Rose looked calmly out of the window. It was raining. She had been afraid of the ride ever since her father, Ron, had told her of his encounter with dementors on the train. But her friend Scorpius was sitting was in the compartments too, and she would not let herself show her fear. Just as she thought that the outside world flashed and boomed with thunder and lightning. and she jumped about three feet in the air. Damn, she thought as Scorpius laughed uproariusly,
"Shut up," she said.
"Sorry," said Scorpius "The look on your face was hilarious. It was fear, anger, and surprise at the same time"
"Hrmph," she answered as she fell into a moody silence which was broken abrubtly by Albus walked into the compartment, his hair bright green.
"Hiya Rose, hiya Scorp," Albus said.
"Hello Al. Don't call me 'Scorp' or I'll jinx you." Scorpius said. Then as and afterthought, "What's with your hair?"
"Nott and Goyle. One of the little twits, called Hagrid a 'fat overgrown giant spawn', so naturally, I had to curse him. One's rolling around with his feet tied to his hands, and the other's trying to keep pus oozing out of his ears. But one of them managed to do this." he said, gesturing at his hair.
"Oh Al!" Rose said trying not to laugh. "Have you tried to put it back? Here let me try." She pulled out her wand and pointed it at Albus. He looked nervously at Scorpius who winked at him.
Rose muttered a
command and to her wand, and Albus' hair turned pink. As he looked
at it, it slowly turned to blue, then a bright orange.
"Rose
what did you do to it? AUGH! Now its purple!" Albus screamed.
"Stop moving, I'm trying to fix it! You have to be calm or the spell doesn't work!" Rose yelled back at him.
"If you touch me again I'll jinx you!" Albus shouted.
"Rose, come off it. He's anything but calm now. There has been a lot of threatening in this compartment today," Scorpius said.
"Sorry, just trying to fix it," Rose said apologetically. "You can go to Madame Poppy, she'll have you fixed up in no time."
Rose sat back down in her seat muttering darkly about Albus. Albus glared at her and sat down next to Scorpius. "Where's James?" he asked.
"He never came in here. I thought he was with you," answered Scorpius.
"He told me he was going to check on you two," said Albus.
"That's James for you." Rose said grumpily. "It's odd thought, that he gave up a chance to tease me and Scorp."
"Scorpius Please!" said Scorpius.
"Maybe he's in the prefect's compartment. What do you think, Scorp?" said Albus, grinning.
"He's not in there, he'll be down with Hugo and Lily. And the next one who calls me 'Scorp' is getting a bat bogey hex. I'll go ask Hugo and Lily." He said with a murderous stare at Albus.
Albus and Rose sat in the compartment while Scorpius left to look for Lily and Hugo. He returned almost as soon as he had left, with Lily and Hugo behind him, looking ashen faced.
"Who died?" asked Albus.
"Maybe James," answered Hugo.
"Oh Hugo, don't say that!" said Lily "He was entering our compartment when there was a flash of lightning and he dissapeared. We were trying to see if it was one of his pranks with that invisibility cloak, when we decided to tell you. We just met Scorp in the hallway"
"Don't. Call. Me. Scorp. Thank you. Are you sure that he isn't hiding, because that would be the sort of thing he would do, hide in until we are all really worried, then pop up and laugh at us." Said Scorpius, giving Lily the evil eye.
"I vote we go look in our compartment for him." Said Hugo
There was a chorus of agreement, and everybody picked up their wands, and headed out into the hallway. Albus glanced at his reflection in the window.
"My god, now its green again," He said, looking at his hair.
Suddenly lightning flashed again and the group outside the door vanished, leaving Albus alone in the compartment.
