A/N: I died and woke up as a zombie back in the Harry Potter fandom. Alright then. Hello, and to everybody reading this, before you go 'Canon' on me, please pay in mind that anything that I'm legitimately going to tell you that anything that seems weird our out of place with the Hogwarts system is explained by the fact that this fanfic technically takes place in the 2220's and frankly, no matter how traditionalist Hogwarts is, if you think nothing would've changed to that point, you're deluding yourself. The second reason is plot convenience. So by all means, enjoy this almost completely non-canon-compliant fanfic, and this prologue that was mostly written at 3-4 AM. I cannot promise frequent or satisfactory updates, and I also obviously do not own the Harry Potter series or any featured canon characters.
Remedial
Prologue
It was summer and for once in a long time, the sky was brilliantly blue and the wind pleasantly warm, very unlike the gloomy, rainy weather prevailing in that month. It seemed like a perfect day, and if one would strain their ears, distant voices of children laughing could be heard in the background, from across the hill where a single house was perched on.
In that house, the sounds of glee and laughter had been replaced with various expressions of anxiety and impatience all day long. Curious and very discreet glances at the window from a grown woman, sitting at her desk and carefully moving her quill over official-looking documents. Constant tapping of the fingers from a redheaded grown man, to the amusement of the black-haired one sitting across him at the table, with a game of Wizard Chess in between them. And, of course—
"That was an owl—I heard owl noises," exclaimed a red-haired boy, barging in the room uninvited, to the exasperation of the girl sitting on the bed.
In her hands, there was a single, sealed letter that she had discreetly placed next to her and out of the boy's sight the moment she had seen him.
"So you say? I think we should tell mum to make a visit to St. Mungo's with you, since I didn't hear any hooting," she replied, but the boy paid no attention as he practically flew to the side she had set her letter down on. She hadn't been fast enough.
"So you did get the letter—" he snatched it before she could react and gave her an accusatory look, "What, were you going to open it without even telling us?"
She shrugged, "T'was the initial plan, but I guess that now I'll have to fit in the part where I tell mum and dad you were up on the roof again."
"Low blow," the younger redhead pouted, "I'm actually hurt. Were you really going to keep your OWL results from your adorable, loving little brother?"
And with that, Hugo Weasley gave her his signature puppy-eyed look, which really did nothing but annoy anyone who happened to be on the receiving end. Rose, of course, as it happened with many things concerning her younger brother, was an exception to that and merely reacted with an amused smile.
"Well, I guess since you're here now, I don't have much of a choice but to show you," she feigned a sigh, trying to look inconvenienced.
He returned the envelope to her, but not before saying, "You know, mum and dad would probably want to be there when you open it," as-matter-of-factly.
"Well, darn shame they aren't here," Rose smiled conspiratorially before starting to rip at the envelope, trying her best to mask the slight shaking of her hands and hoping that her brother hadn't picked up on it.
She was nervous—of course she was nervous, much like the entire fifth and seventh years were at this time of the year while expecting or dreading the arrival of the results. But really, Rose Weasley of all people, shouldn't have had reasons to be nervous. She should've been smiling and protesting at her father and cousins' jokes about her dreading to get back her OWL scores merely because she may have not got straight O's which would, naturally, be the end of the world as she knows it. And then her mother would pipe in, saying that she hadn't got straight O's on her OWLs. (as if a single E among them made it much less impressive) but everything had turned out okay, and that they will be proud of her no matter the result.
Rose, however, wasn't so sure of that, and her doubts ended the moment she saw that in her envelope there wasn't a single piece of paper folded up—but two. Her blood seemed to run cold, but the shaking of her hands stopped and she remarked, rather surprised, that the anxiety and nerves had gone away the moment she had laid eyes on that single, innocent piece of extra paper. That was it—it was here, and nothing could be done to change that. The thought was somewhat soothing.
"So, are you going to read it or what?" her brother's impatient voice interrupted her train of thoughts, and only now she noticed that she had been staring blankly at the envelope for a while. "Rose, come on. You didn't really believe all that stuff dad's been saying about you getting perfect scores on your exams, right? You know how he always jokes about that."
The concern on her brother's face made her feel almost guilty for the news he was about to receive. The slightly ajar door on the other end of the room caught her attention, and she found herself saying, "Can you close that, please?"
Hugo gave her an odd look but nonetheless, went to close the door.
"What, a please but not a thank you?" he asked, teasingly, but Rose did not react. He sighed, "Seriously, you didn't even open them yet. Rose, you're smart—"
"Hugo."
"—and you know that half the nitwits responsible for OWLs are dead from the neck up—"
"Hugo…"
"—and seriously—uncle Harry can vouch—you can't do worse than James on his Potions exam—"
"Hugo."
He'd finally stopped, though not without giving her a rather offended look, and folded his arms, waiting. With her heart considerably less heavy than it should've been, she pulled out the two papers without opening them, and waited for his reaction.
It was delayed, of course, and for a moment his face scrunched up in and annoyance, as if he was about to ask her again why in the name of Merlin, she wasn't opening the damn letter? In the next moment, it had faded to confusion.
"Why are there two of them?"
Rose bit on her bottom lip and waited for another moment until realisation dawned on Hugo's face, and then confusion again, and then frustration—and that was the point at which he snatched the letters from her hand—again—with ease, and started to unfold them with the manic curiosity she wished she could muster. But she couldn't, because she already knew what at least one of the letters said.
'Ms Weasley, we regret to inform you that—'
"—you did not fulfill the requirements for—You failed all your OWLs?!" his voice came out as a yell that faded to a hushed exclamation as he lowered the letter so he could see the horrified look on his face.
A small linger of shame had started to creep on her, "I don't know. Is it all of them?" she asked, sighing.
Hugo reached for the second letter, that he'd had yet to unfold, and scanned its contents.
"No… You have an A in Herbology and—yeah, there's another one in Defence," he still sounded shell-shocked, although he seemed to have regained some of his composure. He put aside the letters and turned his attention back to Rose, "What the bloody hell, Rose?"
"Hey, lan—"
"Is this some kind of joke?" he asked, in disbelief.
She scoffed, "It can't be, since I've hardly written or done a thing for any of those."
Her brother blinked several times, mouth wide open, "How—Why—"
"It doesn't matter," was her curt response, as she snatched one of the letters—the one which did not contain her dreadful OWL scores.
"And you knew about this the entire time?" he continued, incredulously. "And you didn't even tell me—You didn't tell anyone…" he trailed off into silence, still staring at her in complete shock. "Did you have one of those things when you just, you know, block and you can't remember the answer?"
"No—Now can you please stop?" she almost snapped, though without moving her eyes away from the words on the letter.
For a few moments, Hugo was quiet again, but then "Merlin's shaggy left—"
Rose scoffed, blowing a few strands of curly auburn hair away from her face in the process, "Don't let mum hear you say that."
"Don't let her hear me say that? Wait until she hears this," was his reply, followed by a long whistle, "Dad's gonna be out of his mind—"
She finally looked at her brother, "You're not gonna tell them now, are you?" as the dread of her parents finding out, and finding out in such an impersonal, hurtful way, finally caught up with her. The resurfacing memory of their small, but gradually more frequent fights made her feel sick to her stomach, and knowing that she was about to be the cause of another one managed to shake her out of her frighteningly calm, apathetic state.
Hugo's face, though still showing traces of shock and the ever-present look of mischief, turned serious. "I'm a lot of things, Rose—annoying, exasperating, loud, bit of a pain in the arse, they say," Rose smiled, despite herself, "But I'm not a tattletale."
Her smile widened, and he took it as a sign to continue: "…or mental. You're going to have the face the yelling all by yourself, sis. I'll be getting a head start on homework."
She gaped at him, even though she wasn't able to keep in her laughter, and jokingly reached out to smack his arm, "You prat."
Hugo made an effort to look affronted. "Is that the way to treat your only brother? Now, that I'm telling mum," and as ridiculous as their entire exchange was, as always, the both of them started to laugh, and were able to pretend just for a minute that there had been no owls coming on today, no letters, no results, no nothing.
But there were. And it became painfully obvious to both siblings that telling their parents was, although delayable, absolutely and completely unavoidable. They sat in silence for a short while, both on the edge of Rose's bed and staring at the floor although it could give them some sort of answer or whisper some words of comfort. Predictably, none came, and even more predictably, Hugo stood up.
"Hey—I should probably get going down," he started, hesitantly, "Dad's probably wondering why I'm not all up in his and uncle Harry's hair by now, begging them to let me play against one of them."
Another small smile crossed the older Weasley's features, "You're rubbish at Wizard Chess."
Hugo gave a wide one of his own, "I know. And it drives dad absolutely bonkers," he started towards the door, but turned in the last minute to ask: "You're gonna be okay, right?"
Rose managed to feign one of her confident scoffs, with a hint of sarcasm, "Of course I will. Mum and dad have, after all, actually managed to make one child that doesn't lock themselves in their room and sits there brooding and whining until things go their way," and made a point to add a mockingly babyish tone to her last words.
"Oh no, she's back," the boy groaned, though equally teasingly, before putting his hand on the doorknob. "Guess I'll see you at dinner, then."
"Sure will," was Rose's response. Her eyes left Hugo's face and went back to the letter in her lap, and she heard the door open and close softly upon her brother's departure.
Nowadays, she had trouble remembering the times when Hugo was explosive and had the subtlety and finesse of a bull in a china shop, unable to even perform mischief as simple as sneaking out of bed to have an extra cookie without waking up the entire household. The only explanation she could come up with was that the boy hung around their cousin James far too much, and he'd started to rub off on him.
Back to the letter, and with a worryingly small amount of guilt and anxiety, she focused on a single paragraph, and the desire to sigh in frustration and pure exhaust was already tempting.
'Starting July 10th, you will be required to attend a remedial summer class, in order to prepare you for retaking your OWL exams at the end of August, and move onwards on your sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Failure to have complete presence for your classes and for your exams will lead to the loss of an entire school year, and you will be held back from your studies.'
Remedial. A remedy. As if she was sick and they had needed to come up with something to cure her. The logical Rose told her that, of course, if you had bad marks, you would have to take classes and you'd be taught in a way that will help you improve, so the problem would be fixed. But the other Rose, the apathetic one that failed to worry after every single exam she knew she'd done badly on, to inform her family of them, and to feel the necessary amount of remorse at her actions, wondered if spending two more months at Hogwarts and pretending to listen to the professors talking nonsense would be of any help, or if the only thing she was going to learn by attending the recently infamous 'remedial class' was that she was hopeless.
She whisked the thought away, and all she was left with was a formal letter that she had finished reading, down to the empty space reserved for the parent or guardian's signature and the notice that this letter was to be owled back until July 8th the latest.
She suddenly and briefly wondered whether the end of the world the Muggles had been obsessed about couldn't come anytime in the next two days.
I'm kinda hungry and I've heard reviews taste nice, so if you actually managed to read to this point, it would be lovely of you if you'd also review. All the love and good wishes from Cherish Elle.