Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, JKR does. In fact, I don't own ANYTHING here except for the characters you don't recognize, and the plot.
A/N: Should I be writing the next chapter of Emotions? Yes. Am I? Sort of. I really was, until a great HP fic came to mind, and, shockingly, I actually wrote it. I just now got inspired enough to decide to stick with it until the end. Hooray! The point of saying that is that if it seems like I'm just stealing the idea from someone else, I'm not – we both just happened to have the same idea, and they put theirs up onto a website first.
So, this starts out a bit slow, but the interesting stuff will come in, well, the next chapter. This is more like a prologue, really. PLEASE REVIEW – I'm not expecting a lot of people to read this (although I've posted it on HPFF, and it's not doing too badly), so any reviews I get will be appreciated.
Chapter 1: It Starts Here
When I think life-changing, there are two moments of my life that stick out with unfailing clarity. And I don't mean winning the House Cup or passing your OWLs. No, I'm talking about those precious and few moments in ones life after which everything is irrevocably different.
The first is obvious, not only because it was my first day at Hogwarts, but also because I was sorted into Slytherin, and therefore lost all of my friends and gained new ones all in the span of a day or so.
I also, of course, lost my relationship with my family. Oh, my parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents tried, of course. But I'm the first Weasley not sorted into Gryffindor in ages, and the fact that I was sorted into Slytherin of all places made it even worse. No one knows how to talk to me, anymore, and they treat me differently whether intentionally or not. And I know they all blame me at least a bit for some of my younger cousins getting sorted into Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. No one else was ever sorted into Slytherin, though.
The people that became my new friends didn't help my situation with my family, either. Frankie McKnight was my first friend – back then, her dad was just an important Ministry figure, but now he's the Minister of Magic, which isn't awkward for me, but is for my parents. She's known everyone since she was born, practically, which I suppose is why she didn't hesitate when she told Lynette Pritchard to shut up about how I was a Weasley. Daughters of famous people can get away with that sort of thing.
Frankie wasn't necessarily bad in the minds of my parents, except that she was Scorpius Malfoy's cousin, and so by default I'm sort of friends-by-association with him. My dad didn't like that, nor did he like that I was no longer best friends with Albus or Lily Potter, or any of my other cousins. He didn't understand that they were the ones that ignored me, not the other way around.
The one exception to this is, of course, my older cousin James Potter. He's the nice one, that still talks to me and doesn't act like I'm some sort of dirty rat. In fact, James is the reason my life changed the second time at all.
The date of my second life altering experience was October 30, 2023 in my sixth year at Hogwarts. Well, really, I suppose it was James's life that changed, but I don't have as much sympathy for him as for everyone else, because at least he was the one to blame. The rest of us, we were caught unaware. We didn't know that one bloody mistake made by two usually level-headed teenagers would affect us so profoundly.
Yes, the day before Halloween that year was the day that everything seemed to change – we just didn't know it yet.
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It was the Quidditch team that decided to have the party – or, more specifically, it was Adrian Zabini, but he was the captain of the Quidditch team and therefore coerced them all into helping. That meant Frankie was helping, and of course she dragged me along because being the only girl on a Quidditch team gets tiring after awhile. Or so she says – I don't really believe it, because Frankie has always had an easier time with boys than most people.
Anyways, it was decided the party would take place the day before Halloween, firstly because that day was a Friday night, and secondly because no one would want to have a party right after the Halloween feast. So at nine o'clock, I was lying peacefully on my bed, stomach down and legs swinging happily, ignoring the chaos around me.
"Rosie, please don't tell me your reading," Lynette exclaimed. She was already dressed, with a skirt and floaty, colorful top on that made me just a bit jealous, because none of my clothes looked as good as that top did on her. Sometimes I wanted to ask her for advice, but I always held back – whether intentionally or not (and I suspected that both were true at times), sometimes Lynette had a way of making you feel bad about yourself. Asking for advice was the equivalent of asking for snide comments. Not that I didn't deserve it – I was a sixth year, the time for advice about clothes had long since passed.
"So what if she is?" Frankie defended me (I was sure it was partially because she was my friend, and partially to spite Lynette), coming out of the bathroom at the perfect moment, as always. She was only wearing a black long-sleeved t-shirt and purple underwear, which makes Lynette wrinkle her nose. I could kind of see why – Frankie had very light skin and hair, and the dark colors weren't helping.
Walking out after Frankie was Cecily, who was Frankie's polar opposite with her mocha colored skin and dark hair. Cecily raised an eyebrow at Frankie and commented, "My brother's going to freak if you're not down there soon, you know."
"Adrian can suck it up – I win Quidditch games, and he can't expect me to do more than that," Frankie replied flippantly, falling backwards onto her bed with a deep sigh.
Cecily shrugged and took off her shirt, glancing around before asking, "Has anyone happened to see the shirt I had left on my bed?"
"I hung it up for you," Lynette said. "Don't want it to get wrinkled, right?"
No one missed my small laugh as I glanced at Frankie's wrinkled shirt. Frankie rolled her eyes, but ignored my jibe and instead asked, "You are coming, right?"
"You should put pants on, else you might forget, and then you'll blame me," I pointed out, refusing to look up from my book.
Frankie gasped and sat up. "You're not going?" she asked incredulously. "No, you're going. I'm not letting you stay up here while I suffer."
"You'll be fine," I said dismissively. "Besides, I'm at a really good part."
Frankie leaned over and bent her head at an awkward angle in an attempt to read the cover of my book. Upon seeing it, she scoffed. "You've read Lord of the Rings already. Look, I won't even make you change. Just come down, yeah? Bring your book if you want and ignore the rest of us."
"Nice try," I retorted, but nonetheless I forced myself to close my book and sit up. Frankie squealed happily, jumping up and eagerly pulling on her crumpled, well-worn jeans from the floor. I looked down at my attire, realizing I didn't look much different from her – except my jeans were darker and I had a Puddlemere United shirt on, instead of a plain black one. The thing about parties thrown by the Quidditch team, though, was that they weren't the type you needed to dress up for, thank God.
"You two are unbelievable!" Cecily exclaimed, although it was good-natured and not exactly mean. "At least put on some makeup – well, I suppose that's only you, Rosie. Frankie at least has eyeliner on."
"I do?" Frankie frowned, wrinkling her forehead slightly. She shrugged delicately. "Must be from yesterday."
Lynette, who was putting on lip gloss, looked about to comment, and to avoid it I hastily asked, "Where's Saline?"
"Common room already."
Frankie heaved a sigh. "I suppose we should go, too, then. Scor told me to in the common room a half hour ago, and if it weren't for the party he would've swam through the lake to break through our window by now."
"Okay, then," I said and shrugged, running a hand absently through my hair – it didn't feel too bad, and I silently thanked God that I had taken a shower that morning.
In the common room, the party was already in full swing, as was apparent when Scorpius immediately accosted us.
"Where've you been?" he asked Frankie, nudging her playfully. "I've been dying out here."
Standing next to each other, it never looked so obvious that they were cousins, what with their matching nearly white hair, angled faces, and pale skin. They both had the same mischievous smile and if one was to look close enough there was the same playful glints in their eyes, as clichéd as it sounds. It was ironic, because in fact it was their mothers that were related, so Frankie didn't have an ounce of actual Malfoy in her. So many pureblood families married into each other, though, that they came out looking rather alike, because Scorpius looked so much like his father, and Frankie was a healthy combination of her father's hair color and her mother's form.
"Oh, yes, dying," Frankie said, looking pointedly at the half-empty bottle of fire whiskey in his hand.
Scorpius rolled his eyes at Frankie's sarcastic tone and turned to me, nodding and saying, "Hey, Rosie, didn't think you would come."
"She wasn't going to," Frankie shouted over the ruckus. "But I made her."
"That's not very nice," he commented, and, like Frankie had minutes before, bent his head sideways to read the cover of my book. "Fellowship of the Ring? What, is this the tenth time rereading? You should put that down – there's lots of dancing going on."
"I'm good with finding a couch and ignoring everyone," I said honestly.
He gave me a sort of crooked grin, saying in a clear imitation of Wesley from The Princess Bride, "As you wish."
Scorpius then disappeared as he pushed his way through the crowd, gesturing for us to follow him. Frankie linked our arms together and pushed her way through the closely packed bodies with me following behind. There was an impressive amount of Ravenclaws and a good percentage of Hufflepuffs, but at least half of the people were Slytherins, which wasn't altogether surprising.
Scorpius was, as it turned out, leading us over to a cluster of couches and chairs. I recognized two of his fellow sixth year roommates, Will Davis and Leroy Parkinson, as well as a couple of seventh years.
It was the three people sitting on the last full couch that I hadn't expected.
"James?" I asked confusedly, glancing between him and his two friends, the twins Dexter and Trix Harvey. "What are you doing here?"
"Partying," he replied, grinning recklessly as he downed the rest of his drink. I hoped it was butterbeer, but I had to be realistic. He glanced over at Frankie next to me and said, "Hey, McKnight."
She gave him a small smile and a nod.
"You should've told me," I said. It really wasn't all that surprising, though – James Potter was easily the most reckless and boundless person in the school, and as such he was the only Gryffindor that dared to crash a Slytherin party, along with his friends, of course. And, the thing was, James was a good guy – not only a Mr. Perfect and Head Boy, but also a generally nice person. Mischievous and conniving, yes, but hater of all things Slytherin? No. I suppose that was why no one really minded that he came to our common room. James, actually, was my only cousin that would still speak to me after I got sorted into Slytherin, which says something about the rest of my family.
He shrugged and said casually, "It was last minute, yeah? Besides, up until a few hours ago I had no one to go with."
"We had detention," Trix explained, gesturing between her and Dexter. She rolled her eyes and said, "He asked some of the other guys, but they were wimpy bastards that couldn't get up the guts, so Dex and I skipped for this." He shrugged nonchalantly.
"Maybe that's why Aunt Ginny doesn't like you two," I told him, laughing as I walked over and sat down on the empty couch in between theirs and the one with Will and Leroy. Trix and James laughed at that, but Dex just smirked devilishly.
"Come on, Rosie," he said, laughing, "you know I wouldn't miss an opportunity to see your gorgeous face… and your common room," he added, glancing out the windows, even though it was dark and you couldn't even tell the common room was on the side of a cliff underwater. "I love the lake – seriously, I wish I was a Slytherin."
"Don't say it too loudly," James warned. "Albus might burn you on a stake."
"If he hasn't burned Frankie yet, I think I'll be okay," Dexter pointed out.
"I heard that," Frankie said, turning away from Will and Leroy, but she didn't seem bothered by it.
"Be nice," I told them with a sigh, and sat down on the couch.
Will glanced over from his conversation with Leroy and nodded at me as I got comfortable and opened my book, saying, "Hey, 'bout time you two got here – it's been hell making sure no one took it over."
"Aw," Frankie cooed, "you were saving it for us? How sweet!"
"I made them do it," Scorpius interjected, brushing past Frankie and flopping onto the center of the couch next to me. Teasingly, he continued, "Didn't want you to whine about it – and, besides, if you're making Rosie come down the least I could do was make sure she had someplace to sit and ignore the world."
"Thought you didn't think she'd come?" Frankie countered, shoving him to the other side of the couch so that she could sit in between us. Feeling slightly uncomfortable with the current conversation, I found where I had left off and curled my legs under me, leaning on the couch arm as I read.
I wasn't so into my book, however, that I didn't fully register Scorpius' reply, which was some evasive answer such as, "Oh, just thought up of that one right now."
It was surprisingly easy to tune out my friends, giving vague hellos when someone came up to see us, and answering questions with delayed nods. Eventually James and Dex and Trix got up to go and dance or whatever, and it was just our group of Slytherins on the couches. I read slowly but steadily, every now and again coming back to the real world when a particularly interesting conversation caught my ears.
"Rosie, are you even going to pretend to be social?"
I glanced around to find Frankie staring at me imploringly. She had shifted without me realizing so now she was quite literally upside down, her head dangling off of the couch and her feet crossed up where her head would normally be resting.
Next to her was still Scorpius, but now someone was sitting above him with one leg on either side of his body. I noticed it was Cecily, and rolled my eyes when I realized she was giving him a head massage. Scorpius caught my eye and winked.
"Down here, dream girl," Frankie teased. She rolled backwards, doing a somersault off of the couch and very nearly crashing into several dancing couples. I giggled as she stood back up.
"Hey, Frankie, hold off on the fire whiskey," Lynette joked, but I could hear the menace under her pleasant tone, the type of fakeness that only a girl with lots of practice could have. And God knows Lynette had plenty of practice being catty.
Scorpius tensed, and for a second I thought he was going to say something. Frankie beat him to it, however. She rolled her eyes as she told Lynette, "I haven't had any fire whiskey yet, actually. Are you getting a bit confused, Lynnie? I know how sometimes you have trouble holding your liquor."
Lynette stiffened, but she didn't get to come up with a retort, because then Saline came dancing up with Thaddeus in tow. Thaddeus Avery was her boyfriend, in case you didn't know. They had been going out together since fourth year, or something insane like that.
"Hey, guys," Saline greeted us with a small wave. She eyed Lynette, Frankie, Cecily, and I before asking, "God, are any of my amazing roommates going to dance?"
"Well, I would if someone would ask me," Cecily teased, but it was completely lost on Scorpius, who just nudged Frankie's leg with his foot.
Smirking, he asked, "Yeah, Frankie, aren't you going to dance?"
"Only when you do, dearest cousin."
Cecily looked a bit more hopeful as Frankie said this, but instead of asking Cecily to dance, Scorpius just flipped his cousin off.
"Well," Lynette announced, "I'll dance. Come on, Leroy." She grabbed Leroy and pulled him up. Lee didn't exactly look put off by Lynette coming onto him, and he followed her willingly into the crowd of dancers.
Cecily waited a moment longer, but after realizing Scorpius wasn't going to ask her to dance, she climbed off of the top of the couch and hopped down. As if reading her mind, Will stood up and let her lead him onto the dance floor, as Lynette had done with Leroy moments before. I knew my classmates well enough by now that I knew that neither couple was actually dating – Lynette and Cecily were the type of girls that preferred to have low-key hookups, instead of steady relationships.
"That was harsh, Scor," Frankie told him as soon as Cecily was out of earshot. "Her fawning all over you and then you not giving her the time of day was painful to watch."
"She can't honestly think I'm interested," Scorpius said, brushing it off.
Frankie snorted, which seemed to make him a bit more uncertain. He glanced at me, and I admitted, "She was definitely waiting for you to ask her to dance."
"Well," he sighed, giving Frankie and me a sly look. "I suppose I'll have to crush her hopes and dreams then."
"I should hope her dreams are a bit more prestigious than dancing with you," Frankie responded acridly.
Scorpius shrugged her off and mused, "Maybe I should go and give her something to cry about."
"That's not very nice," I told him flatly. "Cecily's nice – she can't help that she likes as prick like you."
"Burn," Saline goaded, and Thaddeus laughed. They had both taken the seats vacated by Leroy and Will.
Scorpius, however, wasn't fazed. He had this remarkable ability that allowed him to either never get embarrassed or never show it, because I had never seen him blush or stutter before, ever. It was something I envied.
"Yeah, I might be a prick, but I wasn't a prick that was intentionally leading her on," Scorpius informed me.
"Bull," Frankie muttered under her breath, but I think I was the only one that heard her.
The party went on in the same fashion for awhile, and I soon just lost interest in my surroundings. So I hardly realized that James had been dancing with the same girl the entire night. I didn't notice when he took that same girl out of the common room. I didn't notice that they didn't come back.
That was the night when my life changed irrevocably right before my eyes, and I didn't even notice.
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Love it? Hate it? Reviews are welcome either way! The next chap will be up soon, promise (the only reason I'm saying this is because I've already written it because God knows I'm not good at updating quickly).