Chapter 1
Diagon Ally was just as busy as all the years before. Parents rushed around with their children to get school books and first years wondered into the wand shop to get their very own first wand.
Rose had arrived with her family, but after running into some friends, her parents left to help her brother get his things for his first year.
"Rose are you listening?" Danielle Kroft, Rose's best friend, asked as she waved a hand in front of Rose's face.
"No sorry, what were you talking about?" Rose questioned.
Danielle had pure black hair and pale skin, she almost looked like a character from a black and white film if it weren't for her naturally off red lips and brown eyes. Danielle and Rose met in first year on the train. At the time, Rose was rather nervous about going to Hogwarts, but Danielle helped her get out of her shell.
"I said that Tyson's trying out for the quidditch team this year so dad got him one of those as a present" Danielle said as she gestured to the broomstick that was on display in the front window of a shop across the street, apparently the newest model in the Nimbus range.
"Well he's a good flyer" Rose said as she sensed a little anger in her friend's words.
"But it's so not fair, when I told dad that I wanted to be a potions master, he just said no" Danielle complained.
Rose chuckled a little under her breath "Dani, I've taken potions with you, he was right to say no" she said as Danielle gave her an overly exaggerated look of offence.
"Why on earth would you think such a thing? I am a potions prodigy" she said dramatically with a hand on her chest and her head raised.
"Do I have to remind you about what happened last year?" Rose asked as they started walking.
"Okay that was once, and how was I supposed to know Quinton would drink that?" Danielle defended.
"Dani, he was bed ridden for a week, he almost missed quidditch tryouts" Rose said half serious, half joking.
"He made the team, didn't he?" Danielle tried to defend as Rose just laughed.
The two girls walked for a little longer before reaching a book store.
"Looks like there's a signing today" someone said blankly from behind them.
The two girls could recognise that monotone voice anywhere. They turned around to see Danielle's twin brother Tyson standing there, holding a pile of books. While most fraternal twins look different, Tyson and Danielle look almost identical, if it weren't for the fact that Danielle's hair was long when Rose first met them, she would have easily mistaken her for Tyson more than a dozen times, and vice versa. Thankfully they've both matured enough over the past two years that it was now a lot easier to tell them apart now.
Danielle looked around "Where's dad?" she asked as she couldn't see him anywhere nearby.
Tyson handed half of the books he was carrying to Danielle "Dad ran into Mr Weasley in front of the pet store, they're talking quidditch right now" he said in a dull tone before looking at Rose with his same stoic expression.
Without another word, Rose hugged him "How have you been Rose?" he asked blankly.
Rose smiled and let him go "Great, Dani tells me you're gonna try out quidditch, what brought that on?" Rose asked as Danielle stood aside, going through all the books her brother gave her.
"Dad said it would be good for me to have a hobby, quidditch seemed like the fastest way to get him off my back" he said.
Rose nodded understandably before looking around the busy store "So what's the signing for?" she asked.
"Some potions book author, nothing new" a bored voice said from above them.
All three kids looked up to the railing of the second floor to see a pale boy with slicked back platinum blonde hair. He was holding a book and seemed to have been skimming through it.
"Scorpius? What are you doing here?" Rose asked.
The boy smirked for a split second "Reading" was all he said before closing the book and making his way down the stairs to them.
"You joining the quidditch team again this year?" Rose asked as the boy shrugged.
"Been thinking about it, although I'm not sure your cousin will be able to beat me if I do" he said smugly.
Rose smirked at the boy "Right… and… remind me who's cousin it was that caught that little golden snitch before you could get your hands on it last year" she said causing the boy to grumble a little.
Rose and Scorpius could technically be classified as friends, but more than anything, they're rivals. Ever since she scored higher than him on a potions test in first year, he announced that he would score higher than her on the next one. Eventually this spread from just potions to other subjects. To this day, the poor boy has yet to score higher than the Weasley girl on any test.
"Besides, won't you need the extra study time?" she teased.
The boy shot her a slightly annoyed, yet amused look before looking at something from over Rose's shoulder "I should go" he said quickly before putting the book on a nearby stack and making his way out of the store.
"That was weird" Tyson said.
Danielle wrapped an arm around her brother's shoulders "Yes, my monotone brother, it was" Danielle said as she riffled his hair
Not a second later, Rose's parents appeared at the stores entrance "Have you gotten everything you need sweetheart?" her mother, Hermione, asked as she shifted the stack of books she was already holding.
Rose looked at Danielle, having forgotten why she came into the bookstore in the first place.
Danielle smiled in an 'I got this' sort of way "Nearly Mrs Weasley, we just need to find the books we need for Care of Magical Creatures class" she said as Tyson had already gone upstairs to find them.
"Was that just Malfoy's child?" Rose's father, Ron, asked.
Rose sighed "Yea, he was leaving as we came in I guess" she said before Tyson handed her a book.
"Here you go" was all he said before walking over to the register to purchase his own book.
Rose knew it was petty to lie to her dad, but he's always been adamant on Rose not getting too close with Scorpius just because he's a Malfoy. So, to save him the small speech about what the Malfoy family did in the war, she quickly realised it was just easier to lie.
"Well hurry, your uncle Harry and aunt Ginny have invited us over for dinner" Hermione said with a smile.
"Hugo hurry, we're going to miss the train!" Rose yelled to her brother as the two of them and their parents ran through Kings Cross station. With no decrease of speed, one at a time the family of four ran straight for a brick wall between platforms 9 and 10.
As Rose and Hugo made their way through the compartments, they realised just how little options they had as all the compartments seemed to be packed. They were about to give up on finding a seat when someone called out in a cheerful voice "Rose!".
The two siblings turned around to see a smiling girl practically hanging out of one of the compartments not far behind them. She had pale skin and long hair as white as clouds on a sunny day that ended in a calming yet happy shade of green, tied up into a high ponytail. Her eyes were even an unusual light purple colour. This young girl is Madalyn Décalage, a Metamorphmagus in Slytherin, and a close friend of Rose's cousin, Albus.
Madalyn looked around "Are you guys struggling to find seats?" she asked getting a nod from both siblings "well come on then" she said gesturing back into the compartment she had emerged from.
Not having another choice, the two of them followed the young Metamorphmagus.
Reaching the compartment, Rose saw two other Slytherin students and a Hufflepuff were also sitting with Madalyn.
The first one was one she instantly recognised as her cousin Albus. While the two of them were always close as kids, ever since the two of them started their first year at Hogwarts and were sorted into different houses, they've grown a little distant. It wasn't because of her being a Gryffindor and him a Slytherin, but rather just being unable to make time with each other, when one of them had free time, the other was busy.
The other Slytherin with them is Nickola J-Ridge, well known at school for adding puns into almost everything she said when the situation was appropriate. She has bright green eyes, dark brown hair tied back into a braid that reached her mid back, and dark skin that made her eyes stand out even more. Rose didn't know her personally, but she knew that she and Madalyn were the closest of friends and one was almost never seen without the other.
The Hufflepuff was a boy by the name of Quinton Hailstorm. A tall boy with tanned skin and shaggy brown, almost blonde, hair. Quinton is a muggle born who Rose almost never sees without a smile. Despite him being a few months younger than Rose, she often found him acting like an older brother to her. Not only her but a lot of other students, regardless of their house. A lot of the older students tried to mock him last year by calling him the first years' guardian. However; Quinton being Quinton, he took pride in the teasing name and kept helping whomever needed it. The teachers even took notice and ended up giving him so many points that Hufflepuff won the house cup by a landslide.
The two Weasley siblings came into the carriage and sat down, Rose petting her cat after getting comfortable.
Nickola smiled at Rose "I saw you two running, what made you so late?" she asked, resting her elbow on the window seal as the scenery passed by outside.
Rose looked down to her cat and scratched its fur with a slight chuckle before looking back at Nickola "We were halfway through the station when Misfit here ran off, she saw a group of children and, of course, she wanted them to pet her… Hugo and I chased her for a while and when we finally caught her we were really late" she said as she saw Albus smile.
"Not as bad as Christmas last year when she sat in the middle of the mash potatoes" he said as he, Rose and Hugo laughed a little at the memory.
Rose smiled down at the purring cat in her lap "Yes, I have quite the needy cat" she said before Madalyn started scratching behind Misfit's ear.
Silence fell over the group for a short period before Hugo spoke up.
"So umm… is it true that there's a giant squid in the lake next to the school? Or were James and Fred playing a prank on me?" he asked, sounding a little scared as the two older boys also told him that he'll be traveling across that same lake in a small boat when he arrived at Hogwarts.
"Yes, but it's harmless, on hot day's it even comes up to the shallow areas to sunbathe" Quinton explained as there have been more than one occasion where he would pet the squid when it got close enough to the shore.
"Are you sure? What if I fall in?" he asked, still not convinced that it won't try to eat him or something.
"Don't worry, in our first year a boy fell in and the squid actually put him back into the boat" Nickola explained.
"Are you sure? I heard he was pushed in" Madalyn said, changing the subject a little.
Nickola shrugged "I was told he fell in, his boat was in the back so I didn't anything before he was in the water" she said simply.
"He was pushed, I was in the boat next to him" Rose said as Albus and Quinton nodded as both boys were in her boat.
Quinton put a finger on his chin and looked up slightly "Actually now that I think about it, Scorpius went through a lot of bullying in first year" he said as Albus looked down a little.
"Oh yea, he was… there were a lot more than one occasion where he would walk out of his dorm drenched with water or his clothes were missing" Madalyn said a little sad.
Nickola nodded "There was also the time where Leo and his lackey's enchanted paper birds to follow him around for three days, they'd attack him every time he tried to talk" she said as she too grew saddened by the memory.
"That's not even the worst thing they did, after they found out his mother was hospitalised, they stole a picture he had of him and his mother and played keep away through the halls before beating him up" Albus said almost darkly.
Rose looked down as she remembers that morning as the first time she ever talked to Scorpius.
Rose was walking to breakfast when she heard laughter and the sounds of footsteps coming from a nearby corridor. Rose looked around a corner and saw three Slytherin boys throwing something between one another, as a fourth boy tried to get whatever it was that they were throwing.
Not knowing what to do in that situation, she hid around the corner and watched. They eventually flung the object across the ground, stopping not far from where Rose was hiding, breaking it in the process.
When the boy tried to run after it, the other three boys proceeded to beat him up.
She knows she would have never stood a chance against the three of them, but Rose still regrets hiding from them instead of helping.
When they finished, Rose picked up the object. It was an expensive looking photo frame with a picture of the boy and who she guessed was his mother. They looked so happy.
She rushed over to the boy and sat him up against the wall "This is what you wanted right?" she asked as she handed the picture to him "I'm afraid the frame is broken… but the photo is still okay" she said with a nervous smile.
The boy looked down at the photo and quietly thanked her as Rose could have sworn she saw a tear stream down his face before he got up "Thank you for this, but I suggest you avoid interacting with me… I don't want them to start targeting you for talking to me" he said before limping away.
Quinton hummed "But that was all first year, right? Haven't they stopped?" he asked.
Albus shrugged "As far as I know they haven't done anything, but that's more because Scorpius doesn't react to it anymore, they got bored with it I suppose" he said.
Of course there's more to it than that. Albus had gotten sick of their behavious and didn't want to stand by, so he went to the Scamander Twins. Lorcan and Lysander Scamander are well known for having ways of gathering interesting information on almost everyone in the school. Albus managed to get some information on each of the boys who were tormenting Scorpius and threatened to tell their parents what he knew. Needless to say, the bullying stopped after that, but now they just treat Scorpius like he's not even there.
"Who's Scorpius?" Hugo asked confused.
All five third years looked to Hugo, having forgotten he was even there "He's the Malfoy boy dad keeps telling me to beat intellectually" Rose said blankly as Hugo nodded, knowing immediately who they were talking about now.
Several hours of Hugo drilling the five older kids about Hogwarts later, they eventually reached the very place Hugo didn't stop talking about.
As all the students spilled out onto the platform, Rose, Hugo and Albus were welcomed by the familiar old voice of Hagrid, the gamekeeper at Hogwarts and a close family-friend of theirs, yelling out so all the first years could find him.
"Well if it isn't Hugo" Hagrid said as the first years gathered around him "I can't believe you're already starting your first year, time sure flies, don't it?" he said with a chuckle.
Rose put a hand on Hugo's shoulder "Follow Hagrid and do as he says, I'll see you later" she said before she and the other four third years walked off to the carriages.
"Boy, your brother sure loves to talk" Nickola said with a slight laugh.
Rose laughed along with her "Yea, he usually does that when he's nervous… dads been telling him constantly this past week about how great Gryffindor is and how he should try to get into Gryffindor" she said a little dramatically.
Suddenly, Rose felt something hook behind her neck and push her forwards, almost causing her to fall over before the very thing that pushed her also kept her upright.
"Where were you?" Danielle asked as she steadied Rose's stance and unhooked her arm from the red head's neck.
"Sorry, I kind of stole her" Madalyn said as Nikola was busy laughing at the shocked expression Rose had on her face at Danielle's sudden hug.
Danielle smiled "Oh really? Sucks for you then 'cause dad was riding with us and bought heaps of sweets from the trolley" she said as Rose made a slightly saddened look.
"Really?" Rose asked.
Tyson appeared behind them "No, she's lying, dad took our flying car here, we were with your cousins James and Fred and their friends Damien and Keely" he said as Danielle grumbled.
"Tyson, you're no fun" Danielle said jokingly as the group of third years all piled onto one of the carriages.