A/N: Alright, to those who read the earlier versions of this story, I hope you don't get confused. This is essentially the same story, just written differently. In the earlier version, the first six chapters were going to be important memories from Rose and Scorpius's first six years together to establish character, and then the rest would be the actual story during their seventh year. I decided it just wasn't moving fast enough, so I changed it to start from their seventh year, with the original first six chapters being interspersed as flashbacks. I like this version much better. I hope you like it!
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Chapter 1: Frenzied Gnomes and Maidenly Cheeks of Honesty
This could not be happening. This could not be happening. Rose kept repeating this sentence over and over in her mind as she stared at the little badge in her hand. She briefly considered whether it had been sent to the wrong address. Yes, that was it! The badge was meant for some mousy prude in her year, preferably one who wore thick glasses and carried piles of books around that were higher than her head and used words like "perfunctory" and attached "-esque" instead of "-ish" to words to make them adjectives.
After all, nobody, especially Professor McGonagall, would make Rose Weasley Head Girl. It was unthinkable. I mean, who did they think she was? Her mother? To be fair, Rose did receive top marks in most of her classes like her mother had in her days at Hogwarts, but she was definitely notHeadGirl material. She had received more detentions in one year than all of her dorm mates combined had in their collective lives! And she was to one who got the badge? Where was the justice in that?!
It was early morning and the Weasley kitchen looked as it always did in the morning: clean and ready for action, thanks to Grandma Molly.
"Hey, whatcha lookin' at?" came the characteristic voice of her cousin James behind her. James was a tall youth, with his father's messy black hair and his mother's brown eyes. His arms and legs looked to be slightly too long for his body, but cord-like muscles rippled down them every time he moved: the only thing he took seriously was Quidditch.
Rose whirled around, hiding the badge behind her back, and said, "Nothing!" a little too quickly Damn! She cursed as she felt the blush travel up her cheek. Why can't I ever lie without my face turning into a tomato?
James, who was in the process of raiding a kitchen cabinet of anything edible (boys his age could eat their weight in junk food) stopped when he saw the blush. He smirked, brown eyes lighting up when he knew there was something she wasn't telling him. "Nothing, eh? Alright Little Miss Smarty Pants, then what's that behind your back?"
Rose considered lying again, but grew resigned to the fact that he would find out sooner or later anyway. With an expression appropriate to someone tying the noose around her own neck, Rose revealed the damning object. It was a gold, circular badge, the word 'HeadGirl' emblazoned underneath a rendering of the Hogwarts crest.
James, having recognized the badge at once, stared at it, slack jawed. After the shock had worn off, James began to laugh. "HeadGirl? HeadGirl?! Are you crazy?! Oh Merlin and Morgana, this is rich. I've got to tell Alec! Hold on, don't move!" And before she could stop him, James ran away, snorting with laughter as he went to find his partner in crime.
Schmuck.
Now feeling like a thoroughly mistreated circus elephant, Rose sulked at the kitchen table. However, this state of emotion did not last long. A small brown-and-white spotted owl zipped through the open window and landed in front of her. Rose untied the letter hanging from its leg and the bird took off immediately, not waiting for any reply. On the envelope was the letter "S" and Rose suddenly found herself incredibly happy. She knew who the letter was from.
* * *
Please wait in here, and I will come back for you once we are ready for you," Professor Flitwick says in his squeaky voice. He leaves as we file into the room.
I can hear hundreds of muffled footsteps and conversations outside the room we are in, and I guess that the older students have arrived at the castle. I give a moment's thought to their method of transportation (They obviously didn't come in boats) before I turn to the situation directly at hand: The Sorting. I feel a dull sort of panic as I hear the clamor recede. I have heard of the students being sorted into houses before, but no one has ever told me how its done. I look around to see faces that reflect my own worry, and fervent whispering as the people talk of what's to come.
Among our group, I know only my cousin James Potter and a girl named Olivia Stanton, who I met on the train. She is now standing in a corner, looking green and not much in the mood for opening her mouth. I search about and see that most of the students have formed themselves into small, defensive groups. James himself is ensconced by a group of students that have been clearly attracted by his last name.
However, there is one person who seems to be a part of no group and, in fact, is looking completely at ease and self assured. He is resting his back against the wall and has crossed his arms across his chest, tapping his heel against the wall as though he thinks of this all as a waste of time. He is extremely pale, as though he is not often out in the sun, which is made more noticeable be the black hair that frames his face. His chin is slightly pointed and he holds his nose in an almost arrogant way. For all his arrogance, his lips are turned in a frown as he surveys the tightly knit groups, none of which ask to include him. He looks about himself, affecting disdain, but I see his hand reach up to rub the back of his neck, and his head dip for a second as though he is self-conscious. Is he looking for some one else who has not been included? Perhaps that is the reason that his eyes rest on me longer than the others and his arms relax to his side, perhaps with relief. I can see his eyes are hazel mixed with blue.
I walk towards him and stop in front of him. I can see his surprise reflected in his widening eyes and lifting eyebrows. His heel stops its tattoo against the wall. I ignore these signs and smile as encouragingly as I can. Something about this boy, who is so confident yet so vulnerable, has caught my attention. I wish to be friends with him.
"Hello, my name is Rose, pleased to meet you."
* * *
"-I'm telling you, its true! She's got the badge and everything!" came the unwelcome voice of James once again, this time accompanied by the melodious groan of a thoroughly annoyed and pissed-off Alec behind him, looking as though he'd been dragged out of his bed against his will. It was odd how, even in this bedraggled and unkempt state, Alec still managed to look like a male model. It must be the veela blood from his mum.
However, Alec's angelic face turned to disbelief as he saw the badge, "No way! You? How the hell did they make you HeadGirl?"
"Thanks, I really appreciate the amount of faith and confidence you guys put in me," retorted Rose acidly, her own surprise at the appointment long forgotten.
The blond boy turned his regal head upward, making his beautiful features seem appropriate on the face of a haughty aristocrat. "Sorry," he said, implying the opposite in each syllable.
"Oooooh, watch it Alec, or we'll lose points for Gryffindor if we're not careful, what with Little Rosie on our tails," jibed James.
Alec sneered as well, showing suspiciously the pointed teeth he'd adopted from his father, reminding Rose once again that he was part werewolf as well as part veela. "I guess our days as Hogwarts' resident criminals are over then." Before Rose would react, he picked up the letter that had come with the badge and began to read it. "A-hem. Dear Ms. Rosalie Grace Weasley, I am pleased to inform you blah blah blah you will uphold the honor of the school blah blah blah keep order blah blah blah punish miscreants blah blah blah pride blah blah blah teamwork blah blah blah Scorpius Malfoy blah bla-," but Alec stopped mid-blah just as James tore the letter rudely out of his hand.
"The new HeadBoy is Scorpius Malfoy? What the f-," he began, as Grandma Molly, who had just bustled into the kitchen gave him a look. James quailed underneath her death glare and then continued, "Uh-what I mean to say is, how did that Malfoy pigbecome HeadBoy?"
"Well, if McGonagall would make Rose HeadGirl, then its not much of a stretch, is it?" said Alec, rolling his eyes.
Schmuck.
Rose glared at him, but unfortunately, her eyes had none of the power her grandmother's had. Alec did not look remotely afraid for his life.
"Stuff it, Alec," she sneered instead and turned as her other cousins, Lily and Albus, stumbled, half asleep, into the kitchen as well. The two twin sister and brother, only one year younger than Rose, James, and Alec, were due to begin their sixth year at Hogwarts in less than a week.
Lily, who was more alert than Al, noticed Rose's HeadGirl badge first and, unlike the older boys' reaction, beamed and congratulated her. She then turned to her breakfast and her mail. James, without even the pretense of trying to look as though he was scratching an itch, bent over her shoulder to read the names of her correspondents. Lily glared at him and snapped, "Excuse me, can you please stop breathing down my neck? I'm trying to read my mail."
Rose rolled her eyes. Honestly, the Potter boys were much too protective of their only sister, especially James, who was a year older than her.
"Are you still dating that guy, Froggy, or whatever his name was? You know, you're going through boyfriends pretty fast," he admonished in a voice so elder-brotherly that, if Rose didn't know any better, belonged to someone with the bedroom history of a monk.
"His name was Daniel Frodge," Lily answered, leveling a glare to match Grandma Weasley's (she gets the ability to incinerate someone with a look and I'm cursed with the Maidenly Cheeks of Honesty? Curse you genetics!). "And I broke up with him in June, when he graduated. I don't want to have a long distance relationship. Not that its any of your business ." With that, she twitched her letters away from James' eyes and settled down to read them.
Albus, wisely staying out of the conflict, looked visibly relieved at this and went back to his food, but James wasn't finished yet. "What's this then?" James asked, lifting a letter from Lily's pile that was addressed from Alvin McCohany.
"McCohany?" Albus asked, finally becoming a part of the conversation. "Our Beater? You do know that he doesn't have the cleanest dating record, right Lily?"
"I don't care if he's shagging first years, Al, he is not my boyfriend."
"Well then, what are you doing writing to him?" asked James.
"He's my friend, James. And he told me that that's all he wants to be."
"Yeah, well, stick around and you'll see his definition of 'friendship' involves foreplay in a cramped broom closet!"
"And what's wrong with foreplay and cramped broom closets?" asked a teasing voice, and all five teens turned to face the speaker, standing in the doorway. She was a girl their age, though she looked rather small. She had a head of close-cropped, bouncy chestnut hair that hugged a round, moon-like face. Her dark eyes surveyed them sleepily.
Alice.
James jumped up at once to greet her. "Alice! When did you get here?"
"Last night, but you lot were sleeping," she answered, and when James said she could've woken him, she laughed and said, "You'd have pulled me into bed right along with you if I'd done that. You'd probably have thought I was part of one of your pervy dreams."
"I do nothave pervy dreams," said James indignantly.
"Actually," Alec said, "You've told me about quite a few of them. Like the one you had just two days ago, remember? The one where you were in the Black Lake with-."
But James put an end to his reminiscing by very discreetly stomping on his foot. "O-kay Alec, I think we get the point, no need to give them the details."
But Alec was not quite through. "Well, most of them are about you," he said quickly to Alice, before James could cause him any further harm.
"Most of them?" she whispered, eyes narrowing dangerously...
***
Of course, in true James/Alice tradition, they had a blazing row on their reunion after nearly two months of separation. However, if fighting and arguing about everything was common to them, so was making up. Thus, five minutes into the row, it abruptly ended. This was greeted unenthusiastically by their spectators, who ranks had been swelled with the addition of Fred, Hugo, Cordelia, Lana, Ted, and Victoire. Not that anyone had anything against perverted dreams, but nobody really had anything else to do, deterred as they were from the outside by the rain.
A half an hour later, with no sign of James anywhere, Hugo fearfully suggested that Alice might still have been angry and, deciding he wasn't worth the trouble, had fed him to the garden gnomes outside the house. Rose had pronounced this theory as the height of silliness for, as she pointed out, rain put garden gnomes into a state of frenzied urgency and caused them to mate at an alarming rate (Apparently this had to do with the fact that the gnomes thought that the sky was falling and that they had better shag as much as they could before the world ended. Hugo refrained from asking what they did when it snowed.) and thus would be in no mood to eat anything, even bits of slow-roasted James.
Instead, they found James (uncooked and whole) and Alice a half an hour later, snogging in a second story bathroom. Not even attempting to look embarrassed, James simply looked up irately and with a "Do you mind? We're busy here!" he slammed the door in their faces.
Ted shook his head, smiling slightly. "Those two. If they aren't tearing at each other's throats, they're tearing at each other's clothes." Ted and Victoire were the only overage adults at the Burrow, besides Grandma and Grandpa Weasley. It was traditional for the young Weasley cousins to spend the last week of summer break at their parents' childhood home. It was a first time for Alice however, as her parents were going on their second honeymoon before her father, Neville, resumed his job as Herbology professor at Hogwarts. And, as many of her friends and her current boyfriend were there, Alice had no trouble staying at the Burrow while her parents were in Bermuda.
"It is quite unhealthy for their relationship to bicker so much," Cordelia primly stated, pushing her horn-rimmed glasses (so like her father Percy's) farther up her nose.
"Yeah, arguing so much can't be great for them, can it?" echoed Lana in simpler terms.
Lily and Albus appeared worried as well, but Rose and Hugo were not afraid. After all, they'd seen their own argumentative parents fight and make up for just about their entire lives.
Albus, speaking as carefully as he always did, said "I don't know, but I think Alice is good for him. He's always been competitive, and he doesn't really value something that he didn't fight to get. Maybe that's what he feels about love too. He's never had a girlfriend for more than a month before and he and Alice been together for the better part of two years."
"Well, if they get married, then Neville and Hannah'll be related to us," said Hugo, happily. Neville was his favorite teacher.
Rose snorted, "Wait a few generations, and every wizarding family in Britain'll be related to us. Everyone knows the Weasleys multiply like rabbits. Then they'll be no one to marry but muggles."
"Nothing wrong with that," muttered Lana, whose mother, Anne, was a muggle. She had gotten her powers from her father, Charlie.
After more debate about the population demographics of the Weasley family, the rain stopped long enough for them to get in a quick game of Quidditch. Rose, Hugo, James, Lily, and Al played against Lana, Ted, Vicky, Fred, and Alec behind the house. Cordelia declined, saying (in a rather pompous voice) that she had too much work to do and that no one should disturb her. And since Cordelia was so bad at the game that she often proved useful to the other team, no one cared very much.
* * *
Rose made sure that everyone was asleep before she slipped out of bed to retrieve his letter from its hiding place. In the dim wand light, the swirling black 'S' was just visible on the envelope. A letter from Scorpius was a rare thing. They had decided long ago not to write to each other unless absolutely necessary. She unfolded the letter and held her wand close to it to read.
Rose-
Hey, just got my school letter, and I made HeadBoy. I'm so glad you're HeadGirl! This year is gonna be awesome!
- S
Feeling slightly disappointed at the brevity of the letter, Rose nonetheless folded the slip of paper and slid it back into the envelope. She returned the letter back to its hiding place and laid on her bed after extinguishing her wand. For the first time since she had opened her school letter, she felt happy about being HeadGirl.
Even if she had to do patrols.
Even if she had to go to meetings.
Even if she had to watch over snot-nosed first years.
Even if she had to follow the rules.
Even if she couldn't pull pranks.
Rose winced. That last one hurt.
* * *
September the first came upon the Weasley family in a sneaking way: before they could quite get it around their heads, it was the last day of August and their parents had come to stay the last night of their vacation at the Weasley house before escorting them to the station the next day.
Their parents arrived midday, apparating in pairs. The first to arrive were the Delacour and Weasley couple: Uncle Bill, his face strikingly ravaged and wolf-like stood with Aunt Fleur, contrasting him with her beauty. Vicky and Ted both ran out to greet them and Rose noticed how the two had inherited their parents' traits in equal part. The two were as beautiful as Fleur, but their eyes and teeth and the way they reacted were animal-like, similar to their father. No one arrived for Vicky's fiance, Ted. His parents, Remus and Nympthadora Lupin were dead, but he seemed to share something with the Weasley-Delacour family. He was not beautiful, despite the fact that he could have easily made himself as attractive as Vicky or Alec because of his metamorphamagus powers. However, he had that same air about him, the same hunter-like alertness. Rose supposed Ted and Vicky were a good match.
Despite Ted's lack of parents, his godfather Uncle Harry and his wife Aunt Ginny embraced him as readily and with as much affection as they did James, Lily, and Al. Uncle Harry was of middling height and wore the glasses and messy black hair that Rose had always seen him with. Aunt Ginny was slightly shorter and had the characteristic red Weasley hair that Lily inherited and brown eyes, which she had given to James. Uncle Harry had given his black hair to the boys and his green eyes to Lily and Albus.
Next to come where Uncle Charlie and Auntie Anne, coming directly from their visit to Romania, Anne's childhood home. Anne had a kind face and auburn hair, but had to side-along apparate with Charlie because she was a muggle. Her only daughter Lana ran to greet them.
Next came Uncle Percy with his wife and childhood sweetheart, Aunt Penelope and his older daughter, Astrid. Astrid was a professional Quidditch player and as different from her younger sister Cordelia as the sun was from the moon. She played for the Holyhead Harpies.
Directly after came George and Angelina for their son Fred, named after George's twin brother, deceased even before most of them were born. They were a light-hearted couple, much given to joking and pranks and playing Quidditch (something they had given to their son), despite the obvious scars they carried of the Second War.
Last to come were Rose's own parents, Ron and Hermione, the former red and haired and freckled, the latter bushy, brown haired and brown eyed. Hugo was his mother's son through and through, not only did he look like her, but he was an intellectual like her as well. Rose, on the other hand, was more like her father. She contained the characteristic Weasley hair, although slightly darker than her father's and his blue eyes. But more than that, she was the keeper of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, just like her father had been, and had the same disregard for the rules that he had, although her grades were as good as Hugo's.
As soon as the couple landed, Ron hit the ground howling and clutching his right ear, or rather, Rose thought, what was left of his ear, which was an empty socket. He'd splinched himself. By the time Hermione managed to fix it, he'd bled quite a decent amount of blood and she was in a raging mood.
"Ronald Weasley, why can't you go three minutes without messing up!? I swear, you are a walking talking disaster waiting to happen!"
Ron was not feeling so perky either, casting an annoyed look at his wife, and still clutching his throbbing right ear, he said, "Well, I'm sorry, but since when have you become my parole officer?"
"Since, I married you, you fool! No, scratch that, I've been taking care of you since the time I met you when we were first years!"
"All I remember is an annoying voice telling me its Levi-o-sa, not Levios-a."
"And its damn good I told you, considering you'd have died when you faced that troll if I hadn't said anything."
"I wouldn't have had to face a troll if you hadn't needed saving!"
"Well, I wouldn't have needed saving if you and Harry hadn't locked the thing in with me!"
Rose, Hugo, James, Lily and Al looked at each other with wide eyes. They hadn't known their parents had fought trolls when they were first years.
Of course, like it always was when Ron and Hermione fought, it was Uncle Harry who came between them, carrying the olive branch.
"Oh come now, you're being children," he admonished. "Look, Rose and Hugo have missed you very much. You're neglecting them."
As Ron and Hermione turned to them, Rose and Hugo hastily put on faces of deepest lonliness. They embraced and Hermione asked them how they were and if they'd had a good time. Ron asked if they'd practiced Quidditch.
* * * *
And so the summer ended and the very next day, they found themselves at King's Cross, blinking in the bright sunlight of the morning and dodging luggage trolleys. The station was how it always looked on September the first: loud and jubilant and festive, with students finding their friends after a long summer away from them and parents glad that the summer was finally over so that they could get their kids out of their hair. The large Weasley group satyed slightly apart from everyone else, saying their goodbyes.
The Weasley were a tight-knit and loving family, everyone knew that...
"Ron! George! You cannot give them Filibuster Fireworks! If you get them suspended, I WILL KILL YOU, DO YOU UNDRSTAND?!" screamed Hermione.
Well, she hadn't said they always showed it...
"Aw, relax, 'Mione," said George in what he clearly thought was a soothing voice. "These aren't Filibuster Fireworks. They're the new patented Weasley-Works we've developed at Weasely's Wizard Wheezes. They're much better quality..."
George and Hermione continued to bicker, while friends of the young Weaselys drifted past, exchanging greetings. The first of her friends to come to her was Akira, a perpetually smiling black-haired and brown-eyed Asian girl whose mother Cho was a Quidditch player alongside her cousin Astrid on the Holyhead Harpies. Her smile widened even further when she saw Rose and embrace her, and talking at a lightening speed about everything that happened during her summer, including her new boyfriend, Sean Daley, another fellow seventh year Gryffindor.
Morgan Alison came next, a reserved brunette that generally wore glasses and carried many books. She nodded to both Rose and Alice and, strangely, Alec in an almost indifferent way as she walked past them.
The last they saw of their seventh year house mates were Sean Daley himself, greeting them enthusiastically and Olivia Stanton, giving them a tiny smile. Rose had never really been close with Olivia and had always felt a little awkard around her, but what truelly had driven them apart was Olivia's crush on her cousin James. Unfortunately, Olivia hadn't been too happy with finding that James was too wrapped up in Alice to even notice her. This caused Olivia to be -er- quite unpleasent to Alice, who'd in turn been furious to find that Olivia was making advances on her boyfriend. James, of course, was oblivious to the whole affair. Rose, however, was forced to choose between the two and obviously chose Alice, her best friend apart from Akira and the one she had known the longest. This in turn caused Olivia to get mad at the both of them and on the whole the girls' dormitory was not a peaceful place to be in during their sixth year. But Olivia had had the summer to cool herself down and Rose was sure that she'd gotten over him. Olivia's love was a fickle thing. Alice however, did not forget and stared at Olivia's receding back for a long time, teeth and fists clenched.
Rose sighed. This was going to be some year.
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A/N: Alright, there's the new first chapter! I included a flashback from the original story! The next chapter will be submited on January 15th, my birthday!
R&R!!
