Chapter One: The Beginning
1 September 2017
Rose stared out the window as she watched her family slowly start to fade from view; her smiling, proud father, her crying but smiling mother, her brother who looked slightly envious, and the rest of her extended family who were waving excitedly at her.
She waved back at them, trying to push the feeling of homesick, that had already settled in her stomach, away. She swallowed a lump in her throat and waved a final goodbye before they went completely out of view.
Rose turned around to look at her cousin, Albus, and was suddenly glad to have him here with her. They were always close growing up and she'd be feeling lost without him. She felt slightly relieved as she noticed he was looking homesick as well. At least she wasn't the only one.
James, Albus' brother and Rose's cousin, was standing beside Albus, but unlike him was smiling and not looking one bit homesick. He looked more excited than he'd been all summer.
'You should go find somewhere to sit,' he informed Rose and Albus, for once being helpful.
'Can't we sit with you?' Albus asked, looking lost.
James snorted. 'No way; I don't need my little brother and cousin hanging on to me like lost puppies.'
Rose smiled to herself. She knew he wouldn't be helpful for long. She was slightly glad. It was a little unnerving him being nice to her. She was used to him playfully teasing her, not giving her advice. It seemed unnatural for him to be actually nice.
'Besides,' James continued, looking at Albus. 'You need to make some friends. You certainly need more.'
He grinned before ruffling Albus' hair and walking off towards a group of second year guys. They greeted James with high five's before laughing loudly and entering a compartment. Rose stared after them, wondering if she would be like that next year; so happy and comfortable.
'I guess we're on our own,' Albus muttered.
Rose nodded and in a voice much braver than she felt she said, 'We should go find a compartment.'
She led Albus down through the train, glancing in at each compartment. However each compartment was either full or had a few students from older years in them who glared at Rose and Albus, indicating they shouldn't even try joining their compartment. They eventually came to an empty compartment right at the back of the train.
Sitting down, Rose noticed that Albus was looking even paler than usual and he hadn't said much. Albus was naturally a quiet person, but he seemed unusually quiet today.
'Are you okay?' Rose asked, looking at her cousin in concern.
Albus paused for a second before nodding. 'Just a bit nervous.'
Rose smiled in understanding and was about to tell him it was normal to be nervous, when the compartment door flew open. Two guys the same age as Rose and Albus strode in, radiating arrogance.
'It appears that this is the only first year compartment that isn't full,' one of the boys announced. He was tall for his age with dark brown hair and deep brown eyes. He looked extremely cocky and full of himself. 'So you're going to have to share this compartment with myself and my friend.'
He sounded sure of himself but Rose could see that he looked slightly worried that Albus and Rose might not allow them to stay. Rose smirked to herself.
She looked over at Albus who was looking unusually scared. He wasn't normally like that around new people. He was shy, yes. But scared? She looked at him with a confused expression as he began shaking his head slightly, indicating not to let them in. However Rose didn't want to make any enemies on her first day so simply gave Albus an apologetic look before telling them they could join their compartment.
The boy smirked, and himself and his friend sat down as far away from Rose and Albus as they could, as if they might catch some horrible disease off them. Rose rolled her eyes at their behavior before turning back to Albus.
'What's wrong?' she asked, hoping the boys couldn't hear their conversation, but as she was the only one talking she knew they could.
Albus leaned forward to get closer to Rose. 'Isn't that the boy that your father told you not to get friendly with? He doesn't look nice, neither does his friend.'
Rose looked over at the boy. He was looking out the door, which allowed her to examine him without seeming too weird. He had light blonde hair and dark, greyish eyes that had flecks of blue in them. He appeared to think he was better than everyone else and had an air of arrogance about him. Rose could see why her father didn't want her becoming friends with him.
'Well yes, dad told me to beat him at everything. He didn't seem to like his father,' Rose said, answering Albus' question.
'Won't you father be mad at you for talking to him then?' Albus asked, still whispering.
Rose shrugged. 'I don't know, but I'm not going to judge him before I actually have a proper conversation with him, Al. And you shouldn't either.'
'How sweet of you,' sneered the boy, looking at Rose for the first time. 'Did your father tell you all about me then? And my family?'
Rose blushed and glared at him. 'No. He just told me your name was Scorpius.'
'And not to get friendly with me?'
Rose hesitated. 'Well yes but –'
'Well you better not talk to me then, seeing as you seem like the type of girl who does everything she's told to do,' he said, turning back to stare out the door. She noticed he appeared to be staring at someone.
'I don't do everything I'm told to do,' Rose said, feeling insulted.
Scorpius snorted again but didn't bother replying or even taking his gaze off whoever he was looking at.
Rose glared at him before crossing her arms and staring out the window, feeling irritated. She sighed after a moment, feeling annoyed at herself for even caring. He was just one boy, why did it bother her so much? She refused to let him ruin her first day.
'What house do you want to be in, Al?' she asked, turning to look at her cousin. He looked relieved that she'd stopped looking angry.
'Gryffindor I think, like my dad,' he said smiling.
'Gryffindor?' snorted the other boy. 'Why on earth would you want to be in Gryffindor! Slytherin all the way!'
Scorpius took a second to look over to his friend and grin at him before returning to staring out the door.
'Of course you two would want to be in Slytherin…' muttered Albus.
The other boy looked up and glared at Albus. Not wanting a fight, Rose spoke up, 'Slytherin's not that bad, Al. Louis' in Slytherin.'
'Who's Louis?' the boy asked.
'One of my cousins,' Rose answered in a surprised tone. She was wondering why he was even talking to her.
He nodded his head, not making any other remarks.
'What's your name?'
'Lucas but my friends call me Luke,' he told her before looking away quickly, as if realising he was actually talking to her.
Rose sighed at his attitude.
'What about you, Rose?' Albus asked.
'What?' Rose asked, frowning. She was slightly distracted thinking about Luke. She wondered if he was just raised not to talk to wizards he considered lesser, or if he actually was that snobby.
'What house do you want to be in?'
'Oh, I don't really mind,' Rose answered, thinking about it. Any house would be fine, though perhaps not Slytherin. Not that she had anything against them; she just wouldn't really fit in there.
Scorpius snorted again and looked over at Rose. 'You really wouldn't mind being in Hufflepuff? The left overs?'
Rose frowned. 'No, they're loyal people. I wouldn't mind at all.'
He turned away muttering, 'Pathetic.'
'What?' Rose glared at him.
'You can't even make your mind up about which house you want to be in. I've known for years that I wanted to be in Slytherin.'
Rose could feel her temper rising and forced herself not to shout, 'Well at least my father will be proud of me no matter what house I'm put in.'
Scorpius turned around, his eyes blazing with anger. Clearly Rose wasn't the only one with anger problems.
'So your father has told you about me and my family.'
Rose blushed and turned to look out the window. 'He might have mentioned something about your family…'
There was a cold, awkward silence before the door flew open. Rose looked over and was relieved to see one of her cousins, Roxie, standing there.
'Hey Rosie, can I stay here?' she asked. Not waiting for a reply she plopped herself down beside Rose.
'Of course,' Rose replied. 'But we've been on the train for almost an hour, where've you been?'
'Well I was sitting with some guys from our year that I met on the platform. Mum and dad know some of their parents. But then I got bored of all the boy talk, so I came to find you and Al,' she told Rose, smiling brightly.
Rose couldn't help but smile back; Roxie was such a happy person. Her real name was Roxanne but nobody called her that unless she was in trouble. She was gorgeous with slightly tanned skin, dark brown eyes, and hair that looked black but was actually a dark brown colour. She always had guys looking at her wherever she went but instead of being flattered she was annoyed as she thought she was too young to date.
'Who are they?' Roxie asked, smiling at Scorpius and Luke. 'Are they your friends?'
'No,' Albus replied shortly.
'That's Luke, and that's Scorpius,' Rose told Roxie after there was an awkward silence.
'Hi,' Roxie greeted, smiling at them still.
Scorpius looked over at her and nodded before turning back to staring out the door. Luke however smiled at her and said hello before turning to Scorpius and trying to talk to him.
'Well, they're, uh… nice,' muttered Roxie to Rose.
She smiled at Roxie and was about to start up a conversation with her when a lady popped her head into the compartment, asking them if we wanted anything from the trolley.
Albus and Rose grinned at each other.
The next few hours would have been unbearable if Roxie hadn't decided to stay with Rose and Albus. Rose was relieved that she wouldn't have to try and talk to Scorpius or Luke who both seemed set on ignoring her and Albus.
Before the train had even fully stopped, Luke and Scorpius had exited the compartment. Roxie, Albus, and Rose followed after them slowly. The train was packed and was full of excited voices as the made their way off the train.
'Oh, there's Fred,' Roxie suddenly said as they got off the train. 'I've got to go talk to him. I'll see you two in the hall.'
She quickly hugged Rose before running over to her brother. He seemed annoyed that his little sister was talking to him in school.
Rose laughed at them before following Albus down to the lake where all the first years were gathering around an enormously tall man who was badly in need of a haircut and a shave.
'That must be Hagrid,' Albus whispered to Rose as they grew closer. Rose was surprised that he was still working in Hogwarts but wasn't surprised at all to see that most of his hair was grey.
Hagrid had finished talking by the time Albus and Rose reached him, and all the other first years were piling into boats. Most of he boats were full so they decided to get into one that had only one other person in it. The person was a small girl who looked extremely nervous.
Rose sat down beside the girl and smiled at her. 'I'm Rose.'
'Hi,' she said smiling weakly. 'I'm Lauren.'
'And I'm Albus, but people just call me Al,' piped in Al quickly, as if he was scared of being left out.
'Are you okay?' Rose asked as the boat set off and Lauren looked like she was going to be sick.
'I just have a slight fear of boats… And water. I'll be fine once we get to land.'
Someone snorted from another boat. Rose knew it was Scorpius before she even looked around. A few other boys in the boat started sniggering when Rose glared at them.
'I bet she's a mudblood,' one of the boys said, referring to Lauren.
Lauren blushed and Rose sighed.
'Just ignore them,' Rose told her.
'Are your parents Muggles?' Albus asked with interest.
'Yes,' Lauren replied, turning away from the boys in the boat.
'Really?' asked Albus looking excited. He, like his granddad had a bit of an obsession with Muggle's and Muggle objects.
Lauren and Albus, much to Rose's boredom, decided to spend the rest of the boat ride discussing multiple Muggle artifacts. They were still babbling on about Muggle's even after Professor McGonagall had introduced herself and explained all about Hogwarts and the houses. They only stopped when they walked into the Great Hall and became speechless as they stared at the ceiling.
'It's so pretty,' Lauren sighed as they reached the top of the hall.
Albus nodded in agreement and was about to add something when Professor McGonagall began calling out names to be sorted. Rose stood still and chewed her lip as each person was called up. She had said on the train that she didn't mind which house she was in but for some reason now that she was standing waiting to be sorted she was getting nervous.
The Sorting Hat wasn't even placed on Lauren's head for a minute before it shouted she was in Ravenclaw, which Lauren looked thrilled about. When Albus' name was called he looked like he was going to be sick and slowly made his way up and sat on the stool.
'Ah, a Potter!' the Sorting Hat announced.
There were whispers of excitement around the hall at Albus' name. The hat grew unnaturally silent for a few moments before Albus paled.
'Gryffindor!' the hat finally roared.
The Gryffindor table burst out into applause at this. Albus got off the stool looking slightly shaken up but happier than he had looked all day. He ran down to the table and joined his house.
'Scorpius Malfoy,' called out Professor McGonagall.
He smirked but seemed to grow paler as he made his way up to the stool. Probably scared of what would happen if he didn't get into Slytherin, thought Rose.
'A Malfoy,' muttered the hat. The minutes ticked by and it looked like the hat and Scorpius were having an argument about something.
Moments later however it roared, 'Slytherin!'
Rose rolled her eyes as a relieved Scorpius made his way to his table. Luke was called a few names later and also got his wish, ending up in Slytherin with Scorpius.
It finally came to Rose's turn. She was one of the last and was relieved when her name was finally called.
The hat barely touched her head before the hat shouted in an amused voice, 'A Weasley!'
It paused and Rose grew nervous. The faces of the students sitting at the tables stared at her as they waited for the hat's verdict.
'Hmm,' the hat muttered. 'Ravenclaw or Gryffindor?'
Rose knew the hat was speaking so low that only she could hear it. It seemed to be asking her which house she preferred. Panic struck Rose and she regretted not giving what house she wanted to be in more thought. She knew she was clever and Ravenclaw was such a nice house, but then again Gryffindor was where her family was and also where her parents had been. They'd be so proud if she followed in their footsteps. Still…
'Ravenclaw!' the hat roared a second later.
Rose froze and Professor McGonagall had to give her a gentle nudge in order to get her to move towards her house table. In a daze she made her way towards Ravenclaw and away from her family. She sat down, not wanting to even look over at the Gryffindor table. What would they say?
'Hey Rosie,' a gentle voice greeted.
Rose looked up and was relieved to see her eldest cousin, Victoire smiling kindly at her. She'd forgotten that Victoire and Dominique were in Ravenclaw. At least she'd have some family.
Rose forced a smile, not sure the hat had made the correct choice and turned her attention back to the sorting. A girl with light blonde hair and mischievous green eyes was getting sorted. She was grinning around the room as if she didn't have a care in the world, which was unusual for someone getting sorted.
'Slytherin!' the hat roared after a few moments of silence.
The girl got down off the school and made her way towards the Slytherin table, giving Rose a wave as she passed by, making Rose laugh.
The few left were sorted quickly and then Professor McGonagall stood up and waited for silence. The whole hall grew quiet as they stared at her.
'Welcome,' she said smiling around. 'Welcome to another year at Hogwarts. I hope that you'll all have another excellent year here. I'm sure, as always, that you are extremely hungry and wanting to eat, so I won't delay you any further.'
McGonagall clapped her hands and at once there was food in front of everyone. Chatter broke out in the hall all at once and Rose began to pile the food onto her plate.
'Vic and I knew you'd be in Ravenclaw,' Dominique told Rose as they all began eating. 'Everyone in the family always takes bets about where each cousin will be placed.'
Rose laughed slightly. She had no idea that her family did that.
'Of course everyone was split between either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw for you,' Victoire put in. 'Your mother was convinced you'd be in Ravenclaw but your dad was sure you'd be in Gryffindor.'
Rose felt her stomach twist. Would her father be disappointed now?
'What about Albus?' Rose asked, trying to divert the subject away from herself.
'Gryffindor or Hufflepuff.'
'Hufflepuff?' Rose asked in amazement.
Victoire laughed. 'Of course. He's so quiet and kind. Definite Hufflepuff characteristics.'
Rose stared down at her food, picturing Albus in Hufflepuff. She had to agree that he certainly did have a lot of Hufflepuff traits.
'Are they your cousins?' a voice asked a moment later when Victoire and Dominique had started up a conversation with somebody else.
Rose looked over and saw that Lauren was sitting beside her. She must have been in such a daze that she hadn't even noticed her. Rose nodded, answering Lauren's question and was surprised when her eyes widened.
'The head girl is your cousin?'
Rose laughed as she remembered that Victoire had been picked as head girl.
'Yes, I suppose she is,' Rose said, wondering if that would mean she'd get in less trouble. Of course Rose doubted she'd ever be in much trouble.
She spent most of the feast getting to know Lauren and chatting with her two cousins. As time went on, she grew more comfortable with being in Ravenclaw. After all, she had said she didn't mind which house she was chosen to be in.
The room suddenly became quiet as McGonagall stood up once more.
'Now that you've finished eating, I must give you a few first term notices. First off, the Forbidden Forest, is as usual, out of bounds to everyone,' she looked over at James and his friends. 'Quidditch tryouts are being held the third week of school this year instead of the second, and finally just a reminder that magic should not be used in the corridors in between classes. I think that's all, so off to bed all of you.'
The first years as usual were escorted by one of their house prefects out of the hall. As Rose and Lauren were waiting for the staircase to change with the Slytherin's and Hufflepuff's, Rose noticed Scorpius was standing near her. She took a deep breath and turned around to face him.
'Look, I'm sorry for losing my temper earlier on the train and for what I said about your father,' she forced out. She wasn't very good at apologies.
Scorpius looked at her a second before glancing around and seeing his friends near by.
'Whatever,' was all he said before turning back to his friends. Rose glared at his back.
'Ignore him,' someone said beside her.
Looking over, Rose saw it was the girl who'd waved to her.
'I'm Megan,' the girl introduced.
'I'm Rose, and this is Lauren,' Rose told her, remembering Lauren was still beside her.
Megan grinned back at them. 'Well you should just ignore Scorpius. He may seem arrogant but it's only just an act because he's so insecure.'
Rose glanced over at Scorpius and saw he was glaring at Megan.
'Isn't that right?' Megan asked, turning around to Scorpius.
He just glared at her and Megan smiled back sweetly. Rose wondered why he didn't say anything, but didn't get time to ask as the stairs had changed and the Ravenclaw's were being led away.
'For those of you who don't know, to enter our common room you must answer a riddle,' Victoire informed the first years as they arrived at a doorway with a bronze knocker in the shape of an eagle. Victoire used the knocker and the eagle came alive.
'What word starts with "E", ends with "E", but only has one letter?' the eagle asked.
Victoire paused for a moment as the first years stared at her.
'Envelope,' she replied with certainty.
'Correct,' the knocker told her as the door opened.
Rose looked around in amazement as she entered her new home. She'd heard countless stories of the Gryffindor common room and knew every detail of it, however she hadn't heard much about the Ravenclaw common room and it fascinated her.
The common room was a wide, circular room with a midnight blue carpet, arched windows with blue and bronze silks, and a domed ceiling painted with stars.
'During the day, we have an excellent view of the school grounds, along with the lake, Forbidden Forest, Quidditch pitch, Herbology gardens, and the surrounding mountains,' Victoire told them as they looked around.
The room was furnished with beautiful bookshelves, tables and chairs. By the door leading up to the dormitories stood a tall statue of Rowena Ravenclaw made of white marble.
'Since it's your first night I'm afraid I've been instructed to make sure you go to bed immediately,' Victoire told us regretfully, though nobody seemed to mind as they were all exhausted after the journey.
Rose and Lauren made their way up to their dormitory and noticed that their luggage had been brought up. They got ready for bed quickly and soon everybody was soundlessly sleeping.
Rose fell asleep to the sound of the wind whistling around the windows of the tower and thoughts of her years to come in Hogwarts.