Shopping for the new school year was filling the small street of Diagon Alley. It was a crisp late summer day and the wind had a slow pace all around the shops. Many people had on full jackets and some even had their winter outfits out. Many people did not wonder the streets and window shopped because they were on a tight budget, some thinking that it was much too cold to be looking at windows and just wanted to get the day over with. Groups of teenagers were standing in the street, huddling up and talking to one another about their summer and about what to expect for the new school year. These groups would only last a short while before they would all go into a store to get out of the cold.
Standing alone in the doorway of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions stood Rosabella Black, a thin girl with curly black hair and a pale complexion. Her pale blue eyes shone around the street as if looking for someone, but knowing there was no one who would be looking for her. Rosabella stood there with just jeans, a green shirt that went to her wrists, the newest pair of heels her mother could get her into, a hat and a scarf. She had very few people that she trusted enough to call friends and that number was falling by the second. Rosabella was the daughter to the Black family. She looked down and her shoes, headphones around her ears and listening to a song from The Beatles as her mother came out of the store with brand new clothes for the girl.
" Ready to go to the Quality Quidditch Supplies for a new broom Dear?" Her mother asked to the girl.
" Hmm? Oh yeah. . ." Rosabella said softly and followed her mother through the groups of kids to find the most expensive broom they had.
" So I spoke to Lucius the other day." The mother spoke as they got into the store.
" Oh what a joy." Rosabella spoke with an annoyed tone as if she knew what was going to come from her mother's lips.
" Yes and he says that Draco is thrilled to be marrying to you!" Her mother clapped her hands together. " I can see it now, the wedding and all of the guests and there it so much to plan!"
" Mother, you do know that I am only a fourth year and we have many years to go before Draco and I will even be prepared to get married." The girl spoke to her mother who was not paying attention. " That is if I don't murder him first." She said under her breath.
She slithered away from her mother who was looking at the newest broom in the store and went back outside, knowing that her mother would not care on her word of the item and would buy it anyways, and turned up the music on her iPod. She walked down the street and started to hum the newest song that came onto it, soon she was sining it to herself and tried not to cause any attention, but somehow she always seemed to when she never wanted it. Someone had started to follow behind her and was listening to her sing and she could feel the presence as it follower her through the crowd. Unsure if she should stop singing or not, she hurried around the crowds until she thought that she had gotten rid of the person, but she had not.
" Miss!" Someone said from behind and came up to her.
" Shit." She said softly and then placed a smile on her face as the teenage boy came up to her.
" You dropped this a ways back." He smiled as he gave her the brown hat that had been on her head.
" Oh shit! How could I not have felt that fall off! Thank you so much!" She said before putting it back on her head.
" Anytime, by the way, you have a lovely singing voice." He smiled, that's when his red hair caught her eye.
" I know you from school, do happen to play Quidditch?" She smiled, trying to make a good impression.
" Yeah! For Gryffindor, I'm a beater." The boy smiled. " So lemme guess. . . you play for Hufflepuff?"
" Oh god no! You have got to be kidding me if you think that I would ever even think to play for them! No no, I'll give you a better hint. I'm a chaser." She smiled back at him, trying to figure him out.
" Hmm. . . still not coming to mind." His smile told Rosabella that he knew everything.
" Well then nothing ever will come to your mind then! So. . . which twin are you?" She looked him up and down as if that would tell her.
" George Weasly at your service!" He handed his hand out to the girl.
" Rosabella Black." She grinned ass she took his hand.
" You have a very beautiful name Rosabella." He smiled as he took her hand and softly kissed it.
" Why thank you." She smiled back and felt the blood flushing through her cheeks like rivers. " So where is your partner in crime and the rest of the Scooby gang?"
" They are in one of the coffee shops getting something to drink and Fred is at home sick." He frowned, thinking of his brother at home alone.
" Well you must tell him that I hope that he gets better and that I will be seeing the two of you on the field next year." She said playfully. " Because I will be kicking both of your asses."
" Oh really? Well what happened to this year huh?" The boy said.
" Oh! You haven't heard! We're having the Tri-Wizard Tournament this year at Hogwarts and they do not want to have that competing with Quidditch so they just canceled Quidditch for the year! Rubbish if you ask me." The girl frowned.
" Well that blows!"
The two of them talked for a long period of time. Talking about anything under the sun to keep from having to say goodbye to one another, not knowing when a moment like this would come by again. Rosabella would glance up and down his body one in awhile and would smile a little, liking the little details about him. She was able to speak to him like a friend, like someone that she could trust, although they had just met not an hour ago. The way that George smiled at her and the way he talked made it seem that he felt the same. Hours seem to fly by with the two of them laughing and talking about little things and trying to get to know one another better, that's when another voice came around and wrapped his arm around Rosabella's shoulder and caressed her collarbone.
" What do you think you are doing here Weasel-Bee?" Draco Malfoy hissed.
" He was talking to me Draco." Rosabella cut in slowly taking Draco's arm off of her. His had slithered down her back to her rear where it stayed.
" Why should it matter to you anyway, Malfoy?" George said bitterly.
" Because she's my girlfriend." When Draco said the final word it came out more like a prize then as a person.
" Oh? Well Rosabella I have to say that I do feel terrible for you, to have someone like that have to hold you. If you ever wanna feel some real romance, don't hesitate to give me a call." George said with a wink as he handed a piece of paper to the girl and then walked off.
" Thanks." Rosabella smiled as the blood rushed to her face, showing a slight bit of flirtation back to the ginger boy.
" What the fuck do you think that you were doing back there talking to him like that?" Draco said as he gripped down on her wrist.
" Draco I was only talking to him! God you don't need to be so defensive, beside when the hell did I become your girlfriend!" She hissed back at him, trying to get her wrist but Draco had a tight grasp on it.
" When your mother set up this little marriage! Now come on Darling our parents are waiting for us at the ice cream parlor!" Draco started to drag the girl down the street. People starred and did not know what to do.
The very first thing that needed to be done when the mother and daughter got home from shopping was to start packing all of the things into a single trunk. Rosabella did her best to do it on her own and to hide the fresh purple hand print on her wrist. She did not dare to tell her mother about in, in fear that she would not care in the least about it and tell her to expect it more. She laid on her bed and thought about what had happened in the day with the Weasly boy. Had he really been flirting with me? Did he really make the connection from me to the rest of my family? Would he ever speak to me again? She knew that she could never call him again because Draco had taken the piece of paper away from her and thrown it into the fire once they got to the shop.
There was only a week left till school would be starting again and that whole week was only half-lived by Rosabella. Going shopping with her mother, having to see the Malfoy's for dinner, trying to seem happy was only half done by her. When she could she would hide in her room with her cat laying by her side and would listen to music. Rosabella felt at her safest there, alone in her room, mostly because although you are alone, no one can hurt you then. All of her stuffed was packed and ready to go and although she loved her mother with all of her heart, she also hated her with all of it because of the choice she had made to make an arranged married with the Malfoy's. To keep the pure-blooded status going is what her mother had always told her.
Her bruise from the day at Diagon Alley was almost fully healed and was only a yellow by now, not to say that Draco did not leave her with more from then to now. Draco made her feel like she deserved it, that she had done something wrong all of those times to get hit or to be hurt. Draco also knew where he could hurt the girl and where people would see it. Rosabella would never tell anyone her secret unless she was in true danger and even then she may not tell that to a soul. She knew her place in his relationship and knew that she did not have a choice. It was either to marry Draco, or be thrown out of the family and would be shunned for the rest of her life! She would rather have to struggle to walk then have no family to lean on. Few family members would ever choose that life style and she would never be one of them to do that.
When the day finally came for Rosabella to leave for school, it almost hurt to breath because of Draco. She had told him that she was not ready for sex and refused. She got a long jacket onto herself and left for the train station with her mother at her side, nearly weeping the whole way there. Rosabella was her mother's only child and the only one in the house, it would be lonely at home without her there. Her mother left her at the station, knowing that her daughter knew the way to get to the platform and drove off after saying a goodbye and giving her a hug in the car. She made it into the station and saw a whole herd of red haired people walking. She moved quickly and move right in between a set of twins.
" Well hello there boys." She said softly, looking from one to the other. " I do not know one of you and I'm not sure which one of you that I know. So which ever one of you is Fred, I'm Rosabella and to George hey!" She smiled.
" Pleasure, George here has told me so much about you!" Fred smiled and gave out his hand and Rosabella shook it.
" Nice to meet you too." She smiled back.
"Common now boys! We don't want you to be late." An older woman said as she looked back to see that her twins had gained another person. " Well who are you?" She smiled slightly and came over.
" Oh. I'm sorry. I'm Rosabella. Rosabella Black." The girl said softly, trying not to breath in too much.
" Lovely to meet you Dear! I am Molly, Fred and George's mother." She said with a big smile.
" Oh no! You cannot be their mother, you look much to young to be their mother! Are you sure that you aren't maybe their older sister?" They both gave a faint laugh at this.
" Well you three should be leaving now, wouldn't want to have another Ron situation." She smiled and waved to the children at they, one-by-one, went through the platform to the train waiting for them.
" Is that your cat?" Fred asked, looking down at the tiger car in a cage.
" Yes, that's my Pongo." Rosabella replied with a smiled, petting the cat through the cage.
" I think that she tired to kill our fat once. . ." Fred smiled to the girl.
" Common, you can come sit with us on the train. I want to make your boyfriend as jealous as possible today!" George took Rosabella by the waist and escorting her onto the train.
They sat in one of the middle trolley's and Rosabella made sure that Draco and none of his ground had seen her walk onto the train with the twins. They talked about all of the classes that they were going to be taken and how much they all wished that there was still going to be Quidditch. Never once did George bring up anything to do with what house she was in or how they should be seen with one another. They joked and laughed about many different things and George even came closer and closer to the girl as the ride went along. As the ride went along they realized that they needed to get into their school uniforms and all went their separate ways to get to an empty bathroom.
" First one back gets to do anything that they want to the losers." Fred smiled the other two.
" Like what?" Rosabella questioned.
" Well I want to shave all of that hair off of Fred so people well maybe be ale to tell us apart!" George smiled and used his fingers to act like he was cutting his brothers hair.
" Never!" His twin replied.
" Well then you better win!" Rosabella smiled and ran down the narrow trolley way with her cloths in her arms.
She rushed to get all of her clothing on properly and tried to tie her tie as fast as she could, but she had never been good and tying things and frowned after the third time of trying to tie it up the correct way. It would always take her ten times longer to get her uniform on then the other girls in her house, she usually had someone help her with it. She made a very lose tie slipped her robe on over her arms and rushed out of the bathroom so quickly that it nearly hit the person waiting in the face. Too bad for her that it was her worst nightmare waiting for her, standing there at the door was Draco Malfoy and his sidekicks all waiting to get changed as well. He smiled as he saw her shocked expression and moved in closely to her.
" Damn you look too good in that uniform." He whispered into her ear as his hands slipped under her shirt.
" Draco, not right here. Anyone could see!" She said and tired to slap his hand away.
" Now, now. Don't think about doing that again. Besides we could just give them a little show!" He smiled as his hand got closer up her body.
" No!" She tried to push him away but her came back like a bungee.
" Careful Baby, I may like that." He smiled.
" What's going on here?" Fred's voice said.
" Just having a little fun before we get to the school." Draco smiled running his nails sharply down her stomach. " Right Rosie?" He asked.
" Uh huh." She could barley speak because of the pain of just nails going over her stomach.
" Well we're about there and all of your stuff is still with us. So common Rosie we should go and get it. Besides we still have that race going on." He smiled as he took her by the arm and started running back down the trolley way, leaving Draco and his friends speechless. They ran until they got to their spot and saw George sitting there with his arms behind his back and smiling like he had won something.
" What took you guys so long?" His said through a thick smile.
" Well Fred had to come and be my knight in shinning armor against Draco." Rosabella smiled as she sat next to George.
" What was that all about anyway?" Fred said and sat next to Rosabella, making her squished in the middle of the two of them.
" That's her boyfriend what's up with that? Why do you even like him, if you don't mind me asking." George said, moving in a little closer to the girl.
" I have to date him because we are supposed to get married once we finish school. Something about keeping pure-blooded and all of this crap. I hate it and have no choice in the matter about my own life!" She said, trying not to show in the pain in her face.
" That's foolish!" Fred said.
" Making someone do something else just because of blood and what they think of respect." George sighed and let his arm fall over Rosabella's shoulder.
" Well that's the way that it's always been in my family and if you don't like it then you get kicked out and no one will ever talk to you from the family again!" The girl sighed and slowly rested her head on the boys shoulder. " I hate it, but I have to live with it." She felt safe with these two.
" I'm so sorry." He whispered into her ear. That's when the train came to a stop.
" Common we're here." Fred smiled and got up, leaving his hand out for the girl to take to help her up. She smiled and took it gratefully.
" So what do you want from us anyway George?" Rosabella smiled and looked back at the boy.
" You'll both have to wait and see!" He smiled and walked off, leaving them to wonder and fret.