Roxanne Weasley sighed deeply, feeling the pressure of the day bowing her downwards. She stepped up to the statue and muttered the password "hornet nest", and watched as it sprang aside, revealing a narrow doorway. She placed her hand on the door and pushed it open. The Prefect's bathroom. Possibly her favourite room in the entire school, perhaps close second to the Room of Requirement her father had told her about. This was where she came to unwind by herself when she needed to, and today was a day that she really needed to.
The sixteen year old stepped through the doorway, had closed the door and was sealing it with a number of magical enchantments, having learnt her lesson the hard way, when she heard another voice stuttering the password. Who wanted the bathroom now? Well, tough, she had had such a rotten day, some of the cause of which, ironically, stemmed back to the use of this bathroom, and she needed a nice relaxing soak.
"Roxanne?" How did they know it was her? And who was that? She vaguely recognised the voice, and paused in her enchantments.
"Who's there?" she called out, running one hand through her braided hair with frustration. She had got her first, and she was sure she could out-duel anyone that challenged her but-
"It's Jacob," the voice replied gently, "Jacob Longbottom," Jacob Longbottom was one of Roxanne's unofficial cousins, and the other fifth year Gryffindor prefect. He was a nice enough guy, kept himself to himself, and even seemed quite shy, perhaps owing to the fact that his father was the herbology professor and the head of Gryffindor house. Roxanne remembered back to their first year when a group of particularly vicious Slytherin students had kept up a constant stream of bullying and tormenting because Jacob had called professor Longbottom "dad" in class. They completely ignored the fact that Neville Longbottom was in fact his father, or perhaps they were too stupid to realise the connection, but for whatever reason, the Slytherins had kept up a tirade of offense directed solely at Jacob, to the extent that he rarely spoke when he wasn't spoken to, "I know you probably want a long relaxing bath, I gather you haven't had a good day-" his words faltered slightly, "and I don't blame you if you tell me to get lost, but if you let me in, I promise I'll stay at one end and not talk to you if you don't want me to, I've just had a really bad day and want to be surrounded by bubbles."
Jacob seemed to be speaking Roxanne's thoughts. She lifted the enchantments and held the door open, beckoning him into the bathroom. He thanked her gratefully, and strode over to the small pool in the middle of the room. The two teenagers filled the pool between them, occasionally exchanging a few polite words to ensure they were not filling the pool with anything the other wouldn't like. Then came the awkward bit, getting undressed. Roxanne was wearing a bikini underneath her pyjamas, but she still felt awkward effectively stripping down to her underwear. She was pleased to see, when she had turned around and slid into the pool that Jacob was respectfully facing the other way.
"Can I get in now?" he asked. He had stripped down completely and was wearing just a towel around his waist, "Don't look!" he protested, causing Roxanne to grin slyly.
"I won't Jakey-baby, but you're brave getting in this pool naked!" she deliberately drew out the words slightly, and purred them gently, but turned her back on him, allowing him to slide quickly into the pool. Jacob instantly blushed scarlet, and looked as though he was regretting his decision to bathe with Roxanne, "what if someone came in and saw.... us?" she asked, raising an eyebrow seductively.
"Well- we- well- we- won't be doing anything!" Jacob stammered, turning puce. Roxanne let out a small giggle and dropped her charade.
"I was only joking Jake, do you mind if I call you Jake?" She asked. Now that she thought about it, she had never heard anybody call him Jake before. He seemed to consider it for a minute,
"I don't mind if you do Roxanne, I don't usually like it... But then I don't usually like people, and I quite like you, so why not?" he asked, a shy smile playing his face. Roxanne was quite touched by this sentiment,
"Then I tell you what Jake, how about you call me Roxy? I usually hate people calling me that," she shuddered, thinking back to the muggle primary school she had been forced to attend where she had been mercilessly mocked as "Poxy Roxy", which, slightly unnervingly, the Slytherins had adopted as their favourite insult a year later, "Usually I don't like people calling me that, but I'll make an exception for you." She cast him what she considered to be her brightest smile. He smiled back, looking a little unsure, but happy, "so tell me Jake," she pushed on, "What's been bothering you today?"
Jacob sighed deeply and sank several inches deeper into the water, until only his head was poking out above the surface. He seemed to be thinking about the best way to explain. His eyes searched the walls, his hands played with a large mound of foam.
"You don't have to tell me," Roxanne suddenly realised she was being pushy.
"No no," Jacob said, "I think I need to talk to somebody about this, I've just never really talked about my problems before, so I'm not sure how to start." His eyes continued to search the room, "Do you ever worry that you won't live up to expectations?" he finally asked, taking Roxanne by surprise.
"Me?" she thought about it, "I don't know. In a way, I guess so. I mean, my dad and uncle Fred, who died before I was born, in the Battle of Hogwarts, set up a world-famous joke shop, my uncles Ron and Harry found and destroyed the horcruxes that linked You-Know-Who to life, as did aunty Hermione, and all of my aunts and uncles on my dad's side, apart from one, fought in the Great Battle," actually, maybe there was some pressure, "And Uncles Bill and Percy were Prefects then Head Boy, Ron was also a Prefect, as was aunty Hermione. Charlie, Harry and Ginny were all quidditch team captains," she really did come from an amazing family, "so I guess there are a lot of expectations on my shoulders, especially because I'm one of the eldest of my generation, so I'm expected to look after the younger ones and set a good example," she sighed again, anxiety mounting, "I'm not sure I'm doing such a great job though." She finished miserably.
"Why not? I think you're doing a pretty fantastic job! You wouldn't be a Prefect if you weren't. Everybody knows that they can't bully a Weasley or a Potter because you'll be on their case instantly," Jacob said with what he hoped was an encouraging smile.
"Did you not hear that I nearly drowned Scorpius Malfoy earlier on today?" she asked with exasperation. She was really quite lucky to still be a Prefect, considering.
"I did hear a rumour," Jacob confessed, turning a large ornate silver tap, causing bubbles the size of his head in every colour of the rainbow to erupt and bounce lazily over the surface of the pool, "But there are so many crazy rumours around this place, it's hard to know what to believe."
"Well I was in here a few nights ago," she shuddered at the memory, "and I didn't lock the door after me properly, and it turns out that git Malfoy was hiding somewhere nearby when I was getting in here, Lord knows why, he's still got three years until he's a Prefect, and he would never be made one, but anyway, I had just run the bath and was getting undressed when Malfoy burst in," Jacob looked shocked. To him, modesty was something to be protected, and the idea of somebody intruding on somebody else's modesty was horrendous, "And then the slimy git took a photograph of me, naked! Can you believe it? And why did he have a muggle camera anyway? He is so proud to come from a line of purebloods!" she fumed, experimenting with the two nearest taps. One filled the air with the gentle scent of sea water, the other surrounded her with pink foam, "and then today I see him showing a load of Slytherin scum in my year, and I just saw red, I used a spell to levitate him by his ankle, and dunked his head repeatedly in the lake," Jacob smiled, he liked embarrassing forms of revenge, "But the problem is," a small smirk broke across Roxanne's face now, "one of my friends came up and distracted me for a minute, so he was just left with his head completely submerged underwater," Jacob actually let out a laugh, "and then when I remembered and lifted him higher above the water, it turned out the squid had taken a fancy to his hair, and had wound it around one of its tentacles, so I ended up having a tug of war with the Giant Squid," Jacob could visualise an angry squid using a small blonde boy as a chew toy, "and so in the end," Roxanne concluded, beaming, "I had to cut off his hair to free him, except I couldn't reach him with a severing charm so I had to set his hair on fire instead. I mean, Madame Pomfrey grew it back and everything, but apparently it was still a really dangerous thing to do..." Jacob snorted.
"I can hardly see why, I mean, you only dangled him head first in the water and left him there long enough to attract the attention and affection of the giant squid, nearly drowning him and then set his head on fire. Gosh, some people really over react these days!" the sarcasm was laid on thick, but he said it in such a way that Roxanne found herself giggling.
"I'm sure dad will find it funny, I think your dad was struggling not to laugh when he found out." Roxanne trailed off. Jacob was still smiling. "Why did you ask though?" Roxanne asked, remembering that Jacob had been the person to broach the subject of having a lot to live up to.
"About the rumour or about the living up to expectations thing?" he asked, Roxanne could tell he was trying to wheedle his way out of answering.
"The living up to expectations." She gently asked. This was an issue to be sensitive about. She could tell he was struggling to answer. Again, his eyes searched the room, flickering to the portrait of the mermaid frequently, hoping she could intervene and help out, but alas, she was visiting another sea side portrait at the time.
"Okay, it's just..." this was going to be a difficult conversation to have, but Jacob was sure that as soon as he talked to somebody about it, he would feel better, "First, this is a major secret, not even Bethany knows this," Bethany was Jacob's twin sister, sorted into Hufflepuff house like her mother Hannah, rather than into Gryffindor like her father, "So you must keep this quiet," Roxanne could tell from the desperation in his voice that he was not joking, "See... I don't know if you know this, but my father's parents were Aurors tortured into insanity by an evil witch, that I believe was later killed by your grandmother," Roxanne knew the story up until here, so nodded in affirmation, feeling a surge of pride for Nanna Molly, "Well.... Something that is generally less well known is that when my grandmother was tortured, she was actually three months pregnant, with twins," Roxanne gasped, clearly this was to be a sad story. Jacob ploughed on, "they hadn't told many people, in fact, I think the only person they had told was Augusta, my grandfather's mother, and they had even discussed names with her, in case something were to happen to them but the twins could be saved," Roxanne thought she could see where this was going, "They thought they were having a boy and a girl, and they wanted them to be named Jacob and Bethany," Roxanne could feel a lump in her throat and prayed that her eyes wouldn't swill with tears, "At three months, Bellatrix LeStrange came long and...." his voice tailed off, Roxanne could see the tears sliding gently down the sides of his face, "they both survived, and so did the twins, but it was decided that the twins would probably be insane too, and even if they weren't, to allow them to continue the full gestation period would kill their clinically insane mother, so they were... Disposed of.." Roxanne gasped, tears falling from her eyes. Despite the fact that he was naked, and she was nearly naked, she found herself wading through the water towards him and wrapping her arms around him tenderly, "I just can't help but wonder how different my dad's life would have been if they were here... They would have helped him so much more when he needed help during the battle... I just... Sometimes I wish they were here and not me!" he blurted out, tears flowing from his face to the now lukewarm water. He buried his head in Roxanne's braids and let her rock him and murmur things into his ear.
After some time, he realised the water had actually become cool, so he pulled away from Roxanne and asked if she wanted to top up the water. She declined, saying she still had to finish a potions essay, and should really get back to Gryffindor tower to finish it. She hauled herself out of the water, and Jacob graciously turned away as she changed into her pyjamas and headed for the door. As she reached it, she turned around to face him,
"For what it's worth Jacob, I'm very glad that you're here, and I know that your dad is too. Good night, see you in Charms."
With that she undid the charms on the door and left. Jacob could hear her shouting just outside the door, and thought he could hear the words "Malfoy" and "pervert". He hastily clambered out of the pool and towards his pile of clothes. He pointed his wand at the door and cast a number of protective charms, before running the water and foam again.
As he slid back into the pool, he smiled to himself as he thought of his conversation with Roxanne. Maybe he did have a friend here after all.
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A/N: Apologies if I have the order of next gens a little bit mixed up, as you can probably tell, I picture Roxanne as being three years older than Scorpius, so also three years older than Albus and Rose, two years older than James, etc. I imagine Freddie to be the same age as James, and Percy's twins being a year older than Roxanne.
