Rose Weasley was a good girl. She didn't drink. She didn't smoke. She listened to her teachers and took her parents advice. She didn't get into fights and she didn't seduce every man she saw. She didn't pull pranks, she always considered other people's feelings and she would never dream of contemplating playing a stupid, reckless, unwise, totally unthoughtout, unnecessary time-wasting game called truth or dare at half-past eleven in the evening in the Weasley sitting room, on the day before she returned to Hogwarts, with her brother, cousins, cousins friends, friends cousins and friends' cousins' friends when her all-important make-or-break, life changing NEWT exams were only TWO terms away.

"Please Rosie?" She would not look into Hugo's eyes. They were her only (her only, there were absolutely no more) weakness. "We know you're revising for you're exams Rosie, but you've got two months. That's ages"

"Sure, it's ages," replied Rosie "it's ages until you take your end of year exams and Al takes his OWLs. But you might have noticed, I'm not taking my OWLs. I'm taking my NEWTs." This was a point of pride for Rosie. She was the only student in Hogwarts history to have skipped not one year, but two. "We know you're taking your NEWTs"

"Who doesn't?" butted in Lily

"But I'm worried about you. All this stress isn't good for you." Rose sighed. If there was one thing that was almost as bad as Hugo's eyes, it was when he used the 'I'm worried' card. She glanced up at her family. Her eyes scanned the room and found over four fifths of the room were staring, all looking concened. And the other fifth were looking at her with a resigned tinge to their gaze. This situation was frequent and they knew the result.

She didn't know whether it was Hugo's tone, or the fact that she was sick of people's sickening stares when they pitied her for choosing to work hard now rather than slagging of like too many people she knew. But she closed her books, folded her parchment, put her quill and ink away and returned everything to the brown satchel that was widely debated to have been stuck to her side with a permanent-sticking charm. She stood up and went and sat between Tori and James. Everyone stared in amazement. "Well then," her tone was one of mild amusement "are we going to start or did I just stop doing extra Arithmacy research for you to all gawp at me. And Lilian Potter, you look terribly unattractive when pulling that face. I don't recommend you try it in front Micheal." Nnot quite satisfied they had been shocked enough, Rose pulled her hair out of the tight chignon and let in fall loose around her elbows.

"All right!" Exclaimed Fred "Lets get started. I'll go first and seeing as Rose's never played before, go easy on her." Rose's pride would have made her protest, but her brain made her swallow her pride as she recognised that when people like Fred Weasley II and James Sirius Potter were playing, she should probably take all the help she could get. "Remember kids, this is a game of wizard's tuth or dare meaning that either the truth spell or persusion charm may be placed on you if it is thought to be necessary. Hugo, truth or dare." Hugo chose truth ("coward" was James' opinion) and after revealing the real reason Professor Selaquez was fired (a disgusting incident involving a first year, a detention and a lit firework being put somewhere that first year's parents were not very happy about) the game got swinging. Rose laughed and cringed in equal measure, and of course saw and learned things that she really didn't want to.

As the game progressed, she realised that while some people had been picked multiple times (*cough* *cough* Fred and James *cough*) she still had yet to be selected. This thought nagged at her, making her vaguely nervous. Then, at nearly two o'clock, Lily said "Rose." Rose almost jumped, but used control learnt in years of experimental potion making to stay (apparently) cool and collected. "Truth or dare." Rose sat a second and thought about it. She didn't really want to run through Godric's Hollow naked, but it wasn't as if she was staying there, and even if she had been she could have used a muggle repelling charm and hope no wizards were around at two o'clock in the morning. Plus she had a couple of secrets she REALLY didn't want to share, especially in the present company. There was nothing for it. "Dare." The room froze in shock, then burst into animation as they tried to find something Rose would never do. "I know, what about burn her school books?" suggested Fred "No," reasoned James "can you imagine Aunt Hermione's reaction if she found out we were the reason Rose didn't get over 100% on all her NEWTS?"

"Good point. What about run through Godric's Hollow naked?" There were a couple of nods and affirmations. Lily was about to agree when a thought struck her and she froze. "What Lily?" asked Hugo wildly "What have you thought of?" She looked at Rose and said "Malfoy" 'oh no' thought Rose, this is really not the direction she had wanted her dare to go.

"Genius" said Domi

"That's perfect"

"What are you going to have her do? Actually react if her insults her? Hit him if he annoys her?"

"Oh no, that's not nearly good enough." Smiled Louis "I think Lily was looking down a different vein of thought, weren't you Lils?"

"Oh yes. Very diferent." Rose did not like the way this was going."Rose Marylin Weasley," full names were never good. "I dare you to - at your next meeting within the Hogwart castle and in view of a minimum of seventy, watching people," getting worse "approach Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy" really bad "and, without a word, gesture or other method of communication" crap "before, during or afterwards," shit "thoroughly and for a total of 3 minutes minimum," oh no "completely snog his brains out." 'fuck.' Rose stared at her cousin in shock. "You know, Lily" Hugo spoke faintly "You really should think of a career in law."

"Yeah" agreed Tori "I'm studying to be a lawyer now and i can't find a single worthwhile loophole."

"Worthwhile loophole?" questioned james.

"Yeah, she didn't say how much physical contact was required, but it would look even more awkward if you try not to touch him Rose. My best advice is to try to make him enjoy it as much as possible, try to not look awkward and definitely not look apprehensive, scared, regretful or in any way affected by the fact you just snogged him. If possible you should hang around in the same general area as him, though not too close, and just start chatting with one of us. If that's not possible make sure you have somewhere plausible, if not strictly necessary, to be and walk there at a confidant pace with your head held high."

Rrose nodded. Her expression was one of passivity and maybe slight interest, though if anyone had known her well enough they would have known it was comepletely and utterly fake. Fortunately, no-one did. This dare wasn't the beginning she had planned for her term, but she had been thinking of being herself more at school. Everyone around her saw Rose, the good little (she hated that word. LITTLE. It was extremely condescending when applied to a fifteen-year-old) girl (another word so often used to belittle her) who studied hard and was set to become the next little ministry clone, following in her mother footsteps to become a great little witch who got her work done and did exactly what her superviser told her to. The only time anyone had had the chance to see behind the facade she put up was during her sorting, when to EVERYONE's surprise (except her own) she became the first Weasley in living memory (and quite a bit of dead memory) to be in house that was not one of bravery and chivallry. And the first Weasley EVER to be placed in the house of cunning, and AMBITION. And that was what set her apart from her family. She had no friends, but that was all right - she had family. Though they didn't know her at all well, they tried their best and she respected them for it. Though she would love to see their faces after she graduated and went into independant wandmaking, starting with a minimum one year long world tour in search for high quality ingredients. She had talked to Ollivander (the same man who had sold wand to her parents generation, their parents generation and some of the generation before them - it seemed that there was an extra benefit to becoming a wand maker. All who became successful lived extraordinarily long lives, even in the wizarding world) about taking an apprenticeship. Of course her parents didn't know this was what she wanted to do with her life - it was a secret she had guarded jealously. All those people who had thought her just a carbon copy of her mother, prepared to do one (admittatably one very important) thing for the benefit of the wizarding world then crawl backwards away from the light to live a boringly normal life. No, rose wanted to shine bright and shine for a very long time.

Seeing Rose had slipped into her own world, Hugo restarted the game for her. Of course, most people would consider being even compared to Hermione Granger (intelligent witch and one third of the golden trio) a huge honour, Rose mused, but she thought of her mother as a benchmark. She knew how intelligent she was. She wasn't bragging when she said she was smarter than her mother. She had proved it. When she was eight her mother decided to take what muggles called an IQ test. It was something she had always wanted to do. She had attempted to make Rose take the test as well - she had been extremely advanced for her age when she was younger. But at that point she had begun to realise that proving you knew more about the subject than your teacher was not a good idea and her grades had dropped to 'above average'. She had tried for just average, but there was only so much time you can take to calculate sums you learnt years ago and had been practicing ever since. While Rose had worked away in the privacy of her little bedroom, her mother became concerned that the intelligence she had shown early in life was temporary and had this silly idea she was going to get dumber and dumber, until her stupidity resembled that of kreacher in the days before he died - rotting away, decaying piece by piece until there was hardly anything in there. In an attempt to find out whether her strange theory was true, she had attempted to force Rose into the test. Rose had politely refused, but her mother insisted. She didn't believe in unecessary conflict, so Rose entered the test room and spoke cordially with the man and woman at the MENSA building. She wasn't in anyway contradictory to her mother's expectation of her, apart from one thing. She didn't touch the paper in front of her. She didn't write down her name or age and she most certainly didn't answer any of the questions. When her mother asked how the test had been, she replied that it had been "fine." But she 'didn't want to talk about her answers' and she wished to go to her room. When Hermione got the letter from MENSA asking why the paper from Miss Rose Hermione Weasley (having your mother's name was a tradition in Hermione's family) she was very angry, and got progressively more angry as her daughter refused to tell her why. That was the first day Rose ever showed her anger and her parents punished her for it (though if he was completely honest with himself, Ron was rather relieved at this proof she WAS related to him, so he persuaded his wife to let rose off for not taking the test). She had, during the summer before her third year, snuck out and revisited the MENSA centre, and this time she actually took the test. She was glad she had decided to keep it a secret from her mother, she might have found the results quite embarrassing. Those in the know had been quite shocked by Hermione's only slightly above average score of 111, which was why she kept her score a secret. People would of been either horrified or ridiculously nosy when they realised despite her mothers fairly average score, she gained an IQ of one hundred and ninety eight (on the adult scale - it had taken a bit of persuasion, but she had refused to take the children's one). To put that in perspective, Albert Einstein was rumuored to have an IQ of a hundred and sixty, while Leonardo Da Vinci is said to have had one of around two hundred. She was proud of her score, and her intelligence was one thing she prized above nearly everything else.

"Slap rose." Challenged Lorcan.

"No! That causes lasting/intentional harm to a member of our group - it's not allowed." defended Molly. Rose began to register the others' conversation, but kept her eyes up and stare unfocused "As much as i would love to see her reaction, it's not fair on Rose mate." James butted in.

"What?" exclaimed Domi "You'd love to see little Rose slapped around the face? Poor Rose. She completely defenceless. Not to mention so off in her own runes induced dream world that she wouldn't see it coming."

"I don't know," pondered Fred "I think she's more suited to her house then we think." that was a shock. Maybe they did know her a bit. "You didn't see the face she had at that prophet reporter's reaction to Al and Cael's 'announcement' at the breakfast table in september? While the rest of us looked either angry, hurt or slightly confused, she looked as if she was having great fun plotting the downfall of a hated enemy. I swear, there's more to here than most people think. Especially Aunt Hermione." Rose smiled and saw her opportunity. "Did anyone find out how that terrible rain storm started in her office when she had forgotten to put up the all-important protection enchantments over those documents she was fired for accidentally destroying?" A very slytherin smirk coloured her lips. The whole room turned to stare at her as she put on her most innocent face. "Lorcan dear, I do believe it was your turn to pick Lucy's dare." Reuctantly the group restarted their game, though James, Fred, Al, Cael, Louis and Teddy paused to give her looks of grudging respect and slight wonderment at how possibly could have snuck out of Hogwart and into the Ministry without anyone noticing.

The game went on, until at around half-past two someone finally picked Rose again. Even though the group was big, Rose knew she had been delibrately left alone. She didn't know whether it was because they felt she already had a bad enough dare or because of their new found knowledge of the accidentally-on-purpose-ruining-the-career-and-life-of-a-reporter-who-threatened-her-family-but-making-sure-it's-impossible-to-track-it-down-to-her incident. She decided that as she stood, one more dare could only help her decision to smash open her shell. She recieved a few raised eyebrows, and Fred decided to imediately test the mettle of the change that had overcome their own, sweet rose. "Steal firewhiskey from dad's locked store." Rose smiled. That was a challenge? She cocked her head towards the door and an ethereal bottle of the forbidden liquid floated through the locked surface. She held out her hands and the bottle came to rest, becoming solid as it did so. "Is that the actual bottle? If it's a copy that's cheating. Oh, and what spell did you use?" Teddy was always the one to make sure no-one cheated at their dares. "Yes it is the real bottle. And it's a combination of accio, geminio and a version of the disillusionment charm. It's very useful if you don't want someone to realise you used their stuff. A copy appears in it's place, which seems solid and can even be touched in some circumstances. However, if the copy makes contact with a human it will dematerialise instantly." With of the success of her dare she was a regular pick, and in turn came up with a few nasty dares. The unanimous favourite was when Fred picked dare, then insulted her intelligence. She had Molly pick and item of clothing (thong), Lucy pick a person (James), Louis pick a draw and James pull out a random thong from the draw in Ginny Potter's room. To say James found the idea of picking out a pair of his mother's underwear disconcerting was a bit of an understatement, but he did a good job and picked a white and hot pink lacy pair. Next, she had Fred strip off totally and put on the knickers. Finally he had to open the window and sit on the ledge until further notice, without putting on extra clothes, casting a warming charm or getting someone else to do either for him.

At four o'clock the high of sugar and amusal was beginning to wear off, so Fred was allowed to put on his clothes (though not remove the thong) and they all headed to various rooms. Rose breathed in deeply and smiled. It had been fun to relax and take a break. She removed the various charms required to hide the amount of 'damage' (as her darling mother would call the many piercings she had aquired). It was a plus that her family seemed to be accepting this new version of her pretty well, though whether they would be so accomodating in the morning - when they didn't have sugar (or alcohol for the over-agers) was another matter. But Rose could hope. She rolled over in her sleeping bag and smiled at the fun she would have the next term.