, she cared about it.

Chloe Li was the daughter of Ken and Aubrey Li. They lived in Durham, Northern England. They were muggles. And unlike most situations, there were absolutely no signs pointing to Chloe having any kind of magical ability. She thought they still liked to think there was no magical ability there. It was as if they wanted her to one day suddenly be able to go to an average muggle school and then university and be a doctor one day. It didn't matter of course that she still wanted to be a doctor, well, a healer, because if they couldn't properly gloat about it to their own muggle friends then what was the point really?

So yes, Chloe cared. This was the place her parents would never understand and the thing that made her different to the rest of her family… She cared, but whether it was out of hate or love, she still couldn't be sure.

"Yeah," Chloe said after a while, bringing out an affectation of sentimentality. Dominique seemed to buy it.

"You have to promise that we take absolutely loads of photos, so we can both have copies." Dominique practically begged, as they approached a man who seemed to be checking people off a list. Well, his quill was hovering in the air and filling it all out by itself as he simply stood there.

"Scratch that: A materialistic, sentimental freak." Dominique nudged Chloe in the ribs for that, giggling as she did so. They approached the man, ready to state who they were, but Dominique was more interested in the fact that it definitely seemed like he was a member of staff, but his face did not make it seem that way.

She noticed his warm skin, his forest coloured eyes being framed by his cute oversized glasses, his freckled perfectly sized nose and the way all those things made her feel. She hadn't even noticed that he was taller than her; something completely rare for the 6'1 female.

"You're a professor?" Dominique stated with no pause for thought of whether it was really an acceptable thing to say to an actual Professor. Chloe snorted as they continued to stand around in silence for a little while.

The Professor coughed.

"Yes, new here for Astronomy – Mr. Smith is my name." There was more silence, as Dominique hadn't really planned what to say to that. All she knew was that she was doing Astronomy, which for once didn't seem like the worst decision she had ever made, as she would get to look at that not a day over twenty-two face.

"Chloe Li and this is Dominique Weasley." Mr. Smith was certainly flustered by the way Dominique continued to stare at him, but he checked to make sure the quill was still marking away.

Dominique had a problem. A problem that no matter how hard she tried to shake, it would appear in new, ugly ways and that problem was wanting what she couldn't have. Or, in other words, envy. She wanted Victoire's life, she wanted Molly's gifted brain, she wanted to be not on edge like Chloe was able to be, Rose's likeability, Esmeralda's ability to not get starstruck on guys and that brought Dominique right back here.

She couldn't describe this feeling that she had whilst looking at Mr. Smith, but she wanted to feel it all the time. She was lusting after a teacher; surely these were new heights in wanting what she couldn't have. A little voice told her to stop this nonsense now, and a much louder voice told her she was doomed.

"Ah, another Weasley," He said, fumbling for something to do to stop the awkwardness he felt at having his soon-to-be student staring at him. "Well, uhm, get on the train… I mean carriage then. It's about to leave."

"Okay, well, see you later." Dominique practically ran into the horseless carriage and hit her head in the process. She rubbed her head, never having felt quite as inadequate as she did right now. Dominique wasn't the type of person who bumped into things, she was cool and collected, not clumsy.

After getting onto the carriage, she was greeted with the presence of Fred, James and Louis, her brother, or as she called them collectively 'The Terrible Trio' (or TTT for short). She held her head in pain, staring at them with a resigned scowl as they clearly considered ways to laugh at her for her momentary clumsiness.

"Don't." She snapped, as she saw James open his mouth to say something. He closed his mouth again, a laugh escaping him.

"Oh, shit, Dom, are you okay?" Chloe asked, her voice a mixture of confusion and concern as she hopped into the carriage as well. Dominique nodded, not prepared to say anything else for the rest of the duration of the carriage ride, which pretty much sucked for Chloe as she then saw who was sitting there – James Potter.

"Hi guys," She said with a barely passable smile, looking at Fred and Louis only.

"Hey," She was pretty sure they all said it to her, but all she heard was James saying it and it angered her that she noticed it. She refused to look up at him.

Nobody said anything as they waited for the carriage to leave, the atmosphere growing more awkward by the second.

"Nobody'll notice it, Dom," Fred said, which earned him a glare from Dominique herself.

"Yeah, it's not noticeable," Louis chirped in, more because he knew how self-conscious his sister actually was.

"Only noticeable if you look at it really," James mused, pursing his lips as if he was examining the injury very intently. "And I mean it's your face… How many people really look at faces these days?"

Chloe would have liked to include herself in the not looking at James Potter's face category, but at that she had to look up just to see if he was smirking. Unfortunately for her, he was.

"Shut up." Dominique stated bluntly, turning around in her seat as the carriage finally started to move.

She stared out the back window, feeling extremely sorry for herself, but also extremely lustful.


News Travels

"That whole carriage ride was inspiring… I feel my mind has physically expanded with the possibilities of tricks, I mean gifts, to give Dominique this year." James said putting his arms around Fred and Louis. Dominique and Chloe could be seen running around the corner to the bathrooms to sort out the reddening (most likely early bruise) on Dominique's face.

"Worse than Incident: Inflatable Tongue?" Fred asked in wonder. James snapped his fingers, nodding excitedly as he did so.

"Definitely better than that; that was an amateur's game. This year we'll push the boundaries." Louis felt like he falling behind in this conversation and so removed James' arm from around his shoulder which paused their walking.

"What kind of boundaries? How big are these ideas you've got?" He asked, not failing to notice the falling faces.

James pulled his crestfallen face into a more optimistic smile. "Big. Very big… You know, the biggest."

"You have no ideas then yet?"

"No, but that's why I've got you two; you'll help me meld my thoughts into something extremely clever." James explained, Fred nodding in agreement at every single bit of that sentence.

"And I'll be in as long as it's not all directed at Dom."

"It won't, we love Dom."

"And that's because she's family."

"Exactly."

"And she's my –," Louis was shut up by two little hands covering his eyes.

"Guess who!"

"Jeez, if you can't guess this then I think you'll both have to re-think your thing." James commented, rolling his eyes at the overbearing cuteness that was the relationship of Louis and Felicity, or mainly that of Felicity.

"Leave you to it, Lou-lou." Fred said in a similar tone to James, ruffling Louis' hair before him and James did just leave him to it.

Felicity removed her hands and jumped round to face him. She giggled, like she did a lot of the time, before giving Louis a little peck on the lips.

"How has your Summer been?" She asked, grabbing her hand so she could hold it tightly.

Louis let out a laugh, rubbing the back of his head. "You remember seeing me two weeks ago, right?"

"Two weeks ago! So much could have happened since then, silly." She tucked a piece of her dusty blonde hair behind her ear, as she waited for him to respond.

"Nothing that I didn't leave out of my letters though." He reminded, giving her hand a small, reassuring squeeze.

"But I like hearing you tell me all about it."

"Okay, well let's see. Uhm… Dominique just managed to injure herself, and –,"

"She also managed to make Gertrude cry again." Felicity added on, which made Louis grimace slightly.

"Again? Maybe this says more about Gertrude than Dom."

Felicity nodded slowly. "She told her that if she changed her hair over Summer to make her nose seem slimmer, then it really didn't help and she should go back to how it was."

"That could be seen as helpful?" Louis asked, but the pain in his voice made it obvious that he was finding it difficult to see the helpfulness in that.

"I wasn't there, so I can't really say how it sounded; I'm just saying maybe she deserved an injury." Louis turned to look down at his feet then and Felicity's face grew panicked that she might have said the wrong thing. "As long as it's not too bad? Not so bad, right?"

"Nah, she'll be fine." He looked back up, but away from Felicity's face. He saw Esme riding into the Great Hall on Albus' back. He didn't look happy about it all and kept writhing around, trying to fight her off, but she kept hitting his face when he did that.

"I'm doing this until you apologize, Potter!"

"When you get off me I will, Gremler!"

Albus swung himself wildly around in a circle in a last ditch attempt to get Gremler off his back. She let out a wild shriek, which soon turned into heinous laughter, as she still found herself stronger than Albus and victoriously remained on his back. Rose rushed behind them, 'shh'-ing them as much as she could without going above their racquet.

Louis stood in amused silence. "Back to normal then."

"Amazing that she's still acting like that when she's supposed to be in a relationship now." Felicity commented with a small shrug, showing it was just a passing thought. This comment definitely got Louis' attention though.

"How come you already know?" He wanted to know, Felicity raised her eyebrows.

"It's Hogwarts, news travels fast; whether you want it to or not."

She pulled on his arm, so that he would follow her to finally enter the Great Hall. He couldn't physically take a step further though as Lorcan Scamander, Captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team walked past, with only a small nod that boys tend to use as a way of greeting. Nothing else.

"Oh, hi Lorcan!" Felicity excitedly blabbered, waving at him as he continued to glide past them.

Louis thought Lorcan was regarding him with his eyes, not Felicity though, but perhaps that was in his head. And in his head is where those kind of thoughts needed to stay, not like the last day of term last school year.

He certainly could never repeat those thoughts again. Unless he wanted that news to travel fast.

"Bet you don't know who it is she's seeing though." He asked, once Lorcan had finally moved a safe distance away.

"Kyle Hedley, obviously."


Overwhelmed

"Taylor Fellows… Gryffindor!"

Rose excitedly clapped and cheered along with the rest of her house for the next new arrival. Everyone else lacked her general enthusiasm though, especially Esmeralda, who had her elbow propped up for her head to rest in and a bit of hair in her mouth for her to chew on.

"Right, is that the last kid who needs to go through the ritual?" She asked, not bothering to look at the front of the Hall to confirm this for herself.

"Three more and counting." Esmeralda breathed a sigh of relief at these words spoken from Albus.

"Fuck Merlin, I'm hungry." Rose turned away from gleefully looking at the Sorting Hat ceremony, to give Esmeralda her best admonishing look.

"Please, Esme, there are little ones sitting around us here, including my brother." She pointed to the seat next to Esme that was filled by a hunched over Hugo.

"Oh please, he's taking about as much notice of this as James and Fred are over there." Esme pointed with her little finger to where James and Fred seemed to be animatedly whispering about something. Esme continued on in a bored manner, "And why is that, little Hugo?"

No response came from Hugo, so Esme happily continued on.

"Ah, because he is finishing off his Summer homework. Guessing he got someone, maybe Lily, to lend it to him earlier." She finished off, a small smile on her face as she knew this would rile Rose up.

"Uh… Excuse me, Hugo Weasley!" She whispered in a voice strained with anger. Hugo paid no attention to this, however, as he continued to furiously write. Rose sighed, leaning over Esmeralda to slap her brother around the head.

"OUCH!" Hugo shouted.

"Shh… Show some respect for the ceremony and stop cheating on your homework right in front of all your professors, unless you want to get detention within an hour of being back here?" Rose continued on in the same strained whisper.

"They can't see from all the way over there." Hugo scoffed, shaking his head and turning back to his work.

"But I can and what would improve my standing for the running of Head Girl for next year more than turning my own brother in to the authorities?" Rose asked with narrowed eyes and a victorious smile.

"Okay, calm down, Death Eater." Albus said, laughing at Rose's sudden turn to extremism.

"It's okay, she wouldn't anyway." Hugo immediately dismissed.

"Hmm… I wouldn't be too sure, Hugo, look at that scary, demented look in her eyes right now." Esme mused, as all three of them examined Rose's face. Esme removed her head from her hand to pat her best friend on the shoulder. "Seriously, let's put Molly back at the Ravenclaw table where she belongs, okay?"

Rose finally smiled, shaking her head.

"Yeah, I'm just getting a bit… overwhelmed?" Rose questioned herself, with a shrug of her shoulders.

Esme laughed. "Overwhelmed? By the same events we have to sit through every year?"

Rose half-smiled. She couldn't really explain it, she hadn't explained it to anyone over the whole Summer, so it hadn't even felt real, but now being back at Hogwarts it definitely was, she knew that now. And the empty presence at the Slytherin table with the only person she could possibly discuss it with wasn't even there.

It made a lot more than just overwhelmed.

Esme continued to stare at Rose with slight concern though this soon stopped once the ceremony and welcoming speech had clearly ended and the food had arrived.

"Thank fuck!" Esme excitedly grabbed as much food as she could. She gave a guilty smile at her word choice with bits of bread already in her mouth. "Sorry."

Rose shook her head, smiling. She looked once more over at the Slytherin table, but with still no sign, she started pouring herself some Pumpkin juice.

"Why aren't you sitting with Kyle anyway, Gremlin?" Albus asked, getting back to the important matters in life.

Esme heaved a massively, overdramatic sigh. "Because we're in a relationship not in some Unbreakable Vow to be together at all times."

During this conversation, the noise in the Hall got quieter, something that Rose was happy to write off as just people contentedly eating, but then whispers began to fill the space and this got her curious.

Walking through the door as if he was completely on time for this event was the missing member of the Slytherin table – Scorpius Malfoy.

Rose subconsciously sat up a little straighter, staring straight at him. Her cheeks were most probably flushed with anger at seeing his arrogant self sauntering in here late, so she looked away as quickly as she could.

"I don't understand why being late is resulting in a massive whisperfest."

Albus and Esme were both staring at Scorpius as well.

"His face…" Albus said, drifting off.

"What's so great about his face?" Rose asked, her eyes betraying her and moving back to examine him.

Her face fell from a snide look to genuine concern as she saw what was so great; his face looked like he had been scratched by some kind of monster as four vivid scars climbed its way down from the corner of his left eye to the bottom of his lips.

She now stared unabashedly, wondering what the hell had happened to Draco and who gave him the right to continue walking down the Hall as if he was posing for Witch Weekly cover photo?


A/N: It's been so long that I've written HP stuff so I'm sure this is awful and I don't know how I feel about it, but this SL kind of excites me so I hope all the unanswered stuff is exciting you as well! Please do let me know what you're thinking!

And yes, I totally am making James my personal dream Indie-loving boy. 3