AN: This was written for the 'How To Annoy' challenge at HPFC, by edgy satsuma. I got Rose Weasley. This was so fun to write ;)
This will be a three-shot. This is just the intro.
"Hey, Scorp, do you know where Rose is?"
Scorpius glanced up from the parchment he was hunched over and glanced over at his best friend Albus. The two were currently in Al's bedroom at the Potter household, trying to get a headstart on the mountain of Christmas holiday homework they'd been given. Not that they'd been willing – it had, of course, been Rose's idea to 'get it all out of the way now and not have to worry about it later'. The boys still didn't know how she could sound so excited about it. Fifth year really was cruel.
"Nah, I didn't even see her leave the room," the blonde fifteen-year-old replied, going back to his homework.
"Oh." A few moments passed in silence, and then Al said, "So why are we still doing homework?"
Scorpius frowned. He looked at his parchment, which had three words (the title) written on it. He looked then up at his best friend, and then at his parchment again. "I've no idea, let's go."
The pair stood up and crossed the room to the door. They were nearly bowled over, however, when Lucy, Lily and Roxanne barged into the room.
"Wha – what are you three doing in here? Why are you even in our house?" Albus asked, gaping at his three cousins.
"Lily invited us," Lucy frowned. "Duh."
"This is my room!" Al protested. "Has your room blown up or something, Lily?"
"No, we need to discuss something with you," Lily said seriously, sitting herself down on the bed. Lucy and Roxanne plopped down next to her. The youngest Potter cast Scorpius a withering glance. "You can stay too, if you must."
Al and Scorpius stared at them.
"What? You look like gaping goldfish," Roxanne informed them cheerfully.
"Wha – what are you – get out of my room, Lily! And you too, tiny people!" Al demanded.
"I'm the same age as you!" Roxanne squealed in protest.
"Yeah, but you're smaller than me," Al pointed out, to which Roxanne only scowled.
Lily rolled her eyes. "We need to talk about Christmas presents."
The boys looked at each other blankly. "Christmas presents?"
Lucy smiled at them and explained, very kindly, "Yes, it's very common for people to give each other gifts on the twenty-fifth of December, as part of a kind of celebration, and we know these as –"
"I know what Christmas presents are!" Al huffed, glaring at the girl who beamed at him.
"Oh, that's a shame, I didn't buy you one and now you're going to be all hurt about it," Lily sighed, as if was the least pressing matter in her life right now.
"You'd better have got me a Christmas present, Lils –"
"Of course I have!" the redhead snapped, bored now. Al shifted uncomfortably – making a mental note to buy Lily her present as soon as possible.
"Al, we don't know what to get our parents, uncles, aunts, Grandma or Grandad for Christmas," Roxanne said. "And Christmas is in two days' time, and we've bought them nothing."
"That's funny… because I haven't either," Al admitted.
The three girls' faces brightened. "Great! You can help us."
"Wha – no! I'm not spending any time with my little sister and my girl cousins!"
"Rose is your girl cousin," Lucy pointed out.
"She's different," Al said gruffly.
It was then that James and Fred stuck their heads round the door to Al's bedroom. "Having a mothers' meeting in here, are we?"
Al glared at his brother. "No. We've all forgotten to buy the adults Christmas presents."
"So have we!" Fred grinned happily.
"Er… why is that a good thing?" Scorpius asked.
"It's not," Fred shrugged, still grinning. "But we don't need to panic until a couple of hours before everyone gets up on Christmas morning, do we?"
Al, Scorpius, Lily, Lucy and Roxanne stared at him.
"So what's the plan?" James asked, planting himself on Lily, squashing her. She let out a noise like a strangled cat.
"What plan? Why are we using my room as a meeting place?" Al groaned.
"What meeting?" Dominique and Molly appeared in Al's bedroom now.
"Why are you all here? Where did you all come from?" Al asked incredulously, wondering why all his cousins were suddenly round at his house.
"Well, dear brother of mine," James began, grinning.
"When a man and a woman love each other very much –" Fred continued.
"I didn't mean that!" Al cried, screwing up his face in disgust at the thought of his parents… he shook his head violently, James and Fred guffawing in the background. "Why are you two in my room, then?" He pointed to Dominique and Molly.
"We were looking for Lucy," Dominique said. "Aunt Audrey sent us looking for her."
"Well, she's here if you want her –"
"No!" Lucy shrieked, scrambling behind James as he happened to be the tallest person in the room, even sitting down on his sister. "Hide me! Don't let her find me!"
"Er – why?" Fred asked.
"She's going to kill me! She wants to come near my neck with scissors!" Lucy's eyes were wide with terror.
Roxanne snorted. "Ellen Rosoff at school's older sister is getting married, and she wants Lucy to be a bridesmaid. You know, because Lucy and Ellen are really close, and Ellen's sister adores Lucy."
"Why?" James stage-whispered, earning a punch in the back from the girl cowering behind him.
"But Lucy kind of ruined the dress by accidentally spilling coffee on it… and then purple hair dye. Aunt Audrey doesn't know yet," Roxanne finished, grinning.
"The scissors?"
"Aunt Audrey wants to give her a haircut as well," Lily said. "Lucy reckons she's going to take the chance to kill her while she has scissors near her neck."
"Ah. Don't worry, Luce, we'll hide you," James assured her. "Can I see the dress?"
Lucy wailed.
"Moving on swiftly," Dominique laughed. "Why are we all here?"
"We forgot to buy the adults Christmas presents," Al said. "Let me guess, you two did as well?"
"I didn't," Molly said indignantly.
"Well, of course you didn't, Molls," Dominique said, rolling her eyes. "Hey, I don't think Louis remembered either."
"Who said my name?" Louis and Hugo appeared in the doorway.
"I can't breathe!" Al said loudly. "My room's too crowded!"
Everyone ignored him. "Were you talking about me?" Louis asked. "We forgot to buy presents too." He gestured between himself and Hugo.
Fred coughed, but Scorpius swore he heard, "Eavesdroppers!"
"We were looking for Rose," Hugo said. "Mum wants her."
"Rose has mysteriously disappeared," Al said. "I bet she remembered presents for everyone."
"Yeah, I wonder what she got me?" Scorpius wondered briefly.
"Not the point!" Al exclaimed, staring at his best friend in disbelief.
"Though it's probably not a sexy Santa outfit for her to show off to you in private," James snorted.
"Oh my God, James, you're sick," Lily announced, while everybody else looked quite disturbed, especially Al and Hugo. Scorpius blushed.
"I know,' James said proudly. "But seriously, ferret boy, if you go near my cousin –"
"I won't last longer than Hippogriff dung," Scorpius recited from memory. "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere near Rose. I swear."
"Hello? Anyone home?"
"We're in here, Vic!" Dominique called down the hallway.
Victoire was in the room in a heartbeat. "Has anyone seen Teddy?"
There was a chorus of "No"s, "Nope"s, and "Maybe he camouflaged against a tree outside"s.
"Has anyone seen Rose?" Hugo asked again.
"Has anyone seen Lucy?" James joked, prodding the girl still hiding behind him.
"Rose has just gone off with Aunt Hermione," Victoire said. "Just saw them. They were going to Diagon Alley, I think."
"Didn't tell us, did she?" Al scowled.
"As for Teddy, I think he's hiding from you," Roxanne told her. "You've been going mental with the wedding preparations."
There was an odd sort of squeal noise from behind James. Lucy had obviously just realised she was going to be a bridesmaid twice, and not really taken the idea.
"Mental? I haven't been going mental!" Victoire's hair wasn't brushed properly and her eyes were too wide for her face. She looked far too awake and frantic. Nobody met her eyes.
"Fancy helping us, Vic?" Dominique asked.
"With what?" Victoire questioned suspiciously.
"Christmas presents," Fred said. "We've bought none?"
"What, you mean, for nobody?"
"For the adults."
"You can't be serious," Victoire laughed, just to see if they were joking around.
"Are you?" Louis quirked an eyebrow.
"I – I've been busy," Victoire said gruffly. The occupants of the room snorted.
"So you're just as unorganised as us," Lily said. "What are we going to get everyone?"
"We should all pitch in," Al said, and everyone agreed.
"And I'll help," Molly said. "Let's face it, you need my help."
"We could all do a painting of the whole Weasley-Potter-Lupin clan!" Lily piped up enthusiastically.
Silence.
"No, Lily, just no," Fred said awkwardly.
"We could buy them all a book…" Molly trailed off, realising her idea wouldn't be popular.
"You would say that, Molly," Fred rolled his eyes.
"Hey, I like the idea of book," Roxanne said. The majority of the room stared at her. "A book that we write." Fred was now looking at his sister as if she were an alien. "A funny book, I mean. About… somebody from this family?"
And then it came to James. "How To Annoy Rose Weasley!" he announced.
"A book about how to annoy Rose?" Victoire repeated.
James nodded enthusiastically. "Rose is the only one of us not here, it's the perfect chance! And Fred and I have had enough experience with annoying her. It could be a book of tested, and successful, ways to annoy our dear Rosie."
"I like it," Lily smiled. A couple of people still looked confused and unimpressed, but most of the room was nodding.
Victoire summoned some parchment and a quill. "I'll write it all down, I have the neatest handwriting." The boys rolled their eyes.
"So. First idea?" Molly asked, as Victoire put her quill to the parchment.
James grinned as ideas and memories filled his head, and Victoire began to write.
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