Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Harry Potter, I am just a fan like you basking in nerdiness.
Rose knew that it was utterly hopeless.
The sixteen year old girl sat at her vanity, frowning angrily at the mirror. In it was reflected a face that was much too young and much too ugly to be Rose's own. The usually bushy ginger head was now jet black. Her hair was long and silky, just like the way Rose always pictured when she imagined the perfect version of herself. However, usually in her mind the dark hair was accompanied by a soft porcelain complexion and a skinny little petite body. What Rose saw the mirrior now were bright red cheeks, worse than a cherry tomato, and revolting smears of brown freckles across her nose and cheeks.
Of course Rose knew that dying and straightening her hair wouldn't make a difference! Rose felt silly to have allowed herself to believe that it would. Why had she gotten so excited? She looked just as plain and stupid as she always did. She looked young… little.
Little! Rose was tired of always being little. She was sixteen and her father still thought of her as his little girl! Her cousins still regarded her as sweet little Rose! And her grandmother was the worst of all of them! Rose and her cousin Lily, both with their red hair, were the daughters Molly Weasley loved! Rose would be forever little to her because even though Rose was the older of Ron and Hermione's kids, Grandma Molly looked at Rose like a continuation of her little Ginny, the youngest. To make it worse, Grandma was always mixing up Lily and Rose! Her two little redheaded girls! And Lily was younger than Rose by two whole years! Rose did not like having those two extra years taken away from her.
Honestly, it infuriated Rose to no end. She would be coming of age next year and still everyone saw her as little.
"Rose?"
Rose jumped at the sound of her mother's voice calling from outside her door. She panicked, wondering how she could hide her change of appearance from her mother. Rose had been planning to reveal the change proudly to her family and let them all marvel at how beautiful and mature she looked, but now Rose realized that she didn't look beautiful or mature at all. She looked like a gothic Pippy Longstockings.
Before Rose could decide on any course of action, her mother had entered her room. Rose's cheeks turned bright red as she anticipated her mother's reaction. But apart from Hermione crinkling her nose in distaste at the smell of chemical in the room, Rose's mother didn't react much.
Hermione walked into Rose's room, closing the door carefully behind her and then went to perch herself on her daughter's bed.
"What's going on Rosie?" She asked gently.
Rose looked away from her mother, gazing instead at the numerous posters and pictures she had hung on her wall around her vanity. They were of her favorite bands, beautiful debutants, and of course lots of models. Rose liked to look at beautiful, successful people when she got dressed and ready to go out in the mornings. She liked to pretend she was one of them.
"I hate my hair." Rose finally sighed.
Hermione nodded. "I see that. You thought that punishing it might make it behave better?"
Rose scowled at the wall. She was in no mood for her mother to be trying to make her smile.
"I worked with the defective Pygmy Puff Uncle George gave to Hugo, didn't it?"
Rose heard her mum's chuckle and fought to keep herself from smiling too.
"Trust me, Rosie." Hermione said, trying to sound comforting. "Everyone hates their hair. You're lucky there's so much you can do to straighten and style yours. It's so pretty when you do it, I don't know why you'd want to change it. You're so lucky it's more manageable than mine!" Hermione laughed.
Rose was not tempted to laugh now. She had never understood how her mother was always able to laugh at herself like that, be so self-confident. Even in school, her father and uncle had told Rose, Hermione had been strong-willed and only believed in the facts. Popular opinion never caused her mother to even bat an eye. Rose supposed that that was what had made her mum a true Gryffindor.
So what was Rose's excuse?
"Come here, Rosie. Let me fix it?"
Rose noticed her mum pulling out her wand and sighed. Even though her black hair didn't look much better, it was still a change, an improvement no matter how slight. But Rose obediently crossed the room to sit in front of her mother without complaint.
"Coma incline." Rose her heard her mother say softly, waving her wand above Rose's head. Rose made a mental note of the spell so that she might look it up when she got back to school.
"There we go!" Hermione said, smiling. "Beautiful!"
Rose ran her fingers through her hair and smiled half-heartedly at her mother. Hermione wrapped her arms around her daughter lovingly.
"You're beautiful, Rosie. I don't know why you don't see it. I would've killed for your looks when I was your age."
Rose politely said nothing. Her mother shook her head.
"Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes. And don't forget that you need to finish packing your things up! We leave for King's Cross early tomorrow."
"Thanks, mum." Rose said, sliding out of her mother's arms so that she could resume the packing that she'd been doing before sneaking off to destroy her hair. Hermione smiled at her and left the room. Rose listened to her footsteps retreating down the hallway and then on down the stairs. Sighing, Rose went to collect a few of her favorite necklaces off her vanity to pack. At first, Rose only glanced at her reflection in the mirror, but then she looked back up to investigate closer. Her hair was red again, but not quite as harshly as it usually was. It was darker and there were slight highlights of brown in her hair. Rose smiled. It wasn't the perfect hair she invisioned, and she still looked young and little, but it was touching that her mother had tried. That she listened to her daughter and cared.
Rose knew that she was lucky to have her family, but she'd be damned if there wasn't room for improvement. One couldn't be lucky with everything
Rose sat in the back of the car, bouncing excitedly in her seat as the family got closer and closer to their destination. Hugo sat next to her, most likely daydreaming about food or Quidditch. In the front of the car, Rose's mother was trying to convince her husband to slow down! He was well over the speed limit. Rose's father proclaimed that he was just fine and that he was going the speed limit, though Rose knew her father was speeding on purpose. He got a thrill from being pulled over by a police officer and getting to show off that yeah, he had his license, and then confunding him to forget to give them a ticket.
Rose tuned them out and turned to look out the window. She started daydreaming.
It had happened six years ago.
Six years ago, Rose had been eleven years old, all excited to start her first year at Hogwarts! Hugo had complained jealously, but Rose barely heard him! She and her parents had searched through the smoke until they found the extended family. She could tell that her cousin Albus was nervous and she gave him an encouraging smile, though she was equally nervous. Al's older brother James was nowhere to be seen – something Rose counted as a blessing. She loved James, but he was quite certain he wasn't going to help her or Al's nerves any! Hugo paired up with Al's little sister Lily, both extremely jealous of Rose and Al. The adults talked and joked.
And that's when it had happened. Right when her father had been warning her about how she had better be in Gryffindor – jokingly, she hoped – it happened. The fog cleared and she saw him!
He was like a god, standing there so composed in the middle of all the mayhem. Rose watched him – so beautiful and refined in every slight movement. And he glanced her way! Her heart had sped up nervously, though it had no reason to. At the time, Rose had no clue what it meant, but as she grew and learned more about the ways of this wonderful world, Rose realized that it was love at first sight. She was positively infatuated with that sophisticated blonde, and she looked forward to whenever there might be the slightest chance to see him.
Her father had said something to her then about inheriting something from her mother, but Rose paid no attention, she was on a cloud. A beautiful sophisticated cloud.
That's where she was now, too, as she daydreamed on her way to King's Cross. She was on a cloud, lost in her fantasies about how this year her blonde god might notice her. Unlikely, sure, but that's why she had the spell her mom had used on her hair written on a slip of paper in her pocket.
"Rose?"
"Hmm?" Rose replied, turning to face her brother. Their mum and dad continued to bicker from the front seats. They always seemed to be bickering. It didn't worry Rose or Hugo though, their parents had always bickered. Their Uncle Harry had said that front day one, Ron and Hermione's favorite pastime had been bickering. "That and, well, umm, never mind."
"Why don't you try out for the Quidditch team this year?"
Rose rolled her eyes at her brother. He was always on her case about Quidditch. Hugo had inherited his mother's less than great coordination on a broom whereas Rose could hold her own even up against her cousin James and Teddy! But Rose simply wasn't interested in being on the team, something that her family – with the exception of her mother, and quite recently cousin Albus – was always on her about.
"Because, Hugo, if I make the team then I'm either going to have to sacrifice academically or socially. I don't wish to give up either." Rose replied, doing her best to sound scholarly and sophisticated.
Hugo pouted, "But Rose! We have a chance to win the cup this year now that most of Slytherin's good players are gone! It's just Al and Scorpius now and the two of them can't carry their whole team on their own! With you on Gryffindor's team Slytherin won't stand a chance! Even Al's got to know that!"
Rose rolled her eyes again. "I'll think about it." Rose replied, though she knew that she wouldn't. The only incentive she had to play (other than that she enjoyed it, but that obviously was not a good enough reason) was that perhaps she'd catch the attention of that certain blonde of hers! But she had debated on that and finally decided that although he might notice her playing Quidditch, there was too much of a chance that he would notice her in the wrong way. What if he saw her mess up and make a fool of herself? What if he thought she wasn't graceful in the sky? What if, what if, what if…? No, the ground was a much safer terrain for her to try to win his affections the correct way.
"We're here!" Hermione exclaimed, sounding extremely relieved. Ron was grumbling because, despite his efforts, he'd not been pulled over to show off his license. But he hopped out of the car with as much energy as the rest of them and pulled the kids trunks out of the back of the car.
Rose and Hugo hurried to load their things on their trolleys and sped off as quickly as possible to platforms nine and ten, getting quite far ahead of their parents. They waited impatiently between the two platforms for their slow parents. As soon as the family was all together, they carefully looked around and then boarded the platform by walking straight through a brick wall, one by one.
Almost immediately upon reaching the hidden side of the wall, the Weasley family was found by the Potter family and a big family reunion began. Aunt Ginny pinched Hugo's cheeks and started talking rapidly to Hermione while Uncle Harry and Ron "hit the rock." Lily rolled her eyes at the pair of them and then proceeded to demonstrate the proper method of the muggle greeting where the rock explodes after being hit. Rose immediately grabbed her cousin Al into a one-armed hug, admiring his "muggle scene boy" apparel while he blushed and muttered something about someone not appreciating him having his own taste in clothing.
Just as the greeting settled down and Rose started looking around the platform – very casually – to see if she might get a glimpse of her blonde god, she felt a pair of strong arms grab her from behind. She squeaked loudly in surprise.
"Relax Rose, just me!" A familiar voice said as the arms released her and Rose turned to face her best friend smiling widely.
"Jamie! Oh my gosh! I missed you!" She shouted, throwing her arms around her best friend's neck.
A slight man with perhaps the biggest smile you've ever seen stepped forward to join the group. "Hiyah Harry! Ron, Hermione, Ginny." Mr. Creevey, Jamie's dad, nodded at each of the adults in turn.
"Hey Dennis!"
"Hi!"
Hermione stepped forward to hug the man, "Where's your wife?"
"Oh, she's back talking to her sister, but Jamie wanted to come find you lot." Dennis gestured somewhere off in the distance where Rose assumed Mrs. Creevey must be.
The adults then continued on with the conversations, bringing Dennis into it with them, so none of them noticed Jamie's gasp as he noticed Albus's new look.
"Al, you look positively adorable!" Jamie commented, "Rose, did you do this?"
Rose laughed at Al's bright red face and shook her head, "No, I wish I did! He's pretty impressive isn't he? I wonder if Lily had anything to do with it?"
Al rolled his eyes at the two, "I'm not sitting with you guys if you're just going to make fun of me the whole ride!" He threatened, trying to be menacing.
"Oh shush, we're complimenting you, don't get so offended!"
The whistle blew on the Hogwarts Express, signaling for students and parents to hurry it up. Ron and Hermione gave each of their children a quick hug and kiss before waving them and the cousins off. On the train was crowded with kids all running around trying to find their friends and scrambling to say goodbye to family. Hugo and Lily took off to find their friends while Rose, Al, and Jamie pushed through the crowd to find an open compartment. Towards the middle of the train, the three were waved inside to a compartment by one of Rose and Jamie's Gryffindor friends, Lola Davies. The three smiled and obediently joined her in the compartment.
"Hey guys!" Lola said, bouncing in her seat excitedly the way that Rose had on her way to King's Cross.
"Hey Lola!" Al said, taking a seat next to her while Jamie and Rose sat across from them.
Lola and Rose shared the brains amongst their group of friends. Rose, like her mother, read constantly and always knew the facts and was always the first one done with her homework. Lola, on the other hand, was more street smart. Lola was no where near as interested in sophistication and beauty as Rose and Jamie, in fact she was quite the opposite. She was the daredevil of the class and was infinitely entertained by the shocked expressions Jamie and Rose had for her whenever she put no thought whatsoever into her outfit for the day. Today she was looking a little grungy, but Jamie and Rose only shared one glance about it, and then decided to let it go. It was the beginning of a new term, there would be plenty worse fashion mistakes up ahead.
"So how were your O.W.L.S? Do you know what classes you want to take this year?" Rose asked Lola anxiously as the train lurched into motion. She and Jamie had, of course, already gone over their scores together and debated on which classes they would take while maintaining maximum RJ time.
"Eh, they were okay I guess. I got an A in potions and charms, ick, I hate those two. I'm definitely not continuing with them! And, lemme think, oh Es in History, Astronomy and Herbology. But I'm so excited! I got an O for Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts! Those were the two I was really hoping to do well on! What about you? Oh, lemme guess, all O's?"
Rose shook her head sadly, "E in History. It was so close! But those goblin wars always throw me off! I completely mixed up Ragnok and Ragnuk! Ug and Urg gave me trouble, too, but I looked it up after the test and I think I got them right."
Albus made a show then of yawning, bored. "Whatever. O.W.L.S are done, please do not make me relive them!"
"Sorry cutie pie!" Jamie said, winking at Al.
Al made a face, "Seriously, I will leave this compartment."
Jamie just shrugged, thoroughly enjoying Al's discomfort with all the teasing. Rose ignored the exchange, she was standing up on her seat, reaching into her bag in the overhead storage. She found what she was looking for and sat back down triumphantly to show Jamie the magazine she'd gotten.
"Look!" She said excitedly, "Grandma and Grandpa – my mum's parents – they got me a subscription to this cool muggle magazine!"
Jamie shared Rose's excitement, "Aw, sweet! Muggle magazines are the best! My grandpa's got a ton too, but they're all muggle sports. He tries to teach me how to play all the time, but I just don't get it."
Lola rolled her eyes at her two friends, settling back in her seat to possibly take a quick nap. Al stretched out too, rubbing a sore muscle in his arm where his brother had "accidentally" punched him when he was home over the summer.
"Emu oil helps for that." A strange, light voice traveled into the compartment. Al looked up and smiled at his Slytherin friend Lysander Scamander. Lysander was a tallish, lanky boy with white-blonde hair that reached down between his chin and shoulders. He had a big white scar on his left cheek, which was how people told him apart from his twin brother Lorcan, who was a Ravenclaw like their mother.
Rose and Jamie could never decide if they approved of Lysander and Lorcan or not. Rose had a bit of a soft spot for the blonde hair and the two knew how to dress sharply, unfortunately their sense of accessory was sorely lacking. They wore strange talismans and pendants on chains around their necks, or occasionally odd little tiaras that were supposed to increase brainpower or something ridiculous. But the silly twins were nice enough, and their parents seemed to get along quite well with Rose and Al's parents, so Rose and Jamie had ultimately decided that being nice to the twins was a worthwhile effort. If nothing else, they were always good for a laugh, even if what they were saying wasn't meant to be funny.
"Emu? As in the birds?" Rose asked, crinkling her nose in distaste.
Lysander shrugged, "If you don't like birds then the horn of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack has healing powers too. Though, they're very hard to find, and mother says you must always be careful not to mistake an Erumpent horn for that of a Snorkck, that one will blow you up."
Al chuckled, fairly used to his friend going off on tangents such as these while Rose just shook her head. "How was your summer, Lysander?" Al asked. "Didn't you and your family go like all over the place?"
"Oh yes!" Lysander nodded. "It was quite a pleasant trip. We had to camp out in the Australian outback for a few weeks, following after a herd of Heffalumps, you see. Daddy snores quite loudly, Lorcan and I barely slept at all!" Despite the fact that he was relating an unfortunate detail, Lysander still beamed brightly, as though not being able to sleep because of his father's snoring was the most exciting thing in the world.
"Well that's too bad. Did you find the Heffalumps?"
Lysander shook his head, "Unfortunately no. Father made a mistake. Turns out we were following elephants, not nearly as exciting creatures as Heffalumps. Lorcan was the one to figure it out when he was talking to a nice native girl. She was telling him something about poo. I wasn't inclined to eavesdrop."
Al chuckled, but Lola, a tad annoyed with her nap being interrupted by such trivialities, was not as amused. "Lysander, was there a reason you stopped here?"
Lysander stood there thinking for a moment, forehead creased in though. "Yes there was, I'm trying to think…" He looked around, seemingly looking for something that might give him a clue as to his prior train of thought. He found his answer on his own robes in the form of a badge. "Oh yes, I recall, I was doing my rounds for the prefects, making sure all the first years were settled in and all, and I passed Scorpius. He wanted me to tell you," He looked at Al, "that he thinks Beatrice Zabini is trying to rape him… I told him that actions speak louder than words and in some Wogony clans rape is the highest form of compliment. He didn't seem to see my point though, just told me to help him find you. I think he was hiding somewhere more towards the back of the train…"
Rose, Jamie, and Lola all burst out laughing, both from the hilarious situation Scorpius seemed to have somehow gotten himself into and that his friend stood there quite stoically as though nothing was unusual about it at all. Al too found this all funny, but tried to hold it in.
"See?" he said pointedly, looking at Rose and Jamie. "I have better friends than you who need me more than I need you making fun of my cloths. Now, if you'll excuse me…" Al left the compartment swiftly while his cousin and her two friends continued to laugh. Lysander continued to stand in the doorway of the compartment, gazing out the window pensively.
When the three could breath again, Rose and Jamie went back to their magazine and Lola leaned back against the window, ready to settle down for her nap. She closed her eyes and made herself relax. She felt strange though, almost as though she were exposed. She peeked one eye open to see Lysander still standing there, now appraising her appearance.
"Uh, was there something else you wanted Ly?" She asked.
Lysander shook his head, "Oh no. I was just thinking that Rose's hair is the perfect shade of red, just like the heliopath's fire, and that if your hair was brown straw, Rose's hair would consume it in a second."
With that, Lysander turned back around, skipping out of the compartment, singing a song about lollipops. Lola frowned, not sure how to take Lysander's comment about her hair, until finally deciding that she didn't care. She was almost asleep when the sweets trolley rolled up and the friendly round lady who served the treats called out to them. Lola sighed as Rose and Jamie bounced out of the compartment, knowing that she was never going to get her nap.
It was a few hours after the feast and Rose was bent over Moaning Myrtle's toilet, puking her guts out. From outside of the stall she heard Jamie giggling as he tried to convince Moaning Myrtle to get contacts so everyone would be able to see her pretty little eyes better. Myrtle was not amused. Not by the girl puking in her home or the boy who seemed to have conveniently forgotten that as a ghost there wasn't much she could change about her appearance.
Rose wiped her mouth and flushed the toilet, walking out of the stall on shaky legs. She giggled at the sight of her best friend offering the ghost a smoke to loosen up while Myrtle pretended that the smoke hurt her lungs. Rose took the smoke from Jamie and sat down next to him.
This was a ritual Rose and Jamie did every year after the feast. Or really, they did it after any feast or whenever they were feeling fat. The two of them would head up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom with some alcohol and cigarettes – sometimes they would run into other students with the same mindset as them and they'd have a big party – and Rose and Jamie would drink until they puked all their fatness out of them and smoke to loose their appetites. Third year was the year they had decided they need to do something drastic to stay beautiful and skinny, and this is what they had come up with – after much trial and error. Originally Rose had had the idea of the finger down the throat method, but both her and Jamie were too grossed out to make themselves throw up like that, so Jamie had been able to nick some alcohol off of James Potter one year and this became the tradition.
"Gawds, I fell loike shite." Jamie groaned, as Moaning Myrtle, fed up with his games, sat on – or rather in – his head.
"Yess, but you look safisticated." Rose said, slurring her words and certainly not sounding very sophisticated herself. But smoking and drinking made her old, not little. That was the point.
Rose suddenly started giggling very loudly. Jamie looked over to her, shivering slightly and giving her a questioning look. Rose shook her head, trying to make the words come out of her mouth, but unable to.
"You… you… you…"
She fell over on the floor, laughing hysterically.
"What?" Jamie asked, looking hurt. He looked down at himself, his cloths, and wondered what could possibly be so funny about his appearance that his best friend couldn't take him seriously all of a sudden.
"You… you have…"
Jamie frowned, looking at Rose with big sad eyes, but Rose didn't notice.
"You have… a butt! In your face! – There's a butt! – On your face!" She continued laughing, relieved to have finally been able to get the words out.
Jamie touching his hands to his face, horrified by the thought that his friend thought his face booked like a but, but his fingers felt the coldness and he remembered that Moaning Myrtle was sitting on his face! Jamie started laughing too, relieved that there was nothing seriously wrong.
Moaning Myrtle made a displeased noise and stalked away from them, heading towards her toilet. She stopped halfway, remembering that her toilet was now home to the contents of Rose's stomach and sighed angrily. She looked around for a place to go to escape the silly teenagers, and remembered with glee the prefects' bathroom! She floated off, hoping that perhaps the Slytherin Prefect might have fancied a bath that night.
"Ewww, Rose!" Jamie complained laughing, having not noticed Myrtle's departure. "Eww! Her butt was on my face!"
Rose laughed harder at first, and then felt something shift in her stomach. She paled, crawling towards the toilet to puke her guts out again.
Jamie's laughter calmed too at the sounds of Rose's gagging and he sat up straight again to light up another cigarette.
"Rose, you're beautiful!" He said seriously as his friend exited the stall. Rose giggled at him, then took his cigarette out of his hand and took a drag before giving it back.
"Did I ever tell you you're my bestest fwend?" Rose asked, giggling some more.
Jamie nodded his head vigorously. "Yes, yes! I am!"
"Good!" Rose laid down face-first on the cool bathroom floor, intent on taking a nap so the floor could stop spinning before she and Jamie returned to their dorms for the night.
The next morning found Rose dead asleep, sprawled out on her bed and Jamie sleeping curled in a tight ball near her feet. Per usual, Jamie had forgotten the way to his dorm in his drunken state and had ended up staying the night in Rose's dorm. The first few times it happened, the girls Rose shared a dorm with had wondered what went on between the two, but they had very soon grown used to and even comfortable with this arrangement that Rose and Jamie had. Jamie was after all practically gay.
Practically, Jamie insisted, was the key word. He preferred the term "versatile."
Rose liked that, versatile. In her opinion, versatility was a very good thing for a person to have. Being versatile made a person more mature and sophisticated and she was quite jealous that she did not find herself to be quite as versatile as Jamie. Anna Finch-Fletchley was also disappointed that Rose was not versatile, but as Jamie had said comfortingly, "C'est la vie." Jamie did not know what "C'est la vie" meant. Rose had a pretty good guess because her Aunt Fleur spoke fluent French, but she and Jamie had decided that even if their rough translation was incorrect, it was still a good thing to say. It sounded intelligent and mature.
"Rose, Jamie! Wake up!"
Rose groaned, swatting at the arms that were trying to shake her awake. "Go 'way Lola."
Lola stood there with her hands on her hips, "Honestly, every year we go through this. When are you guys going to learn? C'mon! Get UP!"
Lola pulled Rose off the bed and the redhead crumpled to the floor, groaning louder. Jamie yelped as he – tangled in Rose's legs – was also dragged down.
"Agumenti!"
Rose and Jamie gasped as they were hit with a cold stream of water coming from Lola's wand. Rose jumped up with her hands in the air.
"I SURRENDER!"
Christina Nott and Joan Peakes, Rose and Lola's other roommates, laughed at the spectacle. They had another roommate too, Carmella McLaggen, but she was most likely already down at breakfast. Carmella was the early riser of the group. Rose was the night owl.
Rose pulled Jamie up to stand next to her and Jamie tried furtively to wipe the water off his face. Christina tossed him one of her t-shirts and he smiled at her in thanks.
"C'mon Jamie," Joan said, rolling her eyes, "I'll help you find your dorm again."
Jamie beamed at the girl, "Aw, Joanie! You're such a sweetheart. Have you been practicing legilimency? As much as I appreciate you knowing all my needs and wants, all that poking around in my head has given me a massive headache."
Joan rolled her eyes at him. "I'm with Lola, when will the two of you learn?"