A/N: It's the school holidays, so I'm making use of it...by writing fanfics!
Just so everyone knows: Rose is in Ravenclaw, Albus and Hugo is in Gryffindor (as are the other Weasleys), Scorpius is in Slytherin, headmistress is McGonagall. This is also Rose's seventh year at Hogwarts and she, along with Scorpius, are the head pupils. Al is the quidditch captain of Gryffindor.
Hope you like and please review!
Chapter one
"Five...four...three...two...one!"
Right on cue, the bell rang, signalling the end of class. Like the other members of her class, Rose Weasley hurried to organise her books in order before putting them in her bag. She dashed out the door before the professor could hand out homework assignments-those heavy sheets of parchments he was getting seemed suspiciously like a worksheet he wanted to them complete.
People were surprised at this display of eagerness. Rose 'goody-two-shoes' Weasley, was never one to cheer when class was over. In fact the red-haired, freckled girl was normally the last to pack up. She was also the only student to ever say "Thank you for the lesson" to the professors.
"Hey Weasley, what's the rush?" Albus Potter said, catching up to her.
"Weasley?" Rose gave her cousin a suspicious look, "why are you being so formal all of a sudden?"
"Nothing," he tried to sound nonchalant, but Rose knew better.
"Spit it out, Potter," she demanded, shifting her bag to her other shoulder. "Tell me, is it about the Intra-School competition?"
Albus had the decency to look guilty. "Maybe," he admitted.
Rose sighed and turned around abruptly, making Albus bump into her. "The rules clearly dictate that the professors are the ones deciding on which Houses are with which. I'd like to help Gryffindor, really I do-don't look at me like that- but there's a fair chance Ravenclaw is teamed up with Hufflepuff."
"So you're saying...that if Ravenclaw is teamed up with Gryffindor, you'd help?" he asked hopefully.
Rose nodded, "of course," she said, "all of my family is in Gryffindor after all. And if you'd excuse me, I have a meeting to attend."
Albus watched as Rose threaded her way through the mass of the students and up the staircase. He scanned the horizon and spotted a red head bobbing somewhere in the middle of the sea. A closer inspection revealed the redhead to be Hugo, Rose's sixth year brother.
"HUGO!" Albus shouted, but to no avail. The noise the students were making was too loud; Hugo didn't even turn around.
With a sigh, Albus let himself be pushed along with the crowd and into the Great Hall where lunch was being served. What meeting did Rose have to go to that made her miss lunch anyway?
Rose gingerly grasped the door handle and twisted it slowly, hoping sincerely that she was the first person to arrive.
"Weasel, you're late!" Someone drawled from the other side of the door.
Oh crap. Of all the people to come before her, it had to be him.
She pushed the door wide open and strode in briskly, ignoring the blonde-haired seventh year who lounged on the sofa as if he owned it.
"Aren't you going to apologise?" he asked, smirking a little as Rose cast him a withering look.
"No," she simply said. A glance at the clock hanging on the opposite wall told her there was still a good five minutes left until the meeting started.
Scorpius Malfoy propped his chin on one hand, studying the Head Girl as she organised the stack of parchments on her table. "So it's true then," he said, "all the rumours floating about. People say you've got a mental disorder."
Rose ignored him. He was probably the one who started the rumours-she wasn't going to waste her breath and time arguing about how untruthful and disgusting the little (okay, tall) prick was.
Malfoy stood, stretching and yawning loudly, earning a scowl from her. "For your information," he informed her while walking to her desk, "the professors have already made the decision on which House is paired up with which."
That got her attention.
"So...?" She asked. Please let Ravenclaw be with Gryffindor.
"Can't tell you," he said triumphantly, "I'm supposed to tell the prefects too, and I'm not going to repeat myself again and again just for you."
Rose looked down and signed some papers, back to ignoring him. There was once a time when she would have retorted and made a snide comment back, but that was before they became Head pupils. She wanted to set a good example for the rest of the school, and arguing with the Head Boy was not the best way to do it-much as she wanted to strangle the arrogant jerk.
"Merlin," he sighed, "you're the dullest girl I've ever had the misfortune to meet."
"Good," she snapped, "go find some interesting girl and bother her instead. Now shut up and let me do my work until the others come in."
As if on cue, the door opened and the prefects came in one by one. Rose stood up and walked past Malfoy, taking the sofa he'd just sat in before.
She waited until everybody (minus Scorpius) had her attention before speaking.
"This meeting was called in order to discuss the upcoming intra-school competition," she said. There was a ripple of excitement as the other students anticipated the newest event in Hogwarts.
"As you already know, the competition is based on two houses against the other two. There would be different types of matches, and the professors had told us that they include the following things: Academics-" half the prefects groaned loudly, "-Music, Arts, Sports, and other areas which, I think, include team co-operation skills."
"Duh," Malfoy snorted from where he was standing.
"You mean even you, the head girl, aren't sure of what each match is about?" A girl asked. She was a sixth year Hufflepuff, called Mia Harrington.
"No, I don't," Rose answered, "as I too, am participating. Thus it would not be fair if I know everything there is to the competition. Any other questions?"
"Do you at least know which house is teamed up with which?" Sam Greeves, a Gryffindor demanded.
Rose turned to look at Scorpius. "I don't- but Malfoy does."
Everyone followed suit and stared at the Head Boy who was lazily twirling his wand in his hands. "What?" he asked, staring back at them with a sneer.
"Malfoy," Rose warned, "tell us what Professor McGonagall told you, or else lunch would be over and we'd have to starve until dinner."
"So, are you asking me or ordering me?" Malfoy asked eyeing her coolly. He was back to playing with his wand.
She gritted her teeth, "asking you," she forced out.
He walked over to the sofas slowly, enjoying how everybody's eyes were following his every move.
"Get out of my seat," he snarled to Sam, who bravely managed a scowl before standing and letting Malfoy slump into the sofa.
Rose closed her eyes and slowly counted to ten. "Don't make me report you to the Headmistress for abusing your privileges," she said quietly. "You may be appointed as Head Boy, but as Head Girl, I have the right to depose you."
"Are you threatening me?" Malfoy's voice was dangerously low as he leaned towards her, "because if you wish to report me, go on, but I'd watch your back for the rest of your life if I were you."
Rose wasn't scared one bit as his cold grey eyes stared into her own brown ones. She leaned towards him too. "If you try and curse me-emphasis on try- then you'd have the entire Weasley and Potter clan up against you, so don't even think about it-if I were you."
Malfoy's mouth twitched into a smirk, "I always forget about the ridiculous vastness of your family, Weasel, until I see a redhead popping up out of nowhere."
Someone coughed, and Rose realised that the prefects were still waiting for an answer. "I'm glad you're aware of that Malfoy," she said, returning to her original straight-backed posture, "but lunch is over in half an hour and we're still waiting for you. Spit it out."
"Well..." Malfoy studied his fingernails, which were nicely clipped and not bitten like Rose's.
"Malfoy..." Rose growled warningly.
"You're going to love this," he smirked.
Oh no, no, no, no!
"Ravenclaw with Slytherin versus Gryffindor and Hufflepuff," he grinned at her. "Hop on board, team mate."
The prefects were muttering to themselves as Rose froze in horror, unable to stop her jaw dropping and her mouth forming an 'O'.
"Don't be that excited," Malfoy drawled, "you always have the chance to not participate."
"Don't be ridiculous," Rose managed to recover in time to shoot back a reply. "Don't flatter yourself, I wasn't excited; I was-am- horrified."
She turned her back on him and walked to her desk, where she tapped her wand on her drawer and several heavy parcels came floating out. She guided each parcel to a prefect of a house.
"I've already anticipated that this meeting would go past what we scheduled it to be," she gave a pointed look at Malfoy, who, for the hundredth time, smirked back. "So I've made copies of information booklets detailing what is to happen and how the competition is going to work. Each parcel contains sixty booklets to be handed out to the sixth and seventh year students in your house, plus the extra large poster is to be posted on the notice board in your common room. Lunch will be over in ten minutes, so hurry and get down there before the bell rings!"
The prefects grabbed their parcels and rushed out, the last one slamming the Head Pupil's door shut.
There was a brief silence as Rose shut the drawer to her desk, with Malfoy looking at her from the sofa where he was still sitting.
"Why do you think Professor McGonagall created the competition?" Rose asked suddenly, her eyes serious as she looked back at him.
Malfoy was surprised; she never asked him proper questions. It was always "Here's a question for you: are you a git or a prick?" Or "Do you think you're some hero or something? Maybe you need to visit the Hospital Wing for that mental illness of yours?"
He brushed away some hair that was in his eyes, thinking if he should answer her seriously or not. It seemed that Ravenclaw and Slytherin needed to cooperate in order to win this competition, and getting onto the brightest student's good side wouldn't hurt. On the other hand, Ravenclaw needed Slytherin too-if the sporting event was Quidditch, Slytherin owned it. They've never lost a game since Scorpius became Keeper. Not once.
Screw it, he thought, since when did Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasel got along?
"Duh, it's to show you how useless Ravenclaws are of course," he replied, wincing at how childish his answer sounded.
Rose sighed, "of course," she muttered, "people never change."
"Of course," he imitated her. "I'm off to lunch. Let's have a meeting for our houses tomorrow after dinner. Okay, good to know you agree." He strolled out the office before Rose could have a chance to answer.
Rose locked her drawer again with the hardest lock spell she knew-with Malfoy sharing the office, such precautions were necessary; simple lock spells were just not enough. She double-checked that everything was in order (lamps were off; all drawers shut and locked; all documents organised in order of importance and alphabetically; cushions were right way up and facing outwards on the sofa...) before leaving the room and locking the office behind her.
People always complimented Rose. They were astounded by her intelligence, even from when she was young. They told her she was brave, polite, responsible and loyal-just like her mother.
She was never called pretty though, something that for a while bothered her.
Rose was aware of her wild mane of curly flame-coloured hair, and how it clashed horribly with her pale, acne marked skin. She had thin legs and arms, but as much as she tried to hide it, she had love handles and had no curves whatsoever. Just straight up and down, she didn't even have a thin waist to show off.
Her only good quality, according to her, was that she was quick to learn and master things. She knew how to do three-point turns, u-turns, parallel parking in just one hour of being taught how to drive a muggle car.
She would love to say that she was unique at least, but even that was stripped from her. Everybody always compared her against her mother, about how much Rose reminded them of Hermione Granger when she was Rose's age. Rose loved her mother and all, but she felt that to really make a mark on this world, she needed her own uniqueness, her own quality which branded her as herself, not just as the offspring of Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger.
The first time she had that thought was when she turned seven. It was her birthday party, all of her family was there, celebrating, and all they could say was how much Rose resembled Hermione. Never mind the fact that she had red hair while her mother had brown hair, never mind that the birthday girl wanted that day to be hers. Never mind that Rose did not appreciate being compared to her genius mother.
Even Hermione Granger wasn't cursed for having acne-marked skin or a figure that girls hoped they would never get. But Rose got it, and still people commented on how much they were alike.
It was not until she was ten when the Weasleys began to see the symptoms. Rose would re-organise her closet every week, in order of season and then colour, and then cost. She would also straighten every crooked portrait and photo frame hanging from the wall. She demanded that when they used to Floo network, they had to go by alphabetical order. Hermione first, then Hugo, Ron, and lastly Rose-everything must have a pattern, and Rose was determined to follow these patterns.
It wasn't a sickness-Rose was perfectly fine physically. It was just a condition where everything has to be pristine perfect and in order before Rose could function properly. It drove people up the wall, but at least it did the trick: she was now known as that OCD Weasley and not Hermione no. 2 anymore.
Ron and Hermione did not know themselves whether Rose really had OCD, or whether she was just putting up a front so people wouldn't compare her against her mother anymore. Ron was determined that it was the latter, whereas Hermione reckoned it was the former.
Whatever it was, Rose continued even when she was in Hogwarts. This little piece of juicy information was overheard by Malfoy when Hugo was complaining to Albus yesterday. If the competition was too boring, he might make it more fun by antagonising Rose.
It all depended on the first match.