Compatible Energies

The remainders of the Opening Feast left the four house tables, and Rose got up to leave. As she was getting up out of her seat, telling Andrea Thomas how tired she was, her cousin James made his way over to her.

"Rose!" he shouted. She turned and looked at him.

"What?" she asked, suppressing a yawn with difficulty. She still had to show the new students to the Gryffindor common room with Gregory Longbottom whom she still hadn't spotted.

"Tomorrow there's a Quidditch meeting after the last lesson. Be there, alright?" he said, walking off without waiting for a reply, hailing down one of his friends.

"He's really determined, isn't he?" Andrea asked, looking after James dreamily. Rose snorted.

"You have no idea," she said, glancing around for Longbottom. She spotted him talking to a new Gryffindor first year.

"Greg!" she shouted. He looked up and smiled.

"Alright! First years follow us! We're the Gryffindor prefects and we'll be helping you to the Gryffindor common room! Follow us, come on now," Gregory said in a loud voice as Rose made her way over to him. The first years clamored around the two of them.

"Hey, are you related the Harry Potter?" a small boy with sandy blond hair and glasses asked excitedly as he looked at Rose.

"Yeah, he's my uncle," she replied kindly, though she really wasn't looking forward to another year of first years asking her about her famous uncle and parents.

"What's it like, having him as an uncle?" he asked, grinning widely. Rose always wondered why people thought that her uncle would be different from normal uncles just because he was famous.

"It's like having a giant, scarred git who's full of himself, that's what it's like," a cool, snide voice said from behind them. Rose turned, not even needing to see the blond hair and grey eyes to know the voice belonged to Scorpius Malfoy.

"Malfoy, don't you have somewhere to be?" Rose asked him, eyeing the new Slytherin first years who were congregated behind him, either looking excited or smug. She spied Riley McCormick examining her fingernails behind the group, looking bored but making no move to lead her batch of first years to the dungeon Slytherin common room on her own.

"I suppose I do, but I thought it would be better for me to tell the truth. Don't want you making your uncle into some kind of saint."

"Sod off, Malfoy," Rose said, turning her back on him as he said loudly,

"That's no way to be speaking around the first years! I should give you detention for such language!" he drawled, smirking at her as she turned around again, fists clenched.

"And I should hex you where you stand, but I won't because I have self-control," she hissed. She just didn't know how long her self-control would last.

"I guess I should be going. Say hello to your Mudblood mother for me," he smirked, and walked away, leading his group of first years away as Rose stood there, seething. Colin Macmillan walked up to her, Hufflepuff first years trailing behind him.

"Eh, don't pay him any attention, Rose. We all know he's a right git himself," Colin said, smiling at her as he continued. Greg seemed to understand that Rose wasn't going to be able to compose herself to speak to the first years, so he took charge.

"Alright, follow me to Gryffindor tower now," he said, walking out of the Great Hall with its inky black ceiling dotted with stars. Rose took a deep breath and followed behind the group as anchor in case anyone got separated from the group. Greg led them to Gryffindor tower, talking about the moving staircases and portraits and teachers. When they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, he turned to the first years waiting eagerly to see their new common room. "Alright, this is the Fat Lady. She lets us into Gryffindor tower. You give her the password, which is changed regularly. If it is changed and you don't know it, feel free to ask me or Rose or any of the other Gryffindor prefects what it is. Though I'm sure one of your friends is bound to know if you don't."

Rose was waiting as patiently as she could for him to hurry up. Gregory was nothing like his father, Professor Longbottom, who was sometimes nervous and unsure of himself. The only time Rose ever saw Professor Longbottom at ease was when he was caring for his plants and teaching Herbology, but even in classes he sometimes got flustered when a student decided to act like a complete prat. Well, really, it was only a few students, namely Slytherins. Greg told the Fat Lady the password, Remus, and the group walked into the common room.

"Boys' dormitories are up the stairs to the left and the girls' to the right. The house elves have already brought your things up. I suggest you go to bed and rest up for your first day of classes," Greg announced, and the group of first years clambered up the stairs, talking animatedly with one another.

Rose sighed heavily and plopped in an empty seat near the hearth, feeling like the school year had started on a bad note. Scorpius had already started in on her, and she really didn't want to deal with him this year. She'd had a hard enough time last year with the O.W.L.s but now she was going to be taking N.E.W.T. preparation classes, and with the extra workload, she really didn't need the headache that Scorpius was.

"So, dearest cousin, looking forward to Quidditch practice tomorrow?" Albus asked as he took a seat next to her. Rose rolled her eyes.

"Your brother is going to kill me this year," she said. Rose played seeker while James played chaser along with Andrea Thomas and Claire Finnegan. Ablus was keeper and, Lily was beater with a seventh year. Everyone always thought it was odd that a girl was beater, but Lily was fierce, and she had great aim. Of course, that wasn't the only complaint people had. Potters made up a good deal of the team, with all three playing. Then add Rose, who was related, and well, people got sour. That wasn't all either. Scorpius played seeker for Slytherin, and he was always coming up with ways to trip up the Gryffindor team as per Slytherin tradition.

"He wants his last year to have a big shiny Quidditch cup included."

"As if we haven't won every other year," Rose scoffed. It had been a long time since Gryffindor hadn't won the Quidditch cup. Claire Finnegan made her way down the stairs, still wearing her robes.

"Hey Albus, Greg," she said, smiling at the two of them. The boys nodded in reply. Greg was reading a Herbology book (he did get some things from his father) and didn't even look up. "Rose, are you coming to bed soon? Andrea and I want to go to sleep," she asked.

"You two can sleep, Claire. I won't wake you up when you come in," Rose said. Claire smiled.

"Well, we wanted to have some time to catch up before we sleep, and we want you there," she said, smiling. Rose rolled her eyes, sighing dramatically.

"If I must," she said. "'Night, Albus," she said, following Claire up to their shared dormitory. Andrea was sitting on her bed in pink pajamas, her dark hair up in a scarf. She smiled at them as they came in.

"How was your summer, Rose?" Andrea asked as Rose and Claire got changed.

"I spent most of it with my cousins, playing Quidditch."

"You should have owled us! We could have got some practice in!" Claire whined, pulling on a light blue nightgown.

"I wouldn't have minded spending a couple of weeks with your cousin," Andrea said, smiling.

"You know, Drea, you're going to have to ask James out. He's thick as they come about these sorts of things. He probably has no idea you've been mooning over him for the past three years," Rose said, putting on her nightshirt and pants and walking to the bathroom to put Muggle leave-in conditioner in her hair. She'd inherited her mother's unruly, bush-like hair, and she insisted that Muggle products were the only things that really worked.

"I couldn't! What if he didn't like me back? Besides, if we did go out and then broke up, what would Quidditch be like? He'd be devastated if we lost the cup because I messed it all up by being a bad girlfriend," Andrea said. Rose rolled her eyes in the mirror, and her reflection smiled wide, giggling.

"Drea, really, we have all year to listen to you pine after James. Can we please talk about my trip to Ireland to spend the summer with my gran?" Claire asked. They then spent the rest of the night discussing the pros and cons of Irish boys.

In the morning, Rose woke up and took a shower, rinsing out the conditioner. When she got out, she dried it with her wand and tamed it with more Muggle hair products. Then she put on her uniform. Andrea was still sleeping when she was finished getting ready, so she woke her up.

"What?" she moaned, rolling onto her other side, trying to close the curtains on her four-poster.

"You have to get up." She groaned and sat up, scarf falling limply to the bed. It was then that Rose noticed the difference in her hair color. "Drea, is your hair purple?" she asked. She gasped, shoving the scarf back on her head. "It is, isn't it?"

"Christian did it! He did it on the way on the Hogwarts Express. I nearly killed him, but he ran away too fast. I didn't know what to do, so I just wrapped it up and hoped for the best. I was actually going to ask you last night, but…" Rose laughed before returning her hair to it normal color. "I'm so glad no one noticed last night. I would have died!" Christian, Andrea's twin, was one of the worst pranksters at school, and it looked like his first prank was on his sister. Rose suppressed another laugh.

Claire walked out of the steamy bathroom, a red towel wrapped around her body, her blond hair up in a towel too. "So, you guys, what do you think?" she asked, twirling around on the spot.

"Think of what?" Rose asked. She really wanted to get down to breakfast. She was hungry.

"I worked out over the summer and lost like, twenty-five pounds! I can't believe you two didn't say anything last night!" she said, grinning. Andrea and Rose considered her new figure.

"You look great!" Rose said. "But you know that we never thought anything was wrong with the way you were before," she added.

"I know, right? I mean, I was in shape because of Quidditch, but I don't know…I just wanted to be skinny, like you two. Besides, every girl I saw in Ireland was crazy gorgeous, so since I couldn't change my face, I changed my body. The boys seemed to appreciate it," she said, grinning mischievously at the end.

"There's nothing wrong with your face!" Andrea said, getting up and pulling on her robes.

"Are you kidding? My nose is huge, and I have these freckles everywhere!" Claire exclaimed, pointing to the offending dots.

"You know, Claire we have all year to listen to you bemoan your perfectly fine face. I would really like to get down to breakfast." So the two other girls finished getting ready and together they walked down to the Great Hall. Rose was in the middle of eating her scrambled eggs when her brother Hugo sat down next to her.

"So, sister, I hear that you had a run-in with Malfoy," he said. Rose sighed, ignoring James and Albus as they leaned toward her to listen in.

"It's no big deal. He was being his usual prat self. He just got to me because it was the first bleeding night of term," Rose said. Hugo raised his eyebrows.

"I don't think calling our mum a Mudblood is no big deal, Rose," he said. She sighed angrily.

"He's a git and he knows that our mother is ten times better than his pug-faced one. So I really don't see the point of getting myself in trouble just because he's bored," Rose said. Also, there were people around, and she wouldn't be able to have a proper duel with him anyway.

"Come on, Rose, he even got in on Uncle Harry," Hugo pressed.

"What did he say about my dad?" Albus asked. Rose sighed. She really didn't want this sort of trouble. Why did Scorpius have to be such a pain in her ass?

"Nothing that we haven't heard before," Rose said.

"Merlin, I hate that git," James muttered. He considered his bacon before adding, "This just means we'll have to crush Slytherin in our match! We play Hufflepuff first game of the season. But when we do get to Slytherin, they are going down." He grinned before turning back to his breakfast.

"You know, Hugo, maybe you should leave Scorpius up to me, huh?" Rose said, knowing she sounded a little short.

"What are you saying about me?" a lazy voice asked. Rose looked up and saw Scorpius standing before her, Riley McCormick on his arm, examining her nails again.

"That you're a ponce," Albus muttered.

"What was that, Potter?" Malfoy asked.

"He said to get your fat head out of our business," Rose shot at him. He turned on her.

"I'm not the one talking about me, am I?" he asked. Rose nearly snorted at the question.

"Is there a time when you aren't talking about yourself, Malfoy?" she asked. He raised an eyebrow. Then he decided that it wasn't worth his time. He walked away, Riley still on his arm, still looking at her nails. Rose wondered if they were more interesting than other peoples' nails.