The Next Golden Trio

by I Swear I'm Not A Werewolf

This is a continuation of the next generation in the Harry Potter universe. Read along as we follow Rose Weasley, Albus Potter, and Scorpius Malfoy through their first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Come along through platform 9 3/4, the Hogwarts Express, and the Sorting and find out how in the world a Potter and a Weasley get along with a Malfoy.

1. Chapter 1

The Next Golden Trio.

By Kaitlyn Merli

Chapter 1.

The trip between 9 and 10.

It had been long awaited, she had dreamed about it, fantasized, and now it was here. Tomorrow, she and her cousin would be joining her other cousin at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Yes, she was a witch. Along with all the rest of her family who were all witches and wizards.

"But are you afraid Rose?" Asked her cousin she was talking to late one night through a hand mirror that her Uncle Harry had given her and Albus as a Christmas present.

"No I'm not." She replied. Which was true, but also surprising, she had thought that she'd be terrified when the day arrived but she wasn't.

"Not even a bit nervous?" He asked.

"No I'm not, I thought I would be but I'm only exited." She said truthfully. "Are you?"

There was no reply and Rose couldn't see his face because of the lack of light but she knew what he was thinking, she was really always able to.

"Al, you need to stop worrying about the sorting."

"But what if I'm put in Slytherin?" He asked desperately.

"So what? You need to be placed wherever you'd do best."

"But if they but me in Slytherin that would mean that I'd do best being evil?"

"Al you're being ridiculous, not all Slytherins are bad you know, you're named after one." She replied.

"Rose you need to help me." He said.

"How can I help?" She asked. "Everything the sorting hat will judge is all in your head, I can't change whats in your head." There was another pause. "Al, no matter what happens I'll be right by your side. Even if you are in Slytherin, I know you, and I know you're not bad, you're not a bad person Al." She finished. Still more silence. "Have you talked yo your dad about it?"

"No." He said.

"Are you going to?" She asked.

"I'm thinking about doing it tomorrow."

"I don't know why you're so worried about asking him," Said Rose. "He is your dad."

"I don't want him to think that I am weak." He replied rather quickly.

"Al," said Rose quietly. "He's your dad, he's not going to think you where weak. And being afraid doesn't make you weak either. Besides your parents are suppose to mentor you to help you through these things not judge you for them." She finished.

"Thanks Rose." He said, but she could tell that what she had said hadn't done much to calm him down. She sighed.

"Alright Al, you should go to sleep, and I mean actually go to sleep don't lie awake in bed all hours of the night thinking. You'll fall asleep on the Hogwarts express and I won't have anyone to talk to."

"You'll have James." Said Albus.

"James?" She laughed. "What a great conversationalist he is, doing all the talking more like, won't let me get a word in."

Al laughed, "That's what he says about you. goodnight Rosie." And the hand mirror went blank, not like you could see much through it anyway.

Rose laid down her matted red haired head onto her pillow and fell almost instantly to sleep. Until she awoke with a start later in the night. She looked at her digital watch that her grandfather had given her and saw that she had been asleep for three minuets. She laid back on her pillow in exasperation. Then she sat bolt upright and remembered what she had forgotten to pack.

"My travel bag!" She whispered. And she swung the covers off and light her bedside candle. "Lets see.'"

She always packed a travel bag of random stuff to keep her occupied in case she got bored on a trip. She had forgotten it one time and had to travel all the way to Wales in a muggle (non-magic folk) car with nothing to do but listen to James talk and pick on his little brother Albus. She searched the room. She took a sketch book and a few pens from under her desk and placed in into a satchel, she took a book of short stories, a bouncy orb that changed glowing colors to play with when it gets dark, a sneakoscope, a small flying model broomstick (she loved quidditch, a wizard sport played on broomsticks.) she also packed a book called 'Quidditch Through the Ages', and one called 'Flying With the Cannons' that her dad had given her but she had never read. She stepped back looking around the room to make sure she hadn't missed anything, and got back into bed. It was a long while before she had fallen asleep again she could hardly suppress her excitement. It was something like trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve.

She awoke the next morning to her mothers voice. Hermione had poked her head inside and was calling her in a frantic whisper.

"Rose? Oh Rose wake up we only have two hours till we have to leave, come on down stairs after you get dressed sweetheart."

It was just like her mom to wake her up two hours before, it was like her dad to wake her up two minuets after because he slept in too.

Rose stepped out of bed clumsily and almost tripped. She took her Hogwarts robes from the end of her bed post and pulled on her socks, skirt, white shirt, gray vest, black tie, and black robe. She took a small Hogwarts pin from her bedside drawer, and pinned it to her tie. She knew that she would get looks heading to platform 9¾ but she was to exited to wait. She stood in front of her mirror and gave a quick twirl in her robes. She loved it. It would look better when she had the Gryffindor crest on the black robe. She had a sudden jolt of excitement looking at her uniform that she did a silly little jig in front of the mirror, stood back up strait took a deep breath and hurried down stairs.

She got the bottom and had to run back up because she had forgotten her shoes and travel case. She had brought her Hogwarts trunk downstairs the previous night. She found her father sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee with more cream and sugar in it than actual coffee. She sat next to him and her mom set a plate with an omelet in front of her. It smelled good, she could remember when she was younger and her mom was a dreadful cook so her father had to do most of it though he wasn't to great either.

"So Rosie," said her dad. "You gonna try out for the Gryffindor quidditch team this year?"

"Of course I'm gonna try-"

"Swallow Rose." Reminded her mom.

She swallowed. "Yeah I'm gonna try out, but I'm kind of nervous about it." she confessed.

"Why are you nervous?" He asked. "Not enough practice? Tell you what, I'll finish this," he raised the Daily Prophet he had been reading. "-and we'll can go outside and practice."

"Ron." Said his wife suddenly, "It rained last night, its all muddy and she's in her new uniform." Ron looked back at his daughter.

"Hold on." Rose said and she ran back upstairs. She stormed into her room and ripped off her shoes, socks and cloak, and slipped a pair of overly large rain boots over her bare feet and ran back down stairs.

"How's this?" She asked and she gave a twirl in front of her dad. He looked at her boots and skirt, and laughed. Hermione was looking at her white blouse.

"Alright, come on." He said and put a piece of toast in his mouth and walked outside with his daughter. Rose could hear her mom give a half amused half exasperated snort.

They walked out to the greenhouse and she grabbed her Nimbus 2001, it was a pretty old model but she saw no reason to ask for a new one, it still worked fine. Her father grabbed his old Firebolt and they walked to the backyard.

"So what position do you want to play?" He asked.

"Beater!" She replied.

"Are you sure you don't want to be keeper, that's a good one." He suggested.

"Nah, I wanna be a beater." She said.

"Alright well I don't think that we should get the bludgers out today, I don't want you taking a chance of going to your first day of school with a broken nose. How bout chaser?" He suggested.

"Yeah that's fine." She replied. "But we're gonna need to get Hugo to be keeper."

and in about another ten minuets she had pulled her little brother away from his omelet and got him to hoover in front of one single goal post that her dad had mounted. And her mom took to watching them with a cup of tea from the balcony.

It was a good morning, her and her dad passed the quaffle back and fourth, and into the goal half the time, the other half Hugo would block it, he had become very good, specially with him being so small. Again and again they passed, they scored, they missed, they laughed for what felt like almost an hour. Until they saw yellow fireworks from above and looked to the balcony where her mom was shouting,

"Fifteen minuets!" Frantically. They all sped to the ground and ran inside they house splattering mud all over their own legs. It had been over an hour and a half?

"Scourgify, scourgify, scourgify." Her mother said pointing her wand at each of their legs as they all trooped into the house. Every last drop of mud vanished from her legs. She ran back into her room pulled on her socks, shoes, and robe and ran back downstairs. Her mom tied Rose's hair into knot on the back of her head. Her dad used a hoovering charm to get her trunk into the car. Her father jumped into the drivers seat, made sure they they were all accounted for, started the engine, and took off. Her dad was doing surprisingly good at driving. The only thing that struck her as odd, was how every time a muggle traffic light turned red, it would change instantly back to green as soon as the car got there. After the fourth time this happened Rose had finally noticed her fathers wand tapping his leg in his hand. Rose smiled and sat back.

They pulled up to the train station, lifted her trunk onto a trolley and wheeled it into the station.

"Oh Ron, we're going to be late." Her mom was saying.

Until finally they were facing platform nine and ten. Her mom and Hugo ran strait at the brick divider between the two numbers and vanished rather than colliding to the ground. Her and her father did the same right after. They stopped next to her mom and Hugo and noticed that her mom looked confused, which was very rare. Rose looked ahead and saw the scarlet steam engine puffing smoke. She smiled, so they weren't too late. But then she frowned to notice that they were the very few people there. Rose looked down at her watch and her eyes widened. She tapped her dad and showed him her watch. He looked at his own as well too and rolled his eyes.

"Hermione dear," He said. "We're here 42 minuets early."

"What!" She said, "But that's impossible. I made sure." And she looked at her watch. Ron put his own under her nose.

"What?" She said, "But... oh." Rose let out a strangled laugh.

So they took to walking across the platform to drop off Rose's trunk and see if there was anybody they knew to talk to.

"Harry and Ginny won't be here for another half hour." Said her dad. "But we may see... oh no." He suddenly stopped.

"Ronald!" She heard someone say and immediately recognized the pompous tone of her Uncle Percy. "Oh no." She said as well. She didn't dislike him, but he did bore her and Hugo and all her other cousins to sleep at family gatherings. Last Christmas he had sent both her and Hugo one thick book titled, '202 of the Most Respected International Confederation Wizards in History' her mom was the only one who had read it.

"How wonderful to see all of you." Percy was saying. His daughters Molly and Lucy were there too.

"I'll help you with that." Said Molly looking at Rose's trunk, she was starting her fourth year at Hogwarts. Lucy was to young to attend as well as Hugo, but followed him as he followed Rose.

"How long have you been here?" She asked.

"Just got here." Molly answered.

"How's your dad?"

"Still thinks he's interesting us," Molly was saying. "So we're still nodding and smiling. Its just how he is."

"But how are you?" Lucy asked. "It is your first year."

"I'm ecstatic!" She replied. "Honestly, I'm not nervous at all."

"Good," Said Molly lazily. "You don't have any reason to be nervous, the classes are work of course but everyone that has gone is always excited to go back which obviously means we like it there. Not worried about the sorting?"

"No," She replied. "I know I'll be in Gryffindor."

"Yeah that's what I said." Said Molly. "and look where I am, Ravenclaw. But yeah you'll probably be in Gryffindor, most red heads are, mind you though most red heads are Weasley's."

Both Rose and Molly drug her trunk down the train corridor. It was a lovely train even despite the years. Rose finally chose a back compartment and they together hoisted the trunk in the loft above the seats.

"Al isn't so confident though." Said Rose.

"What do you mean?" Asked Molly, Hugo and Lucy were still on the platform having an animated conversation about a muggle baseball cap that he had brought.

"Al has this silly idea that he'll be in Slytherin."

"Its not very silly." Said Molly.

"Well I know its not 'haha' funny, I just meant that he thinks he will be." said Rose.

"Yeah well if it was any of us I kinda thought him."

"What?" Asked Rose. "Al? He doesn't look Slytherin."

"Well he doesn't really look Gryffindor either does he?" Rose didn't answer.

Molly continued, "He's smart but not Ravenclaw material, he might be in Hufflepuff, he's timid enough. But nobody really wants to be in Hufflepuff."

"I think he's brilliant." Rose said stubbornly.

"So are Slytherins." Said Molly pompously, she had inherited that from her father. "Anyway, see you on the train." she said and she walked back to Lucy.

Who did she think she was putting a stamp on Al's head before he's even sorted , that's just wrong, specially the stamp being a Slytherin one. Than she felt a guilty tug at her stomach. She had been trying to convince Al that Slytherin was no worse than any of the other houses but yet here she was angry at someone who had verbally sorted him into Slytherin. She wouldn't have been as upset is Molly said that she could see him in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff. And wasn't the word Gryffindor stamped on her head by everyone else in the family?

When she looked back up, she saw that the platform was much fuller than it had been. "Fred!" She cried seeing her other cousin and ran up to him. Her Uncle George (who had red hair) and Aunt Angelina (a pretty black girl) had two kids, Fred, who was in fifth year, and Roxanne, who was in her third. She ran up and gave Fred a hug. He had been like her big brother but teased her a lot, he acted a lot like his father when he was in school. Both Fred and Roxanne looked more like their mom.

"Just saw Percy." He said. "He was talking about our transportation here, just got away."

"Where's Roxie?" She asked.

"Still stuck." He smiled. "Ah George, my dear brother," Fred impersonated Percy, buttoning the top collar of his muggle shirt pompously (he hadn't yet changed into his Hogwarts one's.) "Oh how delighted you must be to see me, what a great honor this it for you, to be talking to the Head of Magical Transportation, sorry- no pictures. You may kiss my shoe though," He held out his foot. "George has to do it, sorry Angelina but you'll get lipstick on it, they've just been polished."

Rose laughed. "You should probably save Roxanne now though." She said. And Fred walked back toward Percy and vanished into the steam that the engine was producing. Just as he left she saw her parents emerging from the mist. Her mom had an expression of mild relief, her dad just looked furious.

"That git won't shut up." He said as they got nearer.

"Ron, don't say stuff like that in front of the kids." Said his wife.

"Oh calm down Hermione." He said. "They know Percy's a boring git, don't you Rosie." But she didn't have to answer.

"I hear James!" Said Hugo excitedly. "Isn't that them mom?" He asked.

"I can't tell."

"I hear Al!" said Rose.

"I think that's them Al," Said a detached voice that belonged to a woman.

"Yup," Said her dad. "That's Ginny." And five figures appeared from the mist coming more and more into focus. Al walked right up to her and smiled a smile of relief. She beamed back. "You alright?" She asked.

"Still nervous." He replied.

"But you have talked to your dad about it?" She asked.

"No." He replied.

"Well than you better get to it than. Lily!" She walked to Al's little sister, she had red hair and a tear streaked face, she wasn't yet old enough to go to Hogwarts. "Lily why are you crying?"

"I want to go." Lily replied through hiccups. "Hugo!" Lily suddenly exclaimed and ran up to him.

Lily and Hugo began to talk about Hogwarts and what house they'll be in when they one day go. Her dad stopped to listed.

"I like Ravenclaw, but Uncle Harry says that you have to answer a riddle to get in the common room and I don't want that." Hugo was saying to Lily. "You could be in Hufflepuff, I think you're pretty nice."

"If you're not in Gryffindor, We'll disinherit you." Said her dad suddenly. "but no pressure."

"Ron!" said her mom. Hugo and Lily laughed but Albus was looking solemn, Rose caught his eye and felt awkward too. Her mom and Aunt Ginny must have noticed because they said,

"He doesn't mean it."

Rose put a hand on Al's shoulder.

"Look who it is." Said her dad and she looked up but didn't see who he was talking about. "So that's little Scorpius." He said under his breath. She caught sight of him. Around fifty yards away was a tall blonde man with a black coat buttoned to his chin and a pretty brunette woman hugging a boy her age. The boy was tall with white blonde hair that was slick and greatly resembled the man. Those were the Malfoys. Her dad had told what felt like hundreds of stories where the man, Draco, would bully and try to get her parents expelled. From what she had heard, the Malfoy family were an evil pureblood family who were all sorted into Slytherin. And apparently the Malfoys were death eaters back in the first and second Wizarding War.

"Make sure you beat him at every test, Rosie. Thank God you inherited your mother's brains."

"Ron for heaven's sake," Said her mom, half stern, half amused. "Don't try to turn them against each other before they've even started school!"

"You're right, sorry." He said, but added. "Don't get too friendly with him, though, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you married a pureblood."

"Hey!" She heard James running up in excitement. "Teddy's back there!" He said breathlessly, pointing behind him. Teddy was Uncle Harry's Godson, which would mean he was their cousin. "Just seen him!" James continued. "And guess what he's doing? Snogging Victoire!" He stopped like he thought know one had heard him properly.

"Our Teddy!" He tried again, "Teddy Lupin! Snogging our Victoire! Our cousin! And I asked Teddy what he was doing-"

"You interrupted them?" Asked Aunt Ginny in disbelief. "You are so like Ron-"

"-And he said he'd come to see her off! And then he told me to go away. He's snogging her!" He added desperately. He evidently thought that this was the biggest news of the century. Rose had known about Teddy and Victoire for some time now.

"Oh, it would be lovely if they got married." Said Lily ecstatically. "Teddy would really be part of the family then."

"He already comes to dinner about four times a week," Said Harry. "Why don't we just invite him to live with us and have done with it?"

"Yeah!" Said James, he obviously didn't realize that Harry was joking. "I don't mind sharing with Al- Teddy can have my room!"

"No," Said Harry firmly, "you and Al will share a room when I want the house demolished." He checked his watch. "Its almost eleven, you'd better get on bored."

"Don't forget to give Neville our love." Said Ginny to James.

"Go ask him, ask him now." Rose said to Al, gesturing to Harry.

"He's busy." Said Al. Harry wasn't doing anything. "He's... he's listening to mom."

James swung his leg at Al, but Al kicked it away.

"See you later, Al. Watch out for the thestrals."

"I thought they were invisible," Said Al frantically, "You said they were invisible."

"Tell him." Said Rose in Albus' ear, "I'll be on the train." She walked to her parents who both kissed her. She hugged Hugo and he handed her his baseball cap, she smiled and rubbed his hair. They all bid each other farewell and Rose stepped up onto the scarlet steam engine.

Chapter 2.

A Long Awaited Ride.

Scorpius Malfoy had gotten onto the train before most of the other kids did. It was his first year and he already had the Malfoy reputation stamped on his head. And their reputation wasn't a very good one. All of his ancestors where in Slytherin and most were found on the wrong side of the war when it ended, twice. It made no difference that many members of his family had changed their ways, or had even given a formal apology. Harder for him was the fact that he looked so much like a Malfoy with his blonde hair and pale skin and blue, almost gray eyes, and even his pointed features, though they weren't as pronounced as his fathers.

He was struggling to get his trunk onto the top rack above his seat in the compartment. He would be able to get it above his head but not quite high enough to get it to the top rack. It was when he dropped his trunk with a loud crash that someone appeared at the doorway,

"Need help?" A boy asked. Scorpius looked up, the boy was a third year with sandy brown hair and was already wearing his robes that had a Gryffindor crest embroidered on them. "Yeah that'd be great." Scorpius replied. And with the boys help they were able to lift the trunk onto the rack with ease.

"Thanks." He said holding out his hand. "My names Scorpius."

The boy faltered when reaching for his hand. He looked into Scorpius' face for the first time and apparently recognized him as a Malfoy because he grabbed Scorpius' hand quickly and grunted "Finnigan." and walked out without another word.

Scorpius sat down, kinda bummed out. He looked at his reflection in the window. His dad had a picture of himself on his first day of school, and Scorpius looked almost exactly like it next to his features being a bit softer. Scorpius, still looking at his reflection, ruffled his perfectly slick hair until it was just hanging in his face, he ran his fingers through it and combed it upward. That helped a little , he didn't look as much like an exact replica.

He sat back in his chair and looked up. He had just noticed that there was another trunk in the rack opposite him. "Seriously?" he thought. "I was the first to get her and have picked the only compartment where somebody else had already chosen?" He thought about moving but than he'd have to take his trunk down and put it somewhere else. Nah, he'd just have to sit back and hope that whoever owned the trunk wasn't annoying, or whiny, or angry, or just stupid, he didn't get along with stupid people. Not a minuet later a pretty girl with red hair and freckles walked in.

When she caught sight of him, she looked suddenly uncomfortable and make the slightest gesture as if she were to head back out the door but seemed to change her mind because she sat down opposite.

"Oh," She said, "Sorry, I didn't know anyone else was in here."

"Well technically you were here first," he gestured toward her trunk, "so I'm sorry."

"No need." she said. "I'm Rose by the way, Rose Weasley." she stretched out a hand with a small smile.

"I'm Scorpius," he replied taking it.

"Malfoy right?" she asked.

"Yeah." he replied.

"Its only, my dad pointed you guys out on the platform." she said, every word that was spoken seemed to relax her a bit.

"Yeah," said Scorpius. "I saw your dad point us out on the platform."

"Oh," said Rose, "Sorry."

"Nah I'm used to it." he sighed. Al poked his head in the compartment,

"Oh there you are Rose." he said. "I was looking for you, here, give me a hand with my trunk." Al drug his trunk into the compartment. Rose stood up and they both heaved the trunk up and were trying to get it on the top rack.

"So I asked dad and he told me that I can ask the sorting hat." said Al heavily.

"Yeah?" Rose asked. "will you?"

"I-" Al started, but the trunk slipped from their fingers and started to fall behind them. Scorpius, who had stood up behind them just in case this happened, caught it. And together they heaved the heavy trunk onto the rack.

"Thanks." said Al. "I'm Albus." he said. Scorpius shook his hand.

"I'm Scorpius. Are you named after Dumbledore?"

"Yea, how'd you know?" asked Al.

"He's the only Albus I've ever heard of." Scorpius replied.

Rose and Albus looked outside the open window to get one last look at their parents. They noticed that many other heads where looking at her and Al's parents too.

"Why are they all starring?" Al asked.

"Don't let it worry you," Ron said from the platform. "Its me. I'm extremely famous." They laughed and waved to their families, and the train jerked suddenly and steamed away.

They both sat back down.

"So do you think you can choose any house that you want?" Rose asked.

"Yeah!" Al replied. "dad said that he asked the hat and it put him in Gryffindor!"

"I don't know Al." she said, "Neville told me that the hat was on his head for almost five minuets because he was arguing with the hat to be in Hufflepuff, but it still put him in Gryffindor." she finished. Al looked less confident. Rose wished she hadn't said anything.

"Where are you two going if you've got a choice?" Scorpius asked suddenly.

"Gryffindor." they said together.

"Well probably Gryffindor." said Rose. "Most of my family is, its kinda a family tradition."

"I want to be in Gryffindor." said Al. "Or Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff, just not Slytherin." Rose gave Scorpius an awkward side ways glance, knowing that all Malfoys were Slytherins. She expected him to lash back but instead he just nodded.

"I like Ravenclaw," he said. "but I'll most likely be in Slytherin, and that's fine too." Al goggled at him. "I really just want to go wherever I'll do best. And if I don't try to meddle, the sorting hat will put me there, and wherever I'm put, I'll do well, so I'm not worried." he finished.

There was a moment of silence that followed his words. "Hmm." Al muttered to himself. Rose looked around, she hated silences. "Are you trying out for the quidditch team at Hogwarts?" she asked.

"Yeah," Scorpius replied. "Seeker, that was the position my dad played."

"I want to be a beater!" Rose said excitedly. "My dad was a keeper in his school years, but he always said I had a good arm."

"I never really thought that girls should play quidditch." he said in an off hand. He looked up to see Al shaking his head with wide eyes in a warning. Rose glared at him mutinously. "Not that I think they're no good," he corrected quickly, "It's just, my mom always taught me that boys were suppose to be gentlemen, and girls were trained to be ladies, and the ladies I grew up with wouldn't even go outside barefoot that's all." Rose dropped her glare a bit. Scorpius cleared his throat and said, "What about you Al?"

"Nope," he said, "I like quidditch but I've never been a very good flier, I prefer to watch anyway. Besides, James is trying out this year and it wouldn't be likely for Rose, James, and me to all make it. And if I were to try out, I wouldn't do it in my first year. First years don't make the house teams very often, a lot more than they used to but still, not often." Al said.

"Well I'm gonna try this year, and if I don't make it I'll try next year, and if I don't make that, I'll try the following year and so on. I'm gonna be on the house team!" Rose said determined, she had a mad glint in her eye. Scorpius smiled.

"Do you have a favorite team?" Al asked.

"The Chudley Cannons probably." said Scorpius.

"That's my dads favorite team!" Rose exclaimed. "He gave me the book, have you read it?"

"No," he said, "You mean 'Flying With the Cannons'? I've been meaning to read it." Rose stood up and reached above her seat and retrieved her travel bag. From inside of it she pulled out her 'Flying With the Cannons' book and handed it to Scorpius. He examined the cover.

"My dad gave me that book but I haven't read it." Rose admitted.

"Are you letting me read it?" he asked peering up past the book.

"Well I didn't just hand it to you to look at did I?" she asked.

Scorpius reached into his robe pocket, pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on. He reached for the window and stopped, "You don't mind if I close this do you?" Rose and Al shook their heads and Scorpius pulled the window blinds and turned in his seat so that his back was facing the window, "Sorry," he said, "I get motion sickness if I read next to a window." And he opened the book which cracked at the spine. He looked at Rose, "You haven't even opened it?"

"No. Are you gonna read that now?" she asked.

"Might as well." he replied. Rose looked at Scorpius as he read. She had expected a Malfoy to be ignorant or impertinent based on everything that her father had told her about them. But he seemed perfectly respectful, or better yet respectable. He had an air of class. She shrugged and took out the cap that Hugo gave her. She undid the bun on her head and put it on so the bill was over her eyebrow.

"How do muggles see in these things?" She said with her chin raised so that she could see Al's face.

"No, you have to adjust it." said Al. He reached over and and lifted the bill so she could see. "Dad wears them all the time." He said. He reached through the back of the hat and pulled her hair through it. "That's what mom does when she wears them." he said. They were talking about different things muggles use to keep the sun from their eyes for a while. "Hugo loves muggle stuff," said Rose. "As you know. He never stops asking mom questions about it." Al looked at Scorpius who let out a short laugh.

"What so funny?" he asked.

"Its just something in the book." he answered. Al continued to look at him.

Scorpius cleared his throat and read,

"In 1922 Luki Matlock of Matchbox, who was voted the worst seeker of the 20th Century in the Wizard Sports paper, 'The Weekend Worlock' had, on November 12, took a ferocious dive into a buzzing crowd, during their tournament against the Chudley Cannons. In a later interview he confessed that had thought he'd seen the golden snitch which ended up being a decorative snitch atop an elderly witches hat. The dive resulted in Matchbox's forfeit and loss of the match, including injures to both Matlock and the witch. The elderly witch sued Matlock for the injury and in turn he tried to sue her for tricking him with the decorative hat piece."

He finished reading. Rose laughed. "I heard about that." Said Al. "It was a bad crash dad told me." he continued seriously. Rose and Scorpius stopped smiling. He didn't notice.

"He ended up slipping off the end of his broomstick, the dive was to steep. He fell some fifty feet. The broom ended up hitting a young girl in the eye. She ended up having to go to st. Mungo's for treatment." He finished and looked up. Both of them looked guilty for thinking it was funny.

"Sorry," Al said apologetically seeing their faces. "I have a habit of doing that."

"Yeah he does." said a voice from the compartment door. It was James, he walked inside. "Every year on my birthday, Al here tells me I'm a year closer to death. Its bloody depressing." He said.

"This is my brother." said Al.

James turned to see the boy who he had just been introduced to and his face dropped into a frown.

"You're a Malfoy." He said suddenly. Nobody said anything. James looked at Al and Rose. "Why," he asked, "-are you sharing a compartment with a Malfoy?"

"What's wrong with them sharing a compartment with me?" asked Scorpius, his voice becoming very slightly icy.

"You're a Malfoy." James said again. "Malfoys and Potter's don't commune."

"Shut up James." Al said quietly.

"You're a Potter?" Scorpius asked looking at Rose and Al.

"I am." Al replied. Scorpius just looked at him.

"Rose, Al, you don't have to stay in here," said James. "You can join me in my compartment, you don't have to stay with this filth."

"We want to stay." Said Rose coldly, becoming more and more angry with James.

"Al?" he asked in disbelief.

"I'm staying." Al replied. James looked at them.

"What is wrong with you guys?" he asked. "Do you not understand what this is?" he pointed at Scorpius.

"James!" Rose shouted. "Did you just call him an 'this'? You can just shut up! We're no-"

"Have I done anything to provoke you?" Scorpius interrupted. He said this calmly, but his knuckles were turning white around the book.

"You're a Slytherin!" James shouted.

"I haven't even been sorted yet!" Scorpius shouted defensively back.

"I know what you are," Said James, "-and what you're going to become. Your whole family was in Slytherin, and there isn't one who came out 'good'."

"My dad did." Scorpius said. James let out a fake laugh.

"That ferret? He was a filthy little scumbag." Scorpius stood up suddenly, enraged.

"My father is a good man!" He yelled. "I will not hear a word against him!"

"You'll be in Slytherin." James continued poisonously. "And you will turn out like all the rest of them, sick, and twisted."

Al looked horrified.

"I'll prove you wrong Potter." Said Scorpius in a voice trembling with anger. They stood there for a moment, James and Scorpius, glaring furiously at each other.

"I think you should go James." Said Al in a angry whisper. James looked at Al for a moment looking betrayed, then tore from the compartment in anger.

Scorpius stood for a moment longer, then sat back down and put his nose in 'Flying With the Cannons' again, rather aggressively. Rose nor Al said anything. They watched Scorpius with bated breath. He acted like he was reading, but Rose noticed that his eyes weren't scanning the page. After a moment of silence her and Al turned back to each other in search for a topic. 'SLAM' Scorpius shut the book abruptly.

"You know what I hate?" he asked. Nobody answered.

"Presumption." he said. "Everyone thinks that I'll be like my parents, or grandparents. Like you," he pointed to Rose, "I know you're a Weasley, but I don't expect you to be just like Hermione or Ron, you're your own person. I am my own person!" he spoke as if he was trying to convince them.

"We know." said Al.

"Why does everyone pre-assume?" Scorpius continued.

"We didn't pre-" Rose started, but he cut across her.

"Yes you did don't even act like you didn't." he said impatiently. "You don't think I saw you try to leave when you saw me? I've gotten that same look to many times for me to count, I got one just before you entered the compartment. I am a Malfoy. I look like a Malfoy, and there's nothing that I can do about that. Yes, I will probably be in Slytherin, and I will be the best one in history." He had a kind of mad glint in his eye.

"I understand." said Al.

"No you don't." Scorpius replied looking at him. "Your parents were brilliant, you're the prodigy of the famous Harry Potter, no one expects anything bad from you."

"There are two sides to presumption Scorpius." said Al hotly. "My parents were brilliant. So naturally everyone will expect brilliance from me as well." There was a silence. "My dad killed Voldemort, and was an excellent quidditch player. You wanna know why I'm not joining the Gryffindor team? My granddad was an talented quidditch player, along with my dad, and my brother, and uncle. And my mom played for the Holyhead Harpies and now writes about quidditch. Everybody will expect me to do the same. Nobody will see me as Albus Potter, they'll see me as Harry Potter's son." he finished...

"Same." Rose spoke up. "My mom was brilliant, very smart. People called her the brightest witch of the age, top of every class, there wasn't an question that she didn't answer. Both our parents were on chocolate frog cards." She gestured toward herself and Al. "You may have a lot to redeem, we have a lot to live up to, if we don't, people will be disappointed."

Scorpius was thinking, then he smiled. "Why are we so worried?" He said finally. "Why don't we just let everyone think what they want? Why don't we just surprise them however we turn out. Why should we give a crap?"

Their attitude changed dramatically after that. Their conversations became more enjoyable. They talked about quidditch and food, the classes they're most excited about. The conversation didn't roll over the sorting. They were all nervous about it, it was obvious, but none of them wanted to force the others to talk.

After a little while the food cart visited their compartment. With the money between them, they ended up being able to get at least one of each item. They only got one packet of the cockroach cluster, chocolate covered crickets, Bertie Botts every flavor beans, and yogurt dipped leaches, which were all bought by Al who insisted on trying everything. Scorpius, who was paying, thanked the elderly witch who smiled and walked on. He turned to go back when he heard a, 'Thump'. He turned to see that a girl had fallen hard in the corridor. He started toward her when someone else reached out of a compartment and pulled her in.

They all really enjoyed the food except for Rose who tried a bit of yogurt dipped leaches and almost hit Scorpius when she spit it out. They passed the Bertie Botts every flavor beans around, each trying one. Rose and Al, gagging, spiting, and almost vomiting, and Scorpius eating them without even wincing. And Rose knew she recognized an earthworm, vomit, and a sausage, and still he just swallowed.

"Okay," said Al eyes watering and face reddening from a chili pepper flavored one. "How are you not fazed by these? I saw you eat one red with green spots like I just have, there's no way you can't be sweating right now." Scorpius popped a black one in his mouth while Al spoke, and he smiled.

"I'm not chewing them." he said calmly. "Look." he took a light pink one and put it in his mouth swallowed, then showed them the absence of the bean. Then he twirled his arms in a 'Ta Da!' kind of way. Rose laughed and Al said "You suck. You know that?"

The compartment door swung open to emit Fred. "Thought I'd pop about the train and visit everyone." he said, sitting beside Scorpius and propping his feet beside Al.

"Fred," sad Rose delightedly, "This is Scorpius." Fred turned to look at him, noticing that he was a Malfoy, he turned back toward Rose, she nodded, and Fred looked, again, at Scorpius. "Nice to meet you," he said firmly shaking Scorpius' hand.

"What have you been doing to entertain yourself?" Fred asked.

"Reading." said Scorpius, "Talking." said Al. "And eating." said Rose.

"That won't do at all." said Fred, "I pantsed a prefect in my first trip."

"Yeah, well, we're not doing that." said Al.

"Suit yourself." Fred said standing back up. "I'm visiting Dominique. Oh and Rose," he turned around and bent low over her face. "You have a little," he licked his thumb and started rubbing her nose. "Stop Fred!" she laughed, while swatting his hand away, her face turning red. Fred walked out and closed the door behind him.

"I like him." said Scorpius suddenly.

"Do I really have something on my nose?" Rose asked Al.

"Yeah." he replied. "I think its chocolate, just there." he licked his thumb and started rubbing at her nose too. "Al!"

As the time streaked by, the sun did too, it was becoming very dark. The three kids introduced their wands, talked about what was in them, and whenever Al tried to do a shrinking spell on a chocolate frog, there was a loud POOF, and Al was engulfed in smoke. "Oh I think you have a little," said Rose. And both her and Scorpius licked their thumbs and rubbed at Al's face laughing. They played a game of cards, which made was difficult because the cards kept sliding across the seats whenever the train moved. Al's hand kept yelling "CHEAT! CHEAT! WE HAVE A CHEATER!" Every time it was his turn, and come to find out, he was looking at Scorpius' cards through the reflection in his reading glasses. They had a few more visitors. Molly visited them, along with Roxanne and Victoire. When Victoire arrived, Scorpius just starred opened mouthed. She was after all, 1/8 vela. Rose was getting tired. She kept waking up in pain from hitting her head against the window but didn't remembering leaning toward it. Rose watched Scorpius and Al throwing her glowing ball back and fourth and closed her eyes for a second then without warning the train jerked to a stop and flung her onto the train floor.

Al laughed and Scorpius said, "Oh, we're here."

Rose looked at Al and though disorientated from just waking up she said,

"Al, your robes." Al stopped laughing and looked down at the muggle cloths he was still wearing. "Go, go, change, quickly." She said. Al stood up and tried to run as fast as he could to the bathrooms, but it wasn't easy because of the many students pouring from their compartments. Together, she and Scorpius were pushed and shoved all down the crowded corridor. They did a little pushing and shoving back. There were a few people who,when the caught sight of Scorpius, moved out of the way quickly. All Rose had to do was follow closely behind him.

They made it out of the train, but when they heard Hagrid's booming voice yelling, "Firs' years! Firs' years over here! Come on, don' be shy!" Instead of joining him, they stayed to wait for Al. Hagrid was a half giant with big bushy brown and gray beard and hair. He was also one of her and Al's parent's best friends since childhood. He visits them from time to time at their homes. He's come around for Christmas for the past few years. Rose's dad Ron had told her that he was the one to bring the first years to the castle, and that they went in boats. A little while past and there was still no sight of Al. Rose suggested Scorpius going in there to get him, but students were still flowing from the train which made it almost impossible to go back in. They heard Hagrid saying, "So is that everyone?" They didn't have to raise their arms and wave frantically because a moment after he said it, he looked around and said. "Wait a momen'. I'm missin' some." Al burst from the train finally. "Where's Rose and Albus?"

"We're here!" Yelled Rose running up to him.

"Great." He said catching sight of them. "Alright, C'mon. We're goin' to the boats, stay close behind me."

They walked a short ways down a dark, narrow, decline. Since there were quite a few first years, everyone was tripping over each other. But in a moment there was an opening in the dense path and they heard many "Whoo's" and "Aaahh's" but being in the back of the line, they couldn't see what was so amazing. Until the crowd parted a bit and they were able to squeeze closer. Then they saw it. A beautiful, gigantic castle, settled atop a mountain across a vast lake which reflected the moon and stars across its black canvas. Rose felt a smile spread across her face and something grip her stomach, she couldn't tell if it was nerves or excitement.

"Four to a boat!" Hagrid called, "I don' wanna see any more than four to a boat!"

Scorpius, Rose and Al squeezed close together, so that they would be placed in boats together. A few minuets had passed and they were now gliding gracefully across the lake. It was all very quiet, the other first year must have that sick stomach feeling that was working its way through Al. The silence was broken a moment later however, by a small black boy leaning over the edge of the boat in front of them, and vomiting. There was an outburst of laughter. Hagrid looked around,

"Alrigh' that's enough. You okay?" The boy nodded weakly and Hagrid turned back around before he could see the boy puke again. The girls that he was in the boat with were squealing. After a little while longer where they were led through a hidden cave, completely dark except for Hagrid's lantern. They ended up on a gravel bank. The puking boy vomited once again. Hagrid patted him on the back as if he was coughing, but because Hagrid was so much bigger and stronger than he was, it almost knocked him into his own sick if it weren't for the many, much smaller hands, that pulled him back by the robes. "Here." Said a blonde boy holding out a piece of gum, which the puking boy ate greatfully. They were led up a stone staircase and to a huge pair of of oak front doors. Hagrid knocked on the door which opened right away.

Chapter 3.

A New Family.

In the doorway was a tall, broad, middle aged, dark haired wizard.

"All safe and sound." Said Hagrid.

"Thank you Professor, you may take your seat in the great hall." The man replied in a pleasent tone. Scorpius was looking around the entrance hall wide eyed. It was the biggest room he had ever seen. The walls were light by torches and there was a marble staircase that led upward and the ceiling seemed to just keep going forever, but than he thought that the ceiling could be only ten feet tall but a charm that was on it could cause it to look high. They were led past a door with chattering and excited voices inside it, to be taken to the left and into a rather small room.

The tall wizaed turned to look at them. "Welcome to Hogwarts." He said smiling. "I'm Professor Chadwick Dalbert. I understand that many of you are probably hungry, and the start of term banquet will begin soon so don't worry. But before anything else, you will have to be sorted into your houses. They are called, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Slytherin. Each house has its own splendid history. Whichever house you are in will be your family while you are here. You will eat, sleep, learn, and play with the others in your house. I'll tell you now, things like answering questions, winning sports or other competitions will earn your house points. But any foolery, disrespect, or other disregard for our rules will lose your house points. At the end of the school year, whichever house has the most points will be rewarded the house cup. But be warned, the Hogwarts houses will get very competitive in this competition, so try not to mess it up for them. Do you all understood what I have told you?" He asked looking around. "Any questions?"

A scared little girl raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"Umm, Professor Dalbert, umm..." Stammered the girl. "How will we be sorted?"

Many faces looked anxious.

"Well." Said the Professor. "You will try on an ancient hat, and it will tell your which house you will be in based on whats in your head."

Many of the students let out a sigh of relief. Clearly glad that someone had asked the question that many of them were dying to know.

"Alright then. Now if you will all please form a line, neatly, neatly, kids come on your not trolls a strait line. Good." And he led them into a great room Rose knew as the great hall. It was as if she had walked into a dream place, all the stories that she had been told, many had taken place in this room. There were thousands of light candles in midair above the students. There were four long tables each with older students wearing different color ties. One table was wearing green and silver, one with crimson and gold, one with yellow and black, and one with blue and bronze. There was one more table at the end of the room where the teachers sat. The first years were led all the way across the hall, and almost to the teachers table. Professor Dalbert conjured an old three legged stool from thin air, where it stood beside himself. There were a few "Wow's" from the first years. Muggleborn, Rose thought. Dalbert pulled a wizards hat from what seemed like nowhere and placed it on top of the stool. The hat was very old, very dirty, very patched, and burnt. Everyone was looking at the hat. One girl said,

"I have to put that on my head?" In a hushed disgusted voice.

Rose knew that they had to try it on, her mom had told her that after her dad had tried to tell her that they had to fight a dragon to be sorted. A seam tore near the bottom of the hat as they watched it. The seam moved for a moment than opened wide and began to sing;

"Hogwarts, oh, Hogwarts, how beautiful is she,

Home to many witches, wizard, beasts, and me.

For years upon years I have sat on your shelf,

Listening through walls in spite of myself,

I've heard laughter and fun, knowledge and learning,

War and confusion, crying and hurting,

Hogwarts together through thick and thin,

The rival between our houses is now at a mend,

For once we all fought, mocked and hated each other,

But here you are now, sitting beside one another,

First years before me know not where they'll go,

But all with nerves and excitement they show,

For some may be in Ravenclaw, smart with eager minds,

Or perhaps Hufflepuff, where kindness and loyalty vines,

Maybe Slytherin, where resourcefulness, and determination sets them apart,

Or it could be Gryffindor, ones with courage and possess a brave heart,

Whatever it be, you will soon find,

For when you try me on, I'll see into your mind,

So step up first years and take the test,

And I will put you where you will do best."

There was a great round of applause that followed the hats song. Dalbert raised a hand and the cheering slowly died away. "When I call your name-" He announced, holding up a scroll that Rose could have sworn she didn't have before. "-you will come sit on the stool and try the hat on. When the hat yells out your house, you will go and join your table." He held the scroll up and scanned the list.

"Albert, Benjamin." He called.

A brown haired boy clambered up to the stool and sat, white faced. He stood there for a moment, professor Dalbert gestured toward the hat, and getting the hint, the boy sat on the stool and pulled the hat onto his head. It slipped right over his eyes, it being so big. It took a little while. For a moment nothing was happening, until the hat suddenly and very loudly shouted,

"Ravenclaw!"

There was an eruption of applause from the Ravenclaw table and Benjamin ran down and joined his new family, leaving the hat on the stool.

"Americ, Kinnly!" Became a,

"Hufflepuff!"

"Ander, Penelope!" Was the next,

"Ravenclaw!"

And so it went on, name after name, some first years took a long time to sort.

"Balimp, Elvy!" Took a good three minuets before the hat pronounced him,

"Gryffindor!"

A great cheer broke out at the Gryffindor table and many people patted Max on the back and welcomed him.

"Crude, Poppy!" Became the first,

"Slytherin!"

"Dallas, Owen!" The puking boy walked up.

"Gryffindor!"

"Daniel, Kaitlyn!"

"Ravenclaw!"

"Everard, Vladimir!"

"Gryffindor!"

And it continued, until finally.

"Madison, Nolly!"

"Gryffindor!"

"Malfoy, Scorpius!" Al hit him on the back encouragingly. But to there surprise, he walked up rather coolly. There were murmurs when he walked up.

He placed the hat on his head and everyone waited... and waited... and waited. Rose looked at her watch, it was fussy and kept glitching, but she would guess that around four minuets had passed. She looked closely at him. His lips were moving silently, he was having a conversation with the hat! Until finally,

"Slytherin!"

Rose felt a little disappointment. She had wished that he might have been in Gryffindor, but like he had said, the hat would put you wherever you would do best... but if that were true, than why was he talking to it?

There were identical quadruplets.

"Merik!" "Merik" "Merik" and "Merik" This last one was a girl.

"Gryffindor!"

"Griffindor!"

"Griffindor!"

"Slytherin!"

There was a hush that went around the hall. The girl burst into tears and walked miserably toward the Slytherin table. Al's face went white. Rose grabbed his hand and held tight.

"Oxle, Reese!"

"Hufflepuff!"

"Potter, Albus!" There was quite a lot of murmuring at this. Rose gripped his hand more tightly, then let go. Al walked up and sat on the stool. He placed the hat on his head and they waited. Rose clinched her teeth so tight it hurt. She waited somewhere around two minuets. And finally forced herself to breath and calm down, when a voice yelled so loud that she jumped and all her muscles contacted,

"Slytherin!"

There was a spine chilling silence, but it seemed to be only in her head because when she looked around to the place Al was walking, there seemed to be people dressed in emerald green and silver, clapping and cheering. Though to only her it seemed, everything was muffled. Rose looked around toward the Gryffindor table and finally spotted James, starring with his mouth wide open in disbelief. She looked back at the Slytherin end and saw Al take the seat that Scorpius had made for him. He looked oddly blank. She starred for what felt like a short moment, but it wasn't a short moment because she suddenly heard Professor Dalbert's voice growing louder.

"Weasley, Rose..."

"Weasley, Rose!"

"WEASLEY, ROSE!" She spun around to see Dalbert starring down at her in a stern way. She ran up to the stool and sat down. She had apparently been lost in thought all the way through the Q, R, S, T, U's, and V'S. She saw Scorpius give her a thumbs up and Al give a weak smile before she slipped the hat over her eyes and she was plunged into darkness.

"Hmm..." Said a voice inside her head, "Well your not as difficult as your cousin that's for sure, but still. You are a good friend, but not patience to be Hufflepuff. You are eager and determined, well those are attributes that we look for in Slytherins. But I also see, oh my! What a incredible mind! Very eager to learn, you have a great memory too. But what I see the most of is, I think, nerve. Daring, it will get you into trouble though, oh yes, nerve, daring, brains, determination, and impatience, my what a perfect recipe for trouble. But yes. yes you are brave."

"You flatter me." Thought Rose jokingly, a smirk spreading across her face.

"And cheek as well, yes I think you're a perfect match for."

"Gryffindor!" She heard the hat yell out loud this time. There was a great round of applause as the hat was lifted back off her head, and she made her way back toward the Gryffindor table where she was greeted by slaps on the back and people rubbing her head, and all her cousins cheering even including James' greetings, though they were half-hearted, he was still looking at the Slytherin table.

The sorting was nearly finished,

"Zimmons, Poynt!" Became the last,

"Hufflepuff!"

Professor Dalbert rolled up the parchment and walked to a random chair at the teachers table.

An elberly wizard who was sitting in a throne like chair at the middle of the teachers table. Rose knew him to be Professor Eldric Kemp, the current headmaster of Hogwarts. He had a short brown and gray beard, sparkling eyes, and a wide grin. He was wearing robes of splendid indigo.

"Welcome to Hogwarts!" He began smiling. He had a rough voice, as if he had smoked a pipe in his youth. His tone however, was light and kind. "It gives me great joy to see you all here! Every year at the start of term banquet I ask for a moment of silence for the brave witches and wizard who gave there life for our freedom, and for us to be able to come together and learn in peace, without fear of prosecution. So if you will all please stand in memory of them" He bowed his head and everyone else in the hall did the same. After a moment raised his head and said,

"And now if we could give a round of applause for our superb chiefs for spending all day preparing the food that you will enjoy today." The entire hall erupted in applause. "And lastly," Professor Kemp started, "Don't make yourself sick." And all across the table was the most delicious smelling food that anyone had ever smelled, "Madam Pomfrey, our matron won't be to happy."

It was the most amazing food Rose had ever tasted. There was roast beef, pork, hot wings, potatoes, bread, stuffing, egg rolls, and anything else in the world that you could think of. Everyone else was stuffing their plates, so Rose started grabbing food as well, though being a bit more cautious about her portion. Everyone else was piling food, but Rose knew that dessert was coming next and wanted to save room. People all around were laughing and talking and telling stories. Everyone except James.

"Feeling guilty?" Asked Rose.

"I always teased him about it, but I only did it cause I thought that there was no way he'd ever actually be in Slytherin. If I had known, I never would have..." James replied. Rose scowled, she felt herself actually becoming angry.

"You never knew that it was a legitimate fear of his?" She asked coldly. "You never knew how many sleepless nights we spent on those hand mirrors talking? How many times I had to comfort him, that I had to encourage him because his own brother wouldn't? You never knew that Al's nightmares consisted of his own brother telling him that he was going to be evil, telling him that he didn't believe in him, and to go live among the snakes. That in his dreams you would walk away from him into a cloud of red and gold, while he was stuck in a room of death eaters who welcomed him like a brother. That when he lifted his sleeve there was a dark mark? You never knew how many BLOODY times I listened to him telling me about that dream?" She finished hotly. "It doesn't matter." Said James, "It doesn't matter what I did in a dream because I never did it. I would never tell him to live among snakes."

"Maybe," Said Rose casually, "But you did say that he would turn out like all the other Slytherins, sick and twisted."

"When did I ever-" James began in outrage.

"On the train." Rose replied quickly. James thought for a moment.

"No, I said that to the Malfoy kid." He said finally.

"Does it matter which one you were talking to?" She asked, "There both Slytherins now, and you told your little brother that his house will come out sick and twisted."

"Will you please just let it go." Said James miserably.

"I will let it go," Rose began, "When you tell Al that you were wrong, and when you apologize to Scorpius Malfoy about what you said about him, his house, and his family."

"There's no where in time I'll ever." James relied.

"Than I won't let it go, until you can humble yourself." She looked back up finally to find that most of the Gryffindors around them were listening to their conversation. They all became very awkward and started talking again. James put his head on the table and didn't eat anything. Rose started to feel bad that their argument had ruined his first night back. But her anger toward him quickly forced any remorse she felt for him, far away. Stubbornness. She thought, probably another reason the hat put me in Gryffindor.

After a little while James got up to sit by Dominique.

Rose was now sitting across from the three of the Quadruplets.

"So There are four of you?" Asked Rose.

"Nah," Said one of them, he had a Scottish accent. "There are five, ones a squib."

"Oh, that must have been awful." Rose said.

"Well it was uncomfortable yeah." Said the third, "I'm Oliver. These are my brothers Owen and Oscar." They held out their hands and Rose shook them. "And that's our sister Olivia." He said pointing to the Slytherin table. There was a moment of silence.

"How do you guys feel about her sorting?" She asked.

"Honestly," Said Owen, "I'm surprised about all our sorting. Both our parents were in Hufflpuff. And we thought if Olivia were to be in any other house, it would be Ravenclaw."

Just than all the food from the table and there golden plates disappeared, and was replaced by an amazing variety of sweets and puddings. The hall went mad and attacked the trays like animals.

The same girl that had been grossed out by the sorting hat was holding up her gold plate to the light, her nose upturned. She looked in her goblet.

"Germaphobic?" Asked a curly hair second year boy, addressing the girl.

"Everything here is just so dirty." She said placing her goblet down.

"Well your not very reckless." Said the boy. "How did you make it into Gryffindor anyway?"

The girl was stirring some mashed potatoes questionably.

"Here," Said the boy shoving a crumpet into his mouth and leaning over the table. He took a heaping spoon of potatoes and plopped it heavily onto her plate. "That's how you serve food." He said sitting back down.

She looked highly affronted.

Rose rolled her eyes and turned to the next conversation.

"Vladimir Pupil?" Said a voice from next to her. A third year was talking to a first year with yellow hair that had a red streak in it. "There aren't many Vladimirs in Gryffindor. That's not a name we hear often here." The second year said.

"Probably not." Said Vladimir. "My mom was a Slytherin and my dad was a Hufflepuff. That's not a match you see very often either. My dad'll be interested to find out where I was placed though."

"Whats with the hair?" Asked the second year.

"I'm one-fourth metamorphmagus." He said through a mouth full of cake. "I can change my appearance, not very well yet though. I thought I'd change my hair for the occasion. See?" and he changed his hair to red with a gold streak.

"That's awesome." Said the older boy admiringly.

After a lot of talking and story telling, the food vanished completely this time. And Professor Kemp stood up and the hall hushed.

"Before you go to bed," He called out. "I have a few announcements! Our caretaker, Mr. Filch has reminded me to tell you all that magic is not allowed in the corridors between classes. And as always the dark forest is forbidden to All students, as is the willow tree on the grounds. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term as always. If you are looking to join the house team or would like any further information please find Madam Hooch. Music auditions will also be held in the second week for anyone who is interested in joining please speak to Professor Flitwick. And now we will sing our school song." She waved her wand and gold ribbon appeared snake like above them to form words. "Pick any tune you would like," Said Professor Kemp. "One-two-three-"

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,

Teach us something please,"

The entire room erupted in song.

"Whether we be old and bald,

Or young with scabby knees,

Our heads could do with filling,

With some interesting stuff,

For now they're bare and full of air,

Dead flies and bits of fluff,

So teach us things worth knowing,

Bring back what we've forgot,

Just do your best, we'll do the rest,

And learn until our brains all rot."

Everyone finished the song differently. It sounded terrible, but yet Rose was laughing. It was perfect.

"Alright!" Called Kemp once the last few students finished their singing. "Prefects! I trust that you will lead the first years into there common room?" A few people from around the room waved. "Goodnight." said Kemp, "Get some shut eye, you have classes tomorrow."

A fifth year girl will curly blonde hair and a shiny badge that said 'prefect' pinned to her robes, stood up and announced to the Gryffindor table.

"First years! First years follow me! My name is Cian and I will lead you to the Gryffindor common room! Everyone else, I expect you all remember the way back, if not, follow Wilkins!" She gestured to a brown haired boy, also with a prefect badge.

Rose caught a glimpse of Al as she followed Cian out of the great hall. He caught her eye, and she smiled at him.

They walked for a very long time it seemed, or that could just be because she was so full and tired. They walked through passageways, secret doors, and up staircases, Rose looked up to see one of the staircases move. She watched the hundreds of portraits on the walls wave and smile at them. Finally, they stopped in front of a portrait of a fat lady wearing a big pink satin gown.

"Password?" Asked the fat lady.

"Pologia-mephmorphis." Said the prefect knowingly. The portrait swung open and the prefect smiled and moved aside to let the first years clamber in. The room was cozy and warm. There was a large fire blazing in the fireplace, and a few squashy arm chairs were seated in front of it. The rest of the room was large, full of couches and tables, everything was very red.

"Alright," Said Cian. "The girls dormitories is up this staircase and to the right," she said pointing toward a passageway next to the fireplace, "boys dormitories is the same, but on the left. All Gryffindors must be in there common room by nine-thirty or points will be taken from our house. We do not have a 'lights out' once we're in the common room but I expect all of you to be sensible enough to get to bed at a decent hour. I expect the older students to welcome you home and answer any questions you may have, and if they don't you can ask me or Jack Wilkins. All of your stuff has already been brought to your rooms, including your pets for those of you who brought them. And while we're on the subject of pets, just an fyi, Sam," She pointed at a tall fourth year with blonde hair, "has a tarantula who, all to often, escapes from his box. So if you happen to see a tarantula by your feet, please don't stomp on Stewart. Do you all understand?"

There was an all around nod from the first years.

"Good," Said Cian, "Hopefully you lot won't have as much troll brains as others before you." She looked around the room at the older students, one of them had a three foot tongue spilling from their mouth and Dominique was on the floor laughing hysterically, a few tongue tongue toffee wrappers lay by her feet. "Three!" Dominique was saying through hysterics. "He took three!"

The crowd of first years dispersed and Rose joined Roxanne.

"Does your dad know you took these?" She asked picking up the toffee wrappers.

"Know?" Roxanne said regaining herself. "He gave both me and Fred an entire skiving snack box."

Rose looked up to see a group of students gathering around her holding out coins. "How much for the toffees?" They were asking. "I want to give some to Filtch."

Rose knew that Filtch was the Hogwarts caretaker who waged war against the students. James had told her many stories about his trouble with Filtch. It was common knowledge to everyone that he was a squib, (someone born to magic parents that has no magic abilities.) It was believed by most that that was why he hated students so much, because he was jealous of them. Almost as bad as him was his many ugly gray cats. His old cat Mrs. Norris had died a long time ago and now all of her grandcats wander the castle looking for rule breakers.

Rose felt her robe pocket growing warm. She pulled from it, her silver hand mirror. She ran up the staircase to her right and down a long hallway. Each door had numbers starting from seven and working their way down, odd numbers on the left side of the hall, till finally she arrived at the ones. There were four doors with the number one, she scanned the doors which all had names on them until the name, 'Rose Weasley' showed up on the door at the very and of the passageway. The mirror was becoming hot now, she swung the door open and plopped herself down in an armchair by the window. And pulled the mirror from her pocket and waved her hand across the glass, it rippled and Al's face appeared on it.

"Al?" Said Rose. "How are you? Are you alright?"

"I don't know." He said. "Rose it happened, Rose I'm a Slytherin." And he held up a green tie with silver stripes.

"Okay, what did the hat say to you?" She asked.

"Well, it was talking about proving myself, not giving up, being strong and hardworking. For a moment I thought it was going to put me in Hufflepuff. It gave me different reasons why I would be good in different houses. But during the last minuet it just thought and talked to itself, as if it was trying to convince itself of something. It kept saying things like interesting, curious, well that's odd, an odd case, well I suppose. But than right before it called out my house, it said to me, 'Be strong, I know what I'm doing.'" Al finished saying. There was a silence.

"So this defiantly wasn't a mistake." Rose said.

"How's James taking it?" Asked Al.

"Not well." Rose replied. "We got into a bit of an argument so we're not on speaking terms at the moment."

"Rose." Said Al in the same tone that her mom used when she was trying to reason with her. "James is probably having a harder time with this than I am. You need to be there for him." Rose looked away. She was still angry with him.

"Who are you rooming with?" She asked.

"Scorpius!" He said excitedly. "He's been real helpful so far. Also someone called Alac Mishpetsie, Ethan Holac, and Quin Bryan. You?"

"Umm," She got up and opened her door to read the list on the outside. "There's a Pamela Potent, Danielle Daniels, Alexis Micherl, and, oh I can't pronounce that, I think its... Sydrick-wolfred-marybeth... I think, Sydrickwolfredmarybeth Pye... wow, that poor girl."

"I wanna see your room. Dads told me about it. Does it really have a view of the mountains?" Rose walked over to the window.

"Umm, no. I see the black lake. Maybe the view is different for the boys. But look." She faced the mirror opposite from herself. "See, there are five beds, two armchairs, umm, one table, oh no, two tables. Red curtains, I think I like this bed best," And she took her robe off to place it on the bed closest to the window. "... lets see," She walked to the bathroom and swung the door open. "Oh! This is actually pretty nice." Their were four stalls, two showers, two sinks, and one long counter top and mirror.

"What's your view?" She asked turning the mirror back to herself. Al's face split into a grin, "Okay this is kinda cool." He said facing the mirror to the window. "We're under the black lake!"

"No way!" Rose said amazed. She saw the murky green of the lake from the window. Then she saw a great shadow pass the window. "Is that?"

"Yep." Said Al. "The giant squid! That's why everything in the Slytherin common room looks green. Because of the lake. Yes I wish it was a bit brighter, but everything is dark because we don't get any sunlight and everything is light by torches."

He turned the mirror around to show the rest of the room. There was five beds, all in different spots than the Gryffindors, two green lounge chairs, the flour seemed to be made of marble, in the center of the room was a small fountain, the walls were smooth stone, on one side of the room were three very large windows that took up most of the wall, through them, she could see the lake ground, heavy emerald drapes were cast beside each window, torches were light all around the room, above on the ceiling was a silver chandler, there were five dresser drawers and the water from outside gave the room a cool sort of ghostly ripple. The Slytherin dormitory wasn't an any way cozy or warm looking, but it was magnificently elegant.

The door swung open and Scorpius walked in.

"There you are," He said, "I was looking for- whats that?"

He asked looking at the mirror in Al's hand.

"Is that Rose? Why do you have a picture of Rose on that mirror? That's not the best picture though," He continued, "Her hair is kinda all over the place and from this angle she kinds looks dead."

"Hi Scorpius..." Said Rose.

"Oh! That's not..."

Al turned over laughing.

"No Scorpius, this is not a picture."

"Oh... well, that's a really cool mirror."

Rose heard footsteps coming toward her door.

"Alright I should go, someones coming."She said. "Goodnight Al. You too Scorpius."

Both boys smiled and the mirror showed her own reflection again. "I do look dead from this angle." She thought.

She smiled thinking about Al and was just glad that he wasn't crying in a corner.

The door swung open and two girls walked in. One of them had long strait black hair and bright blue eyes, the other curly brown hair and green eyes Rose recognized this girl as the germaphobe. They stopped when they saw Rose.

"Oh, hello." Said the brown headed one. But the blue eyed girl wasted no time in grasping Rose's hand and shaking it enthusiastically.

"Hi! Its nice to meet you! My name is the one that no one can pronounce."

"Oh," Said Rose, "Your Sydrick-wolllll-"

"-wolfredmarybeth." Finished the girl. "I know its weird, Sydrick was my dad, Molfred was my grandad, Mary was my mom, and Beth was my third cousins best friend, but you guys can call me Mary."

"I'm Alexis." Said the other girl.

"Hi, I'm Rose Weasley." She said.

Mary gaped at her,

"You mean like the Weasley? Like Ron Weasley?"

"Yeah," Said Rose. "He's my dad."

"Really?" Asked Mary in awe.

"Must be." Said Alexis. "Look at her hair, it only makes sense. But that would mean Hermione Granger is your mom. She was a huge role model for me. I'm muggle born too and have looked up to her. I've never thrown away one of her chocolate frog cards, I only have three, but I'll never throw one away."

The door swung open again to revel a girl with strait blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She walked in confidently and threw her robes off and onto an empty bed, then she spun around abruptly and shot her hand out in front of her facing the other girls. Rose had to take a few steps to reach it. As soon as she grasped the girls hand, the girl spoke.

"My name is Pamela. And you all?"

"Oh," Said Rose and she released the girls hand. "My name is Rose, and this is Mary and Alexis."

The last girl walked into the room.

"And this must be Danielle."

Chapter 5.

A Day Off

Al woke the next morning, laying horizontally across the top of his four poster bed. Scorpius was fast asleep next to him. Scorpius and Al had stayed up so late the night before talking that they must have dosed off where they were sitting. Al looked out the window to see if the sun was out yet but saw nothing but the murky lake water outside. He had no idea what time it was. He looked around the room to see everyone else fast asleep. Al looked over at something glowing next to him. Scorpius' wrist watch was emitting a beautiful purple/blue glow. But it wasn't a watch, there were no numbers or hands. It did however have tiny pictures of the sun and moon circling the face. Al grabbed Scorpius' wrist to get a better look.

"Its a daylight dali." Said a tired voice next to him.

"Its a what?" Asked Al.

Scorpius sat up sleepily.

"A daylight dali." He repeated. "It lets me no where the sun is. Dad gave it to me because he knew I wouldn't be able to tell the time from down here. See?" He pointed at one of the suns. "That one is highlighted. That means the sun is just about to rise. The color, the purple and blue, shows what color the sky is outside. See? Its changing, its turning red."

"Alright come on, we're awake and breakfast is almost ready." Said Scorpius looking at his daylight dali.

They dressed into there new Slytherin robes, packed their book bags with the subjects they'll need for that day. Grabbed there wands and headed out. The common room was deserted and seemed rather eerie. As they made their way through the corridors leading to the great hall everything there seemed deserted too. They were apparently the first ones up. Or maybe they weren't supposed to be up. Al thought.

There were an awful lot of stairs in front of them. Every time he thought they were almost there, another staircase seemed to appear before them. It didn't seem as many when they were heading to their common room the night before, but than again, they were going down stairs that time.

Finally they emerged from the thirteenth staircase and ended up in a hallway which led them to the door to the great hall. But to their surprise there was someone else sitting at one of the tables.

"Rose!" Cried Al.

She turned around and ran to them.

"Al!" She said embracing him. "Scorpius!" She said, also embracing him in a group hug. "I knew Al normally woke up early. I figured he'd come down early." She took a seat at the Slytherin table with Scorpius and Al.

"How'd you both sleep?" She asked, mainly to Al though.

"Oh I slept great!" Said Al. "Once we did get to sleep, we were up half the night. You?"

"Oh it was fine once I did get to sleep. This girl named Mary wouldn't shut up! She's nice enough but my god!"

The table suddenly bore all kinds of food before them, bacon, grits, toast, eggs and corn flakes. Goblets also appeared with pints of pumpkin juice. They all dug in talking and laughing. A few Slytherins looked confused to see Rose at their table but sat anyway.

"Rose?" Said Al later. "You don't even have a bird." He pulled from her red hair a large brown feather.

"Agh!" Said Rose, "Mary's owl! She refuses to lock it up and its seemed to have bonded with me!" Scorpius let out a laugh. "No I'm serious! It slept on my pillow half the night nibbling on my hair! I finally had to throw it out the window."

"There's another one." Said Scorpius reaching across the table and pulling another smaller feather from her hair.

"Does this bird mulch badly?" Al asked pulling yet another feather from her hair.

The rest of breakfast was spent with Scorpius and Al de-feathering Rose and cracking stupid jokes about it.

A little while later their conversation was interrupted by a loud screeching and hundreds of owls began swooping down from the high window. Packages and letters fell from the sky in front of whoever they were addressed to.

A letter fell in front of Rose and Al, and small package landed in front of Scorpius. He tore it open quickly.

"Another daylight dali?" He said, pulling a wrist watch who's face was bright blue now.

He took a note from the inside of the paper,

"I'm not sure weather or not your father gave you one yet. So here you go just in case. Congratulations on making it into Slytherin sweetheart,

Love, Mommy."

"Oh." Said Scorpius, slipping the note into his pocket. "You can have this one Al. Seeing I've already got one." Al took the watch.

"Thanks..." He said. "How did your mom know that you were in Slytherin?

"The school sends an owl to each students house, telling them the results of the sorting."

Rose answered. "Mom told me."

"So that means..." He looked down at his letter.

"Oh come on Al." Said Scorpius. "Open it. They can't be upset at you."

Al tore open the letter cautiously and discovered his mothers neat handwriting.

"Hello James-

"James?" Said Al turning the letter over. "Oh this isn't addressed to me." He looked up and saw his brother holding up a letter for Al to see.

Al stood up and made his way to the Gryffindor table, still holding the wrong letter.

"Hey..." Al said, once he arrived right before James.

"Hey Al. This it yours." James handed Al the other letter that was addressed to him, this one with his fathers neat scrawl.

"Look Al," James started. "I'm sorry. Really I never meant-"

"Its alright." Al interrupted. "Its really not that bad."

He was about to walk away but remembered, "James, please take it easy on Rose."

"I'm not speaking to her until she apologizes." James replied stubbornly.

"Well she won't." Said Al. "At least not until you apologize to me and Scorpius, and since you've already said sorry to me, all you have left is Scorpius... And I'd expect Rose'll probably want you to apologize to her too."

"I'm not doing that." Said James. "Maybe I'll say sorry to the Malfoy boy. But definitely not to her."

"If you're really okay with me being in Slytherin, than you wouldn't have this problem. Good morning James."

He walked back to the Slytherin table and sat beside Scorpius.

The letter that James had exchanged was written in black ink, and this time said,

"Goodmorining Albus,

I miss you already, Lily misses you most probably. She keeps saying, "I want Al." She burst into tears yesterday after we got home because she remembered that you wouldn't be there to tell her you stories at night.

I know you're going to be an incredible wizard, you have your mom's natural talent for charms. I thought about when you made that toad tap dance for Lily on her birthday last year, and without a wand. Hopefully you'll be better at potions than either of us were though. But no pressure.

I know you'll be great! You've always had so much determination and strong will.

But I need you to be strong. And send me and your mom an owl whenever you get a chance, I want to know how your first day went. -Dad

Al starred at the letter for a little while. Dad had mentioned nothing about the sorting. "Are you sure our parents get an owl the night of?" He asked Rose.

"That's what I was told." She replied. "And obviously Scorpius' mom knew. Why?"

"Well dad didn't mention anything about my being in Slytherin."

"Well maybe its not a big deal to him." Suggested Scorpius.

"What do we do after breakfast?" Asked Rose. "I mean normally we'd start classes the day after the banquet, but its Saturday isn't it? What are we suppose to do?"

They thought for a moment.

"Well I suppose we can have a look around the castle." Suggested Scorpius.

"I want to visit Hagrid." Said Al. "Before we do anything else."

"Yeah." Rose said. "Yeah we should do that."

"Whose Hagrid?" Asked Scorpius.

"The Hogwarts games keeper and the care of magical creatures teacher." Replied Al.

Scorpius still looked confused as to why they would want to visit one of the teachers.

"He's the giant guy that brought us to the castle." Said Rose, "He's a friend of ours."

"Alright," Said Scorpius. "I'm done. Why don't we go now?"

They got up from the table and made their way through the entrance hall. And out the oak front doors, and onto the grounds. It was a warm, sort of pleasant day.

Their cloaks however, made them hot.

They arrived at the top of a hill and looked down. Hagrid's cabin was very small at the bottom of a very large hill and was located aside the forbidden forest.

So they began their decline. They arrived at the cabin fifteen minuets later.

Al knocked on the door. But know one answered. He knocked again, still no answer.

"Well he wasn't expecting us today." Said Rose. "He may not be here."

Al looked around the grounds to see if he was working.

"Well the doors unlocked." Said Scorpius pushing the door open.

They let themselves in the tiny cabin.

Rose had never been in Hagrid's home before, but now that she looked around she noticed how truly small it was. It was a one room cabin with a ginormous bed in one corner and a fireplace in the other. Sun shone through the windows which illuminated the dusty room.

"We might as well stay till he gets back." Suggested Al.

Rose and Scorpius took to sitting in a great armchair big enough for both of them. Al however, busied himself with tea.

In a moment they were sitting in the armchair, Al on the arm, drinking tea and discussing various items at Hagrid's.

Time passed, and still no Hagrid. They had run out of topics from things hanging from Hagrid's ceiling.

"We should go look for him." Said Rose after about an hour since they got there.

They agreed and stepped out back onto the grounds. They marched away from the cabin and began their trip.

All the way around to the greenhouses. Their were four very large ones. Al peered into greenhouse four, and spotted the the back of the Herbology Professor Longbottom having a furious fight with a giant red, spiky plant that looked like it was trying to grab the Professor.

"Its best to leave them at it." Said Scorpius grabbing Al's arm and taking him away from the window, which was a good thing because just then a long red vine smashed through the window right where he had been standing.

They went around the black lake, and got distracted by the beautifully flat stones and spent about a half hour skipping them, Rose and Al trying to teach Scorpius who had never done it before. He finally made a triple skip when they remembered that they were looking for Hagrid.

They ended up at a dead end. They stood in front of an old stone wall covered in vines. So they made their way back to Hagrids in hope that he might have returned by now.

But still, he was absent. So they took to looking around his gardens. Scorpius stopped in front of the forest.

"What do you thinks in there anyway?" He asked.

Rose and Al joined him.

"Centaurs," Said Al. "Unicorn, thestrals, werewolves maybe."

"And acromantula." Rose reminded him.

"Oh yeah there's that too. And their may be a wild Ford Angular somewhere in there."

"Well if that's the case," Said Scorpius, "I undersand why its forbidden."

Scorpius suddenly had a small smile.

"How far do you think I can make it?" He asked slyly.

"Make what?" Asked Rose Suspiciously.

Scorpius took a few steps forward, than one large step into the forest.

"Scorpius!" Barked Rose. "Get out of there!"

"Oh come on Rose." Scorpius pleaded. "I'm bored! Its just a step."

"Al, tell him he's being ridiculous!" Rose demanded. "Al!"

Al had just walked forward, and took one step past Scorpius.

"Come on Rose!" Said Al. "Its not far."

"Its Forbidden!" She scolded.

"And your a Gryffindor." Said Scorpius, "Please, can't even manage a step."

Rose knew they were trying to push her buttons. But even so, she walked forward, took one step in, then back out again.

"There." She said. "Now I can say I've been in the forbidden forest."

She reached in and pulled the boys out by their ties.

"Ow Rose!" Said Scorpius fixing his tie.

"Really Rose," Said Al. "You're just like your mom."

"Good!" She said. "She had some sense. Your both so stupid."

"What'r you lot doin' here?" Came a booming voice from behind them.

Scorpius and Al spun around. It was Hagrid, coming toward them from the forest.

"You weren't thinkin' bout goin in there were you?" He asked.

"No." Said Rose, "Hagrid where were you? We've been looking for ages."

"Well I've been on a walk with Growp."

Rose knew that Growp was Hagrids, full giant, half brother.

"Ohh!" Said Al. "Can we visit him?"

"Uhhh, No." Said Hagrid. "He's just retired to his cave."

"Hagrid?" Said Rose. "Why don't you just build Growp a house beside yours?"

"I did." Hagrid replied. "But he didn't like it much. Preferred his cave. So we took it down. How bout comin in for a cup of tea."

They all entered his cabin, which was made more cramped now that Hagrid joined them. In a moment they had resumed their original seats with more tea and some treacle fudge.

"Hagrid brings fudge every Christmas. You have to such on it a bit before you try to chew." Rose whispered to Scorpius right as he stuck it in his mouth. "Otherwise it'll glue your jaw shut."

"To late..." Murmured Scorpius through clinched teeth.

Al choked a little bit on his tea.

"So who's this?" Asked Hagrid addressing Scorpius.

Scorpius looked up, still unable to talk through a locked jaw.

"This is Scorpius Malfoy." Answered Al.

"So you made friends with a Malfoy?" Said Hagrid amused. "Quite unlike your parents before you. But I can't say I'm as surprised now as I was at the sorting. Albus Potter a Slytherin." He turned back toward Scorpius, "Firs' year at Hogwarts I see. How'r you enjoying it?"

Scorpius, mouth still stuck, gave a thumbs up.

"A lot quieter than your dad aren't you?"

"Scorpius gave an unconvincing smile and nod. Apparently the fudge was really starting to hurt.

"Oh," Said Al. "No, He just ate to much fudge."

"Awe," Said Hagrid knowingly. "Good isn't it? I wouldn't eat to much though, its a bit heavy on the stomach." He patted his great stomach with a chuckle.

"No Hagrid," Al tried again. "No, I mean his jaws is stuck together."

"You're suppose to suck on it first. Didn't you know?" Hagrid replied.

"No..." Scorpius muttered flatly.

"Hagrid can't you unstick it?" Asked Rose.

"Well I can, of course I can," Hagrid replied. "But I can't guarantee some of his teeth won't come out with the fudge."

Scorpius quickly shook his head from side to side.

A little while later the conversation was skiing across the subject of Hagrids past injuries with magical beasts when a loud,

"DEAR MOTHER OF MERLIN!" Broke Hagrid's detailed description of a particular gruesome burn he had gotten from a scroot.

Scorpius was holding his mouth, red faced. He lowered his hands to say,

"Unstuck."

Albus and Rose roared with laughter.

About another hour later the sky was growing dark, and they decided to set off with the promise to visit him Friday after James had left, they had told Hagrid about their dispute.

"What I don't understand," Panted Scorpius as they made their way back up the steep hill back toward the castle, "is how in the world Hagrid manages to hike up and down this mountain multiple times a day."

"Longer legs?" Suggested Rose, also panting.

They had missed dinner, which Rose and Al were bummed about, but Scorpius seemed pleased considering they were having fish and he hated seafood.

But they did make it for dessert, which was delicious.

Scorpius and Al accompanied Rose to the portrait of the fat lady where they bid goodnight, and with a,

"Pologia-mephmorphis." The portrait which shut behind her.

The fat lady looked suspiciously at Al and Scorpius as they walked away.

They made their decent down into the dungeons.

And stopped before a blank stone wall.

"Ambition." Said Al and a doorway hidden in the wall slid open to emit them. The Slytherin common room was light by torches and green glass bobbles handing from a giant dome ceiling by chains. Their were black leather couches and chairs, fur rugs, and a giant magnificent fireplace with a serpent head above it. Their were also many tables and chairs, and a banister around the entire room.

Al and Scorpius join a couple of other student at a round table near the back of the room. Al grabs a spare bit of parchment from the table and a quill from a tiny cauldron, dips it in some ink and begins to write.

"What are you writing?" Scorpius asked.

"I'm writing to my parents about my first day." He replied.

"Oh, Yeah I should write too." And Scorpius also took parchment and quill, and began to write.

After a little while, Scorpius an Al fold their letters, walk all the way to the owlery, which wasn't a quick stroll considering the Slytherin common room is under ground and the owlery is in one of the highest towers at Hogwarts. But they made it panting, tied their letters onto a couple of the school owls which took off out of the tower, in two different directions, and out of sight. The boys made their way back down and to bed.

Scorpius' owl had flown many miles, and into the morning. Finally arriving at a large house to 'peck, peck, peck.' at the living room window. A pretty brunette woman slid the door open, removed the letter, and stroked the birds feathers before it flew off.

She opened the letter, read it, and smiled.

"Draco dear!" She called walking into the dining room where her husband was sitting, doing paperwork.

"Yes?" He replied not looking up.

"Scorpius wrote us."

Her husband looked at the letter in her hand.

"I think you'll find it interesting."

She handed him the letter which he opened and began to read.

"Dear mom and dad,

I really like Hogwarts so far, of course I haven't had any classes yet.

I really like our Slytherin common room, though, the marble floors are very cold in the morning. I have to put on my shoes before I step out of bed. And I do wish everything wasn't so dark.

Thank for the daylight dali too, you're right I can't see a thing down here.

I think you'd be pleased to know I've made a couple friends, ones a Gryffindor which I think is kind of funny.

I met both Albus Potter and Rose Weasley on the Hogwarts express.

They are really good friends. Since there was no class today, the three of us explored the grounds. Dad, they taught me how to skip stones! I made a triple skip! I can show you when I get home.

We spent the rest of the day with Professor Hagrid. He's nice, but not the best cook. His fudge made my teeth stick together, I had a job getting them back open.

I think we're probably going to explore the castle tomorrow, Al was telling me about a secret room called 'the room of requirement' I really want to visit.

We missed super in the great hall which was fine because they were having fish and of course you know I'm allergic.

Anyway I miss you both. Oh! And I think you'd also be interested to learn that Albus Potter was sorted into Slytherin. A Potter in Slytherin.

-Scorpius."

Draco put the letter down and looked at his wife.

"What in the name of-"

But many miles away. Al's dark haired, scared forehead, glasses wearing dad and pretty red haired mom were bending over the other letter. Both with blank expressions.

"Ginny dear?" Said her husband not removing his eyes from the letter.

"Yes?" She replied still gazing at the note.

"Do you think we should tell Ron?"

"No." She replied.

"Let Rosie tell him?" He asked.

"Yup..."

They looked at each other and began to laugh.

Chapter 6.

The First Day.

Rose woke the next morning painfully. She turned in her four poster bed to see was that stabbing pain was. And on her pillow was Mary's bloody owl! Rose stood up angrily, grabbed the owl, and threw it out the window where it screeched indignity and flew away.

"Better not let Mary see you do that." Said a tired voice. It was Danielle. "She won't like it much."

"I don't give a crap what Mary thinks." Said Rose angrily. "If she refuses to lock that bird away she shouldn't expect anything less than for someone to throw it from a window."

"It's already seven, I'm going for breakfast." Said Rose.

And she slipped on her uniform, brushed her hair and teeth and made for the great hall.

She got there to find the great hall already quite full of students. But there was no sign of Al or Scorpius at the Slytherin table.

So she joined her other classmates with the Gryffindors.

She looked up to see Vladimir, the metamorphmagus Gryffindor across from her.

"You know my cousin is half metamorphmagus." She said addressing the boy, who's hair was a violent shade of orange.

"Yeah?" He replied looking up, and she noticed that he had small freckles across his nose and purple eyes. "What can he do?"

"Everything."

"I have trouble changing my height." He said through a mouth full of toast. "I'm Maddox." And he stretched out if hand.

"I thought your name was Vladimir." She said confused.

"Oh, well it is. But I go by Maddox. Its my middle name see? And I prefer it."

"Oh well, I'm Rose." She replied taking his hand.

"Yeah?" His hair turned her same shade of red. She laughed. "Look, I don't mean to be nosie, but I've seen you hanging out with a couple of Slytherins, what's that about?"

"One of them is my cousin, and the other is my friend." She replied.

"Its just, one of the boys in my dormitory told me that we shouldn't become friendly with Slytherins."

"Yeah," Said Rose flatly. "A lot of people seem to have that idea. I heard you say at the start of term banquet that your mom was a Slytherin."

"Yeah, she was." He replied. "I'm not prejudice. No, I was just wondering why, because the other first year Gryffindors don't seem to fond of them. I just didn't no weather to be at all cautious, my mom wasn't one of the sweetest people in the world."

"Wasn't?" Asked Rose.

"Yeah she, its not a big deal, its just, she walked out on us."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Said Rose becoming awkward.

"Nah," He said brushing his medium length hair from his face, and Rose noticed that he also had pointed ears.

A moment later, there was a rush of footsteps behind her, and Al and Scorpius sat beside her at the Gryffindor table.

"What took you guys so long?" She asked as the boys started gobbling up eggs with wet hair.

"Scorpius was hogging the showers." Said Al.

"Why didn't you use the other one Al?" Rose asked.

"The boys dormitories only have one shower." Said Al. "It seems they think we don't bath as often."

"Alright. This is Max... Can I call you Max?" Asked Rose.

"Sure." He shrugged.

"Okay, this is Scorpius, and my cousin Al."

Max reached out a hand and shook theirs.

"Why do all the red heads seem to be in Gryffindor?" Asked Scorpius.

"I'm not really a red head." He said, turning his hair back to orange.

"Oh," Said Al. "You're a metamorphmagus, my cousin's one of those."

"Look, Rose," Said Scorpius moving closer, "I really want to see the room of requirement, but Al doesn't remember how to get in."

"You walk past the wall on the seventh floor across from the picture of that dude getting beat up by trolls, three times, thinking hard of what you need, and it'll open." Said Max not looking up from his newspaper.

The three just starred at him. He looked up.

"What? My dad was a Hufflepuff, he knew most of the castles secrets. But you shouldn't spend to much time in the room of requirement. I can show you something real interesting after I finish the paper."

A spark of curiosity twinged in Rose. And with a look at Scor and Al, they had it too.

"What interesting thing?" Asked Rose curiously.

But Maddox didn't answer. He did however, reveal a small smirk on his face.

A few minuets later Max dropped the newspaper, 'The Daily Prophet' on the table and said, "Alright come on." He swung his tie over his shoulder and got up from the table confidently, Scor, Rose, and Al followed.

He led them out the oak front doors and onto the grounds. They walked for a while, Max still not talking. Rose was starting to think that this wasn't such a good idea. She had just met him, and now she was allowing him to lead her mysteriously away from the castle. But than she thought, he's still only in first year, what can he really do? Sure he was a far few inches taller than her, but he was rather skinny, and Scor, Al, and herself would have no problem against him.

They stopped in front of the same ivy covered stone wall that they had come to the day before when they had been looking for Hagrid.

"Where are you supposed to be bringing us?" Al asked.

Max looked at the wall intently for a moment, then said,

"Alright guys, start looking for a nob or handle or something behind the ivy."

They all started feeling across the wall.

"My dad told me he could see it from his dormitory window." Said Max.

"What from his window? Maddox where are you taking us?" Rose asked.

"Oh!" Said Scorpius, "I think! Yup."

Max ran over there and brushed the ivy away to reveal an old curly handle.

"Alohormora!" Said Max pointing his wand at the handle.

The door swung open, and when Max moved away, Rose saw the most beautiful, majestic, and quite literally, magical garden she had ever seen. House elfs were all around the garden, sorting through vegetables.

House elfs are waist tall, big eared, slightly ugly creatures that serve as slaves for large mansions or buildings. Rose's mom had worked temporally in the, 'Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures' office at the Ministry of Magic. She had fought for the rights of house elfs, trying to get them proper wages for their work. But her mom had told her that the house elfs at Hogwarts had refused such benefits.

"When did you find this?" Asked Rose in awe.

"Just now." Max replied. "My dad had told me about it. See that window up there?" He pointed to a row of round windows in the stone.

"That's where the Hufflepuff common rooms are. Dad said he could see the garden from his room so I'd expect it would have been one of those." He pointed at the two windows at the end of the the row.

"Are we allowed to go in?" Al asked.

"Well we were never told not to." Max whispered walking in. "Shut the door behind you won't you Scorpius? That's the thing about Hufflepuff's," He continued. "the teachers never seem to keep the same kind of tabs on Hufflepuff as they do on the other houses. They seem to think they can trust them or something. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed I wasn't in Hufflepuff. You have no idea how much dad got away with."

The garden was more like a large meadow, with soft grass and wild flowers. On either side of the scrambled stone path they were following, were enormous rows of every type of vegetables imaginable. Rose didn't even know there was a such thing as blue tomatoes.

Funny enough, the house elfs didn't seem bothered at all by them being there. In fact they would glance at them, smile and continue working.

As they walked further, they ended up in an orchard. All sorts of trees surrounded them. Even tropical ones such as coconut, banana, and cocoa bean trees. In the distance they spotted a large pumpkin patch. They ran toward it, which brought them to a large wooden mine looking building. Inside looked kind of like a winery. There were several large wooden barrels, which were all spinning and shaking madly. Whole pumpkins were floating upward and into them one by one. There were several different tubes coming from the spinning machine, from one tube came seeds, pumpkin peeling, and stem, and from the other came a thick frothy orange liquid which ended up in large metal buckets. The buckets were carries down a stair case and out of sight. House elfs were directing the floating pumpkins into the barrels, other were carrying them in and placing them into piles.

"Excuse me?" Al said to one of them. "But what are you doing?"

"Us?" Asked the elf surprised, it spoke in a very squeaky voice. "Well we're making pumpkin juice of course."

"You mean you actually make fresh pumpkin juice every day?" Asked Rose.

The elf turned toward her.

"Of course!" It said. "We don't serve our masters yesterdays beverage."

"Oh," She said. "Well thank you."

The house elf smiled, and they continued down a wooden staircase.

It led them into the kitchens. Hundreds of house elfs were busy in this area. Ovens as big as small elephants stretched across en entire wall.

"I wonder," Said Scorpius quietly. "how many elfs have died by falling into- hph!"

Rose elbowed him in the stomach.

"That's a horrible thing to say."

There were four long tables in the center of the room spaced out exactly where the four house tables were.

"Looks like we're having tacos for lunch." Said Max.

They left the kitchens and ended up spending the next couple hours still exploring. They came across all kinds of nut trees. They decided to stay clear of the chestnut area, Max had pointed out that the chestnut protective shell was very sharp, and its barbs would stick into their shoes.

Rose learned that Hogwarts also made homemade peanut butter, jam, butter, apple butter, milk, ice cream, chocolates, and bread. Rose didn't know what she had expected, but her family normally just bought their food from the grocery store. She guessed she had kinda thought that Hogwarts did the same.

They roamed until, around lunch time, when they decided they'd take refuge in the orchard and eat from the trees there. They kicked their shoes off so that they could feel the soft grass beneath their feet. And spent most of the evening there talking and eating.

A peach had fallen from the tree above and landed between her and Max.

"Don't eat that yet Rose!" Said Scorpius. He pulled out his wand and said, "Scourgify." The peach blew up her hand. "...Well that didn't work..."

"That's alright Scor," She said picking another off the ground. "I'll use my skirt to clean it."

They watched the house elfs picking the fruit from the trees. Some were using ladders, but others had to stand on each others shoulders. There were one group that had a stack of three elfs to reach the oranges.

Al had tried to help them, but when he asked, another elf came rushing toward him, shoved a plum in his hand, and have him sit back down. Scorpius and Max laughed.

"Its a matter of pride Al." Said Rose. "They don't want help."

They laid back in the grass and listened to the elfs gossip, "Did you hear?" They would say, "Quincy, she was bit by a giant roach! Yes! And the gnome division is having quite a task with them lately, keep trying to eat up the grapes!"

They laid their till they could see stars out.

"Look." Said Maddox pointing up into the sky. "Its Scorpius."

"Its what?"

"The constellation Scorpius. You see, those stars there make the claws, that one makes the tail... Don't you see it?"

They turned their heads to the left.

"No." Said Rose.

"Oh..." Max said. "Well that's a pity, its really cool."

"I wonder how many students know about this place." Thought Rose.

"Only the Hufflepuffs that live in those dormitories. And whoever else they had told."

"But the quidditch pitch isn't far from here. If the players got high enough, surly they would see it." Said Rose.

"No," Said Al. "From above it looks like a large greenhouse."

"How do you know?" Asked Rose.

"Its in 'Hogwarts a History'. Haven't you read it?" Said Maddox.

"No." She replied.

"Well you should." Said Al. "It has a lot of important information. It mentioned the gardens, but it never said where on the grounds it was, or how to get in. I don't think they wanted to many students to find out."

…...

"I'm cold..." Scorpius finally voiced what they all were thinking.

Al walked to one of the elfs, and they noticed that there were much fewer than had bee an hour before, "What's the time?" He asked.

"Emmer!" Called the elf in a slightly more rough voice, "Master wants to know what time it is."

"Its ten-o-three!" Emmer called back.

"It ten-o-three young master." Said the elf.

"Thanks." Al muttered in panic.

"We're suppose to be in our common room by nine-thirty!" Scorpius gasped.

They sprinted out of there as fast as they possibly could. But the more they ran, the further the castle seemed to be, not ti mention they were running up the ginormous hill. The castle was now in sight looming above them in a frightening way.

"Please for the love of god let the doors not be locked." Rose muttered as they neared the oak front doors, and to her utter astonishment, the door swung open when Scorpius and Maddox pushed.

They bolted into the entrance hall, Al and Scorpius split for the Slytherin common room and Maddox and Rose had to hurry up the stone steps.

It was very dark and they had trouble seeing anything, twice, she had trodden on Max's foot. They were extremely out of breath, and as they covered their fourth flight of stairs, Rose heard an odd choking noise from behind her. She tried slowed down to turn and see what it was, but before she could, a hand grabbed her collar and she made that same choking noise.

The hand spun her around aggressively to face its owner, her stomach dropped.

It was Filtch the caretaker. He had Maddox by the tie and her by the back of the shirt. He was probably the worse person to catch them at this moment, he was known for having no mercy, and pleading was not a language he understood. He was very old, how he was strong enough to hold both her and Maddox at the same time was beyond her, specially considering Maddox was putting up quite a fight.

"Well," He said in his old wheezy voice. "Well two catches in the first two days. Tututu." He tutted sarcastically, a grin spreading across his face revealing yellow teeth.

He began walking in the opposite direction as they had been heading. Maddox continued to fight and pull away, but Filtch would pull his tie tighter and cause Max to choke, he ended up having to quit fighting in fear of death by strangling.

"Professor Dalbert's office is closest I think." Wheezed Fitch, "We'll pay him a visit shall we."

It was difficult having to walk a strait line considering Filtch had grabbed a large chunk of her hair with her collar which was very uncomfortable.

"I was just heading down to lock the doors," He said, "I had forgotten, good thing too, I would have missed this catch."

"We're not animals, so stop calling us a catch will you?" Said Max angrily, his hair was turning crimson as was his eyes.

"You shut up!" Barked Filtch pulling Max's tie and causing him to choke again, Rose now felt her ears getting hot. "Your in enough trouble as it is."

Honestly, Rose thought, how has this guy lasted this long? Why haven't Hogwarts sacked him already?

They ended up walking through a door with a sign above it saying, 'Defence Against the Dark Arts.'

So Professor Dalbert was the D.A.D teacher.

They were lead across the classroom and to a door at the other end.

'Bang, Bang, Bang!' Fitch knocked. A moment later Professor Dalbert appeared in the doorway in a black dressing gown and looking tired.

"Filtch?" He said, "What's this about?"

"Students out of bed, two of them." He replied, "Quite a lucky catch."

Dalbert looked down at them confused,

"On the second day?" He said. "Hold on." Dalbert walked from the doorway and into the classroom. "Take a seat." He said to Maddox and Rose gesturing toward a couple desk chairs.

Filtch finally let go of them, Maddox rubbed his throat glaring.

"Thank you Filtch you may go." Said Dalbert.

"But P-Professor," Stammered Filtch. "I will need to escort them back to their common room."

"Mr. Filtch," Said Dalbert irritably, "I will not need you to torment these students any longer, you have done your part, you may go."

Filtch looked mutinous as he stormed out. He seemed to have really wanted to see them punished.

"And you two," Said Dalbert pulling out a quill and paper, "What are your names?"

"Rose Weasley." She murmured.

"And you son?" He asked.

"Vladimir Everard." He replied crossing his arms.

"Alright Mr. Everard you can calm down." Said Professor Dalbert, "Your hairs gonna catch fire she color its going. Now, why were you two out of bed?"

"We were in the grounds and lost track of time." Said Rose. Maddox was starring at Dalbert.

"Okay," Dalbert scribbled something on the parchment. "Was there anyone else with you?" He asked not looking up.

Maddox looked down at his feet very quickly. Dalbert seemed to have noticed.

"Miss Weasley?" He said. "Was there anyone else with you?"

"No." She lied, also looking at her feet.

Dalbert sat back in his chair, "Stupid question to ask." He said, "I expect even if there was, you wouldn't tell me. Miss Weasley, Mr Everard, I will have to give you two a detention and I will be writing to your parents. I will also be taking ten points from Gryffindor each."

They both looked up at this, Rose starting to feel very sick.

"It would normally be more," He continued, "but I'm going easy because classes haven't even started yet, so Gryffindor would be negative thirty points."

"Thirty?" Protested Maddox, "No twenty."

"I have already had to take ten points from another Gryffindor for acts of violence." Said Dalbert, "Thirty. Now if you will come with me, I will escort you to your common room."

They got up and left the office.

"Honestly," Said Dalbert as they walked. "I don't know how Filtch still works here. I mean the way he treats you guys. I think the other teachers feel bad for him, considering he's..." Dalbert stopped.

"A squib." Finished Rose.

"Yeah, didn't want to tell you if you didn't already know. Here we are." He said stopping in front of the portrait of the fat lady.

"Pologia-mephmorphis." Said Rose, and the portrait swung open.

Dalbert turned to walk away and Maddox and Rose stepped into the common room.

It was half full of other students who looked at them as they walked in.

"Ohhhh," Said a fifth year girl. "Well somebody's up after dark."

"Rose?" Said her cousin Victoire disapprovingly. Even James looked up.

Maddox ripped off his tie and threw it over a chair and sat down by the fire. Rose sat in the armchair across from him.

"Well that could have been worse." Rose said relieved.

Max looked up at her in disbelief. "We got detention Rose," Said Max. "It was pretty bad." But Rose was distracted by Max's eyes going slowly from red back to purple, it was so cool.

"Rose?" Said Maddox. "What are you starring at?"

"What?" She said blinking and looking at him directly.

"What are you starring at?"

"Oh, sorry." She said.

"I was watching your eyes. They went back to normal. Its really cool."

"Oh." Said Maddox smiling. "Thanks, I can change my hair, but I don't have control over my eyes. They change depending on my mood, which believe me is very inconvenient. I suppose they're purple when I'm chill or relaxed. Well I can sometimes control my hair, but it also changes sometimes depending on my mood."

"Does your eyes change color when you're lying?" She asked.

"No." Max laughed. "Unless I'm under a lot of pressure."

"Oh. I just notice you looked down quickly when Professor Dalbert asked if there was anyone else with us. I thought it might have been because your eyes were changing."

Maddox stopped smiling. "No." He said. "My eyes weren't changing colors."

The atmosphere became suddenly tense and she couldn't understand why.

"But really we did get off easy." She said to break the silence. "My mom, uncle, and another Gryffindor all got fifty points taken away in their first year when they were caught out of bed after hours, and detentions."

Maddox's mouth fell open.

"Fifty points each! That shouldn't be legal. What did they have to go for detention?"

"They had to go into the forbidden forest." She replied.

"What that's it?" He said looking relieved.

"Well they had to go in to find a monster that had been killing unicorns."

His look of relief vanished.

"But that's not the only kind of detention." She said quickly. "My dad had to polish the trophys in the trophy room, he also had to clean hospital pans, my uncle had to go through old records, he had to do some gross things in the potion classroom. But whatever we have, it will most likely be dull work."

Max split to go to bed. His dormitory was at the end of the hall and his door had a brass number one on it.

He walked in to see two of his other classmates already in their beds.

"Detention." Said a boy with yellow hair. "And on only the second day."

"Shut up Calvert." Maddox replied.

"I heard that Filtch hangs students by their thumbs for detention." The boy called Calvert said.

"Who told you that?" The second boy asked.

"Filtch." Replied the boy.

"That's stupid." Said Maddox.

He laid back in his bed, which was right beside the window, took his quill, parchment and scribbled,

"Dad,

I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. Classes start tomorrow.

Yes, I've made a few friends. Tell Beverly I said 'hi' back.

-Vlad"

He laid back in his four poster bed and had just noticed writing on one of the bed posts; it had been carved into the wood.

He read the largest word, 'Prongs' and smaller around that were the words 'wormtail, padfoot, and moony.'

He woke the next morning feeling distinctly frazzled. He had dreamed that Filtch had hung him in his office by the tie for detention. And Rose had to go into the forbidden forest alone armed with a plastic spoon to tuck a manticore in for bed. And that Filtch had forgotten about him in the office and he was forced to hand there past all his classes. And that one-hundred points were taken from Gryffindor for not showing up for any of them.

It had been a horrible dream. But now that he thought about it, it hadn't much sense at all. For one, he would die if he was hung by his tie, and that would be considered child abuse, no, that defiantly won't be their detention.

He had just noticed a slip of parchment on his bedside table that hadn't been there the night before. He picked it up to discover that his time table had been set out for him. And below that, directions to the classes, which he was really thankful for.

He showered, chose to go with indigo hair today, and made his way downstairs. As usual, he was one of the first up.

The common room wasn't crowded, the early risers had already gone for breakfast and the late risers were still in bed.

Maddox looked around to see if he could find Rose; she came running down the girls staircase a moment later. She was in the middle of putting her hair in a ponytail and had her school bag dangling from her shoulder.

"Morning." She said in a rush as she approached him.

"Good-" He started. "What's wrong?"

But before she could answer, their was a loud piercing scream.

"CROMWELL!" The voice shouted from the girls staircase. "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? ROSE!"

"Oh shoot!" Rose whispered and she tore from the common room; Max ran after her.

"What did you do?" He asked as she hurried down a flight of stairs.

"I didn't mean to." She replied guiltily. "Its Mary's owl. The things a menace, honestly. So I... well I tried to shrink it; it didn't work. The thing ended up sprouting an extra wing from its head."

Maddox snorted with laughter; Rose smiled sheepishly.

They entered the great hall and joined the Gryffindor table where there were a good few already eating. They sat and began buttering toast. She had a new appreciation for breakfast that day, the strawberries, toast, butter and jam. And Rose savored every last drop of pumpkin juice.

Scorpius and Al joined them for breakfast. They still didn't know what had happened the night before.

"Morning." Said AL looking perfectly cheerful. "You won't believe how lucky we got last night." He said. "We almost ran into one of Filtch's cats."

Maddox gave a snort, "Yeah well we ran into the real thing."

"What!" Whispered Scorpius.

"Yup, we were strangle, brought to a teacher and punished." He replied stabbing his eggs with his fork. Scorpius and Al's mouths were open.

"It wasn't that bad, don't exaggerate." Said Rose rolling her eyes. "Filtch caught us probably around the third or fourth staircase, brought us to Professor Dalbert, you know the guy who did the sorting, and he was very reasonable in my opinion. We did get detention, he wrote to our parents, and we got twenty points taken from Gryffindor."

"What?" Said Al looking over at the Gryffindor hourglass, which had absolutely no rubies in it. "That sucks for you guys."

The post arrived just then. Hundreds of owls came swooping down dropping packages and letters upon the students. Two letter fell in front of Rose.

"That'll be the reply about last night." Said Al.

One had her mom's handwriting, and the other had her dad's. She ripped her mom's open and read,

"Rose Weasley,

I am very disappointed in you. Breaking rules on your second day! What a horrible first impression! You haven't even started classes yet! I bet Gryffindor is negative points. And caught with a boy! You're only eleven! What in the world were you doing! I just hope you you two met on the staircase and happened to be caught at the same time! Alone! With a boy! I never would have thought it! I really hope you have a good explanation for this! -Mom

Rose handed the letter to Al to read.

"I can't tell her I wasn't alone, that would give you guys away." She said to Scorpius and Al.

Al handed it to Scorpius, who read it , and gave it to Maddox.

"Oh..." Max said. "That's a problem. What are you going to tell her?"

"I have no idea." She replied taking her dads letter that Al was handing her, this one was longer.

"Rosie,

She read,

Your mom and I got a letter from Professor Dalbert last night about you being out of bed after lights out. I am very disappointed that you were caught breaking rules on only the second day. I thought I would have taught you better, Rosie... you can't get caught. Your mom is writing a letter right now, most likely telling you off. Look, next time your out of bed after hours use the marauders map! James took it from Harry's desk in his first year, you can nip to the boys dormitories and snatch it. But don't sneak out unless you have it. I don't want to 'hear' about you breaking rules again. Be smart about this, detentions are Not fun.

But I did want to touch on the matter of you being caught in the grounds after dark alone WITH A BOY! What on earth were you thinking? It better have been a Gryffindor! I do expect an owl with your explanation! -Sincerely,

Your protective dad"

She handed the letter to Al.

"This one's not as bad." She said.

Maddox stood up from the table. "I have to send a letter," He said and began to walk away.

"ROSE WEASLEY!"

Screamed a familiar voice from the entrance all, nearly the entire great hall turned to see what the noise was.

"Hold up Maddox!" Rose called, " I'll come with you!"

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY OWL!"

Rose slipped the hood of her robe over her noticeable red hair and walked behind Max, right past Mary.

"I think she's part vela." Rose muttered to Maddox. "Just without the drop dead gorgeous part. Her mood changes so violently.

"YOU!" Mary called and walked right up to Scorpius and Al; Rose and Max had already slipped past, and out of the hall. "You guys hang out with her. Where's Rose?"

"Why do you want to know?" Asked Al, scooting away from her.

"She was the last with my owl and now he's ruined!" She shouted.

"It can't be that bad." Said Scorpius reasonably.

Mary pulled a large lump from inside her robes and shoved it toward them. It was her owl, it had what looked like a shriveled wing protruding from the side of its head; its face was looking oddly squashed; however, the bird was hooting merrily and seemed completely cheerful.

"Ugh, get it away from me!" Said Scorpius throwing out his hands.

Mary began to cry.

"Look," Said Al, "go take it to the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, or Madam Pomfrey; they'll fix it up."

Mary stormed from the hall angrily, holding her owl in arm.

"Geez." Said Al turning back toward his bacon.

"Not to be rude," Said a stout fourth year, "But what are you guys doing over here? This is the Gryffindor table."

"We're eating." Replied Scorpius Casually.

"Actually," Said Al, "we're leaving. We're gonna be late for History of Magic."

Al got up, slapped Scorpius on the back, and they both walked swiftly from the hall.

The other Gryffindor watched them leave.

"I like them." Said a sixth year boy.

"I think they're kinda cute." Said a giggly first year.

They just made it into their class room in time to see Professor Binns glide through the black bored. Professor Binns was the only ghost teacher.

It was soon clear that History of Magic was a class not to look forward to. It was extremely boring.

Al could understand that what Professor Binns was saying could be interesting, if he didn't talk in such a drawl as if he was speaking at a funeral. The Ravenclaws were also looking tired and bored. Though as much as he would like to fall asleep right now, he still had his book, notepad and quill and was half heartedly taking notes on the centaur qualification of 1669. Because even on his first day, he wanted to be the best wizard that he possibly could be.

"God I hope Herbology will be better." Scorpius was saying as they emerged from History of Magic.

"It will." Al replied. "Professor Longbottom's my godfather, he's pretty cool. And we're having it with the Gryffindors."

Al followed Scorpius out onto the Hogwarts grounds and toward the greenhouses. The ground outside was solid and warm, it was a beautiful day. Al turned around to face the castle while walking backward. It was an amazing sight. The castle towered over them in a intimidating and impressive way. The white puffy clouds seemed to twirl an a halo above.

"Greenhouse one." Said Scorpius, scanning the map in his hand. "Looks like the Gryffindors are already there. Funny, I thought we were early."

But as they grew closer they saw that it wasn't their Gryffindors. In a sudden moment the greenhouse door swung open and all the fifth year Gryffindors and Slytherins came from it almost knocking them over.

"Oh." Said Scorpius. "We are early."

They were the first of they're year to arrive at the greenhouse, and the first to enter. Professor Longbottom, the Herbology professor looked up when they walked in.

"Albus!" He said and strode over to him, and gave Al a fatherly side hug. "I saw the sorting a couple nights ago. I had meant to come visit you guys sooner but I've been a bit tied up here." He said. His voice was rather deep and his grip very strong. "I understand." Said Al thinking of the first day when he had watched Longbottom fighting that giant plant. "Very surprising." Continued the Professor, "But I suppose whats Hogwarts without a few surprises. Oh you must be a Malfoy." He had turned to Scorpius now.

"Umm Scorpius sir." He held out a hand.

Professor Longbottom seemed surprised by this but took the outstretched hand and shook. A large group of Gryffindors and Slytherins made their way into the greenhouse now as well.

"Rose!" Professor Longbottom said gripping her hand when she walked in. "Wonderful to see you."

Professor Longbottom, or Neville. He was tall and broad, he had dark hair a round face and a wide grin.

"Now line up around the table, that's it. Today we will be pruning umple shrubs." Said Longbottom.

The shrub looked as ordinary as anything, the only thing interesting about it was its crescent shaped leafs.

"Can anybody tell me whats special about the umple shrup?" Longbottom asked.

Both Rose's Scorpius' and some other Slytherin girl raised their hands.

"Yes Mr. Malfoy."

"Well the umple shrup or the moonaple catches the rays of moonlight and reflects it back in the morning always emitting a nightly glow to the garden. Some people find it creepy."

Neville opened his mouth to say something but was distracted by Rose's hand that was still up.

"Yes miss Weasley?"

"Scorpius was right, but it also is a key ingredient in the wolfsbane potion. But the plants are greatly disliked by werewolfs because if one were to walk into the glow of the plant, even in the daytime, they're transformation will begin, at least until they walk out of the ray of moonlight."

"Very good!" Said Neville. "You really have inherited your mothers brains. Ten points to Gryffindor and Slytherin for answering my question."

Now that Al looked closer, he did see an eerie glow that the plant was giving off.

"But Professor Longbottom?" Asked a blonde girl. "I don't see any glow."

Neville looked at a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Miss Hoppkins, I want you to look closely at your umple shrub."

She, and most of the class watched the shrub. With a wave of his wand, all the greenhouse windows went dim. The leafs, or petals now that Al felt them, were letting out a silver glow that was actually quite beautiful but made all the students faces look ghostly.

There were "Ooooh's and Ahhh's" Around the room. But with another wave of Longbottoms wand, the windows went completely black, and the shrubs glowed so bright it was giving light easily to the whole room. All the walls and other plants from around the room were drenched in silver light. And in a moment, the windows went back to its original state. And the leaves were now silver.

Professor Longbottom smiled at the look of awe on his students faces.

"And that," He said, "is why today, we will be polishing the petals, that glow was quite feeble."

So the class spent the rest of Herbology using 'Antsy's Pants Plant Polish Solution' and gently polishing each individual petal until they could easily notice the glow in direct sunlight.

"Professor Neville?" Said Al. "How much would it cost to buy a umple shrub seed? And could one grow it themselves?"

"Well the seeds are rather expensive." Neville replied. "Yes someone could grow it themselves as long as they took proper care of it."

"I have some!" Said a gray haired Slytherin boy. "All around our house. Keeps them nasty werewolf away!"

Rose, Al and Scorpius scowled. Neville cleared his throat.

"Mr. Kelpik..." Said Neville calmly. "Just... don't. Not in here." And he began stringing a purple cactus looking plant, a little more aggressively than would be normal. The boy looked confused.

It was common knowledge to Al and Rose that Neville had been friendly with a werewolf named Remus Lupin during the second wizarding war where he was killed. And Remus was also the father of their cousin Teddy, and one of both Rose and Al's uncles was almost a werewolf . But Al couldn't understand why Scorpius seemed angry. Scorpius was rubbing one petal so hard that it broke off the stem. Al supposed it may be because Remus was Scorpius' second uncle...Maybe. But they had never met, and Al knew the Malfoy's were known to be anti werewolf. But than again, Scorpius had proved to, so far not to be a stereotypical Malfoy.

"Rose what in the world did you to that owl?" Asked Al.

Maddox laughed, "She tried to shrink it."

"How did a shrinking charm cause an extra limb?" Al asked in disbelief.

"I think I said the incantation wrong." She said.

"Nah, I think you did it perfectly Rose." Said Scorpius sarcastically. "Honestly, that thing's eye was stretched halfway across its face. I'm telling you, she'll be out for your blood."

The class ended and everyone was now filing out, all smelling strongly of chemicals, one girls spilling half the bottle of 'Antsy's Pants Plant Solution' down the from of her robes. Al turned to walk out with everyone else, but Professor Longbottom called him back. "Uhh, Hold on there a moment Al." He said.

"Yeah?" Al said turning around.

"I would like a word with you." Neville replied.

Al nodded to Scorpius who continued out the greenhouse without him.

"Look, Albus." Said Neville half sitting on the greenhouse table and gesturing to Al to do the same. "I know this must all be very scary for you. you now being a Slytherin."

"Oh!" He said. "Oh, no I'm fine."

"Fine?" Neville replied. "How can you be? Al I know you're being brave but you must not be completely fine."

"Well," Thought Al, "I was scared the first day, and yes I'm slightly nervous about- about my character, you know, most dark wizards being from Slytherin..."

"Look." Neville interrupted. "Slytherin is not what it used to be. It has changed, the house just doesn't host bad kids. After the war, the whole of Hogwarts became united as one. Some of the teachers wanted to just take away the entire sorting and just be one house. But of course the history went to far back than to allow that. Not many people know this, but some of the Slytherin students came back to fight during the battle of Hogwarts. I saw them. Slytherins do have some Gryffindor in them. They care about the school too. Your friend even, umm Scorpius, he should be proof that it has changed. I knew his dad, and we didn't have a friendly relationship, in fact I hated him. But his son seems like a good kid. Al don't worry about this. Your dad was the bravest person I've ever met, and now its your turn to be brave."

Al didn't say anything. He loved Neville as a Godfather, but this talk was making him feel uneasy. He had managed to look past Slytherin's reputation and to some degree accept it. But that speech made him slightly apprehensive. But he looked at Neville and smiled as to not hurt his feelings.

"Here." Said Neville. And he reached deep into the umple plant pot and pulled from it a small seed. "You can't let anyone know I gave this to you." He placed it in Al's hand. "Take care of it. It may add a little light to that common room."

He had to run from the greenhouse to make it to transfiguration, but to his horror he remembered that Scorpius still had the directions. He had no idea where he was going. He made it to the castle and after a bit of frantic searching had to ask directions from a Hufflepuff prefect.

He made it to the transfiguration class room, and in his hurry he flung the door open a lot harder than he had meant. It BANGED open and every head in the room turned to him, including the Professor who was a

"Mr. Potter," Said a plump elderly witch who's curly gray hair was worn completely on the side of her head and had a round patchy

He found transfiguration to be a highly fascinating subject. He was writing her words vigorously with parchment and quill.

They were all handed a bronze knut with the task of turning it into a muggle pence. This part was slightly more dull, because for the next forty-five minuets everyone in class had to wave their wands, speak a incantation, and hope to Merlin that the knut will do something... anything.

By the time the class had ended, Al had managed to change the face on his coin to Elizabeth. He was quite pleased with himself.

Lunch was meatloaf. Scorpius and Al joined Rose who was already sitting at the table. They had to ignore the looks they were getting and the snide remarks from the other Gryffindors they were sitting around.

"When are you guys with us tomorrow?" Scorpius asked before taking a bite of green beans.

"We have defiance against the dark arts tomorrow with the Slytherins." She replied. "Nothing else."

Defense against the dark arts was taught by a wizard called Professor Jilkon Knox. He was a rather lively wizard with striped gray and brown hair. He was very enthusiastic and always seemed excited about his lessons. He would jump around the room waving his wand in the air. They learned about Dutch fairies in the lesson, quite ugly little things. They had pointed faces and stringy hair, they were the color of sour milk and had long necks. Professor Jilkon froze one of them and blew it up to the size of a regular human to make it easier study. The Next Golden Trio.

By Kaitlyn Merli

Chapter 1.

The trip between 9 and 10.

It had been long awaited, she had dreamed about it, fantasized, and now it was here. Tomorrow, she and her cousin would be joining her other cousin at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Yes, she was a witch. Along with all the rest of her family who were all witches and wizards.

"But are you afraid Rose?" Asked her cousin she was talking to late one night through a hand mirror that her Uncle Harry had given her and Albus as a Christmas present.

"No I'm not." She replied. Which was true, but also surprising, she had thought that she'd be terrified when the day arrived but she wasn't.

"Not even a bit nervous?" He asked.

"No I'm not, I thought I would be but I'm only exited." She said truthfully. "Are you?"

There was no reply and Rose couldn't see his face because of the lack of light but she knew what he was thinking, she was really always able to.

"Al, you need to stop worrying about the sorting."

"But what if I'm put in Slytherin?" He asked desperately.

"So what? You need to be placed wherever you'd do best."

"But if they but me in Slytherin that would mean that I'd do best being evil?"

"Al you're being ridiculous, not all Slytherins are bad you know, you're named after one." She replied.

"Rose you need to help me." He said.

"How can I help?" She asked. "Everything the sorting hat will judge is all in your head, I can't change whats in your head." There was another pause. "Al, no matter what happens I'll be right by your side. Even if you are in Slytherin, I know you, and I know you're not bad, you're not a bad person Al." She finished. Still more silence. "Have you talked yo your dad about it?"

"No." He said.

"Are you going to?" She asked.

"I'm thinking about doing it tomorrow."

"I don't know why you're so worried about asking him," Said Rose. "He is your dad."

"I don't want him to think that I am weak." He replied rather quickly.

"Al," said Rose quietly. "He's your dad, he's not going to think you where weak. And being afraid doesn't make you weak either. Besides your parents are suppose to mentor you to help you through these things not judge you for them." She finished.

"Thanks Rose." He said, but she could tell that what she had said hadn't done much to calm him down. She sighed.

"Alright Al, you should go to sleep, and I mean actually go to sleep don't lie awake in bed all hours of the night thinking. You'll fall asleep on the Hogwarts express and I won't have anyone to talk to."

"You'll have James." Said Albus.

"James?" She laughed. "What a great conversationalist he is, doing all the talking more like, won't let me get a word in."

Al laughed, "That's what he says about you. goodnight Rosie." And the hand mirror went blank, not like you could see much through it anyway.

Rose laid down her matted red haired head onto her pillow and fell almost instantly to sleep. Until she awoke with a start later in the night. She looked at her digital watch that her grandfather had given her and saw that she had been asleep for three minuets. She laid back on her pillow in exasperation. Then she sat bolt upright and remembered what she had forgotten to pack.

"My travel bag!" She whispered. And she swung the covers off and light her bedside candle. "Lets see.'"

She always packed a travel bag of random stuff to keep her occupied in case she got bored on a trip. She had forgotten it one time and had to travel all the way to Wales in a muggle (non-magic folk) car with nothing to do but listen to James talk and pick on his little brother Albus. She searched the room. She took a sketch book and a few pens from under her desk and placed in into a satchel, she took a book of short stories, a bouncy orb that changed glowing colors to play with when it gets dark, a sneakoscope, a small flying model broomstick (she loved quidditch, a wizard sport played on broomsticks.) she also packed a book called 'Quidditch Through the Ages', and one called 'Flying With the Cannons' that her dad had given her but she had never read. She stepped back looking around the room to make sure she hadn't missed anything, and got back into bed. It was a long while before she had fallen asleep again she could hardly suppress her excitement. It was something like trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve.

She awoke the next morning to her mothers voice. Hermione had poked her head inside and was calling her in a frantic whisper.

"Rose? Oh Rose wake up we only have two hours till we have to leave, come on down stairs after you get dressed sweetheart."

It was just like her mom to wake her up two hours before, it was like her dad to wake her up two minuets after because he slept in too.

Rose stepped out of bed clumsily and almost tripped. She took her Hogwarts robes from the end of her bed post and pulled on her socks, skirt, white shirt, gray vest, black tie, and black robe. She took a small Hogwarts pin from her bedside drawer, and pinned it to her tie. She knew that she would get looks heading to platform 9¾ but she was to exited to wait. She stood in front of her mirror and gave a quick twirl in her robes. She loved it. It would look better when she had the Gryffindor crest on the black robe. She had a sudden jolt of excitement looking at her uniform that she did a silly little jig in front of the mirror, stood back up strait took a deep breath and hurried down stairs.

She got the bottom and had to run back up because she had forgotten her shoes and travel case. She had brought her Hogwarts trunk downstairs the previous night. She found her father sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee with more cream and sugar in it than actual coffee. She sat next to him and her mom set a plate with an omelet in front of her. It smelled good, she could remember when she was younger and her mom was a dreadful cook so her father had to do most of it though he wasn't to great either.

"So Rosie," said her dad. "You gonna try out for the Gryffindor quidditch team this year?"

"Of course I'm gonna try-"

"Swallow Rose." Reminded her mom.

She swallowed. "Yeah I'm gonna try out, but I'm kind of nervous about it." she confessed.

"Why are you nervous?" He asked. "Not enough practice? Tell you what, I'll finish this," he raised the Daily Prophet he had been reading. "-and we'll can go outside and practice."

"Ron." Said his wife suddenly, "It rained last night, its all muddy and she's in her new uniform." Ron looked back at his daughter.

"Hold on." Rose said and she ran back upstairs. She stormed into her room and ripped off her shoes, socks and cloak, and slipped a pair of overly large rain boots over her bare feet and ran back down stairs.

"How's this?" She asked and she gave a twirl in front of her dad. He looked at her boots and skirt, and laughed. Hermione was looking at her white blouse.

"Alright, come on." He said and put a piece of toast in his mouth and walked outside with his daughter. Rose could hear her mom give a half amused half exasperated snort.

They walked out to the greenhouse and she grabbed her Nimbus 2001, it was a pretty old model but she saw no reason to ask for a new one, it still worked fine. Her father grabbed his old Firebolt and they walked to the backyard.

"So what position do you want to play?" He asked.

"Beater!" She replied.

"Are you sure you don't want to be keeper, that's a good one." He suggested.

"Nah, I wanna be a beater." She said.

"Alright well I don't think that we should get the bludgers out today, I don't want you taking a chance of going to your first day of school with a broken nose. How bout chaser?" He suggested.

"Yeah that's fine." She replied. "But we're gonna need to get Hugo to be keeper."

and in about another ten minuets she had pulled her little brother away from his omelet and got him to hoover in front of one single goal post that her dad had mounted. And her mom took to watching them with a cup of tea from the balcony.

It was a good morning, her and her dad passed the quaffle back and fourth, and into the goal half the time, the other half Hugo would block it, he had become very good, specially with him being so small. Again and again they passed, they scored, they missed, they laughed for what felt like almost an hour. Until they saw yellow fireworks from above and looked to the balcony where her mom was shouting,

"Fifteen minuets!" Frantically. They all sped to the ground and ran inside they house splattering mud all over their own legs. It had been over an hour and a half?

"Scourgify, scourgify, scourgify." Her mother said pointing her wand at each of their legs as they all trooped into the house. Every last drop of mud vanished from her legs. She ran back into her room pulled on her socks, shoes, and robe and ran back downstairs. Her mom tied Rose's hair into knot on the back of her head. Her dad used a hoovering charm to get her trunk into the car. Her father jumped into the drivers seat, made sure they they were all accounted for, started the engine, and took off. Her dad was doing surprisingly good at driving. The only thing that struck her as odd, was how every time a muggle traffic light turned red, it would change instantly back to green as soon as the car got there. After the fourth time this happened Rose had finally noticed her fathers wand tapping his leg in his hand. Rose smiled and sat back.

They pulled up to the train station, lifted her trunk onto a trolley and wheeled it into the station.

"Oh Ron, we're going to be late." Her mom was saying.

Until finally they were facing platform nine and ten. Her mom and Hugo ran strait at the brick divider between the two numbers and vanished rather than colliding to the ground. Her and her father did the same right after. They stopped next to her mom and Hugo and noticed that her mom looked confused, which was very rare. Rose looked ahead and saw the scarlet steam engine puffing smoke. She smiled, so they weren't too late. But then she frowned to notice that they were the very few people there. Rose looked down at her watch and her eyes widened. She tapped her dad and showed him her watch. He looked at his own as well too and rolled his eyes.

"Hermione dear," He said. "We're here 42 minuets early."

"What!" She said, "But that's impossible. I made sure." And she looked at her watch. Ron put his own under her nose.

"What?" She said, "But... oh." Rose let out a strangled laugh.

So they took to walking across the platform to drop off Rose's trunk and see if there was anybody they knew to talk to.

"Harry and Ginny won't be here for another half hour." Said her dad. "But we may see... oh no." He suddenly stopped.

"Ronald!" She heard someone say and immediately recognized the pompous tone of her Uncle Percy. "Oh no." She said as well. She didn't dislike him, but he did bore her and Hugo and all her other cousins to sleep at family gatherings. Last Christmas he had sent both her and Hugo one thick book titled, '202 of the Most Respected International Confederation Wizards in History' her mom was the only one who had read it.

"How wonderful to see all of you." Percy was saying. His daughters Molly and Lucy were there too.

"I'll help you with that." Said Molly looking at Rose's trunk, she was starting her fourth year at Hogwarts. Lucy was to young to attend as well as Hugo, but followed him as he followed Rose.

"How long have you been here?" She asked.

"Just got here." Molly answered.

"How's your dad?"

"Still thinks he's interesting us," Molly was saying. "So we're still nodding and smiling. Its just how he is."

"But how are you?" Lucy asked. "It is your first year."

"I'm ecstatic!" She replied. "Honestly, I'm not nervous at all."

"Good," Said Molly lazily. "You don't have any reason to be nervous, the classes are work of course but everyone that has gone is always excited to go back which obviously means we like it there. Not worried about the sorting?"

"No," She replied. "I know I'll be in Gryffindor."

"Yeah that's what I said." Said Molly. "and look where I am, Ravenclaw. But yeah you'll probably be in Gryffindor, most red heads are, mind you though most red heads are Weasley's."

Both Rose and Molly drug her trunk down the train corridor. It was a lovely train even despite the years. Rose finally chose a back compartment and they together hoisted the trunk in the loft above the seats.

"Al isn't so confident though." Said Rose.

"What do you mean?" Asked Molly, Hugo and Lucy were still on the platform having an animated conversation about a muggle baseball cap that he had brought.

"Al has this silly idea that he'll be in Slytherin."

"Its not very silly." Said Molly.

"Well I know its not 'haha' funny, I just meant that he thinks he will be." said Rose.

"Yeah well if it was any of us I kinda thought him."

"What?" Asked Rose. "Al? He doesn't look Slytherin."

"Well he doesn't really look Gryffindor either does he?" Rose didn't answer.

Molly continued, "He's smart but not Ravenclaw material, he might be in Hufflepuff, he's timid enough. But nobody really wants to be in Hufflepuff."

"I think he's brilliant." Rose said stubbornly.

"So are Slytherins." Said Molly pompously, she had inherited that from her father. "Anyway, see you on the train." she said and she walked back to Lucy.

Who did she think she was putting a stamp on Al's head before he's even sorted , that's just wrong, specially the stamp being a Slytherin one. Than she felt a guilty tug at her stomach. She had been trying to convince Al that Slytherin was no worse than any of the other houses but yet here she was angry at someone who had verbally sorted him into Slytherin. She wouldn't have been as upset is Molly said that she could see him in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff. And wasn't the word Gryffindor stamped on her head by everyone else in the family?

When she looked back up, she saw that the platform was much fuller than it had been. "Fred!" She cried seeing her other cousin and ran up to him. Her Uncle George (who had red hair) and Aunt Angelina (a pretty black girl) had two kids, Fred, who was in fifth year, and Roxanne, who was in her third. She ran up and gave Fred a hug. He had been like her big brother but teased her a lot, he acted a lot like his father when he was in school. Both Fred and Roxanne looked more like their mom.

"Just saw Percy." He said. "He was talking about our transportation here, just got away."

"Where's Roxie?" She asked.

"Still stuck." He smiled. "Ah George, my dear brother," Fred impersonated Percy, buttoning the top collar of his muggle shirt pompously (he hadn't yet changed into his Hogwarts one's.) "Oh how delighted you must be to see me, what a great honor this it for you, to be talking to the Head of Magical Transportation, sorry- no pictures. You may kiss my shoe though," He held out his foot. "George has to do it, sorry Angelina but you'll get lipstick on it, they've just been polished."

Rose laughed. "You should probably save Roxanne now though." She said. And Fred walked back toward Percy and vanished into the steam that the engine was producing. Just as he left she saw her parents emerging from the mist. Her mom had an expression of mild relief, her dad just looked furious.

"That git won't shut up." He said as they got nearer.

"Ron, don't say stuff like that in front of the kids." Said his wife.

"Oh calm down Hermione." He said. "They know Percy's a boring git, don't you Rosie." But she didn't have to answer.

"I hear James!" Said Hugo excitedly. "Isn't that them mom?" He asked.

"I can't tell."

"I hear Al!" said Rose.

"I think that's them Al," Said a detached voice that belonged to a woman.

"Yup," Said her dad. "That's Ginny." And five figures appeared from the mist coming more and more into focus. Al walked right up to her and smiled a smile of relief. She beamed back. "You alright?" She asked.

"Still nervous." He replied.

"But you have talked to your dad about it?" She asked.

"No." He replied.

"Well than you better get to it than. Lily!" She walked to Al's little sister, she had red hair and a tear streaked face, she wasn't yet old enough to go to Hogwarts. "Lily why are you crying?"

"I want to go." Lily replied through hiccups. "Hugo!" Lily suddenly exclaimed and ran up to him.

Lily and Hugo began to talk about Hogwarts and what house they'll be in when they one day go. Her dad stopped to listed.

"I like Ravenclaw, but Uncle Harry says that you have to answer a riddle to get in the common room and I don't want that." Hugo was saying to Lily. "You could be in Hufflepuff, I think you're pretty nice."

"If you're not in Gryffindor, We'll disinherit you." Said her dad suddenly. "but no pressure."

"Ron!" said her mom. Hugo and Lily laughed but Albus was looking solemn, Rose caught his eye and felt awkward too. Her mom and Aunt Ginny must have noticed because they said,

"He doesn't mean it."

Rose put a hand on Al's shoulder.

"Look who it is." Said her dad and she looked up but didn't see who he was talking about. "So that's little Scorpius." He said under his breath. She caught sight of him. Around fifty yards away was a tall blonde man with a black coat buttoned to his chin and a pretty brunette woman hugging a boy her age. The boy was tall with white blonde hair that was slick and greatly resembled the man. Those were the Malfoys. Her dad had told what felt like hundreds of stories where the man, Draco, would bully and try to get her parents expelled. From what she had heard, the Malfoy family were an evil pureblood family who were all sorted into Slytherin. And apparently the Malfoys were death eaters back in the first and second Wizarding War.

"Make sure you beat him at every test, Rosie. Thank God you inherited your mother's brains."

"Ron for heaven's sake," Said her mom, half stern, half amused. "Don't try to turn them against each other before they've even started school!"

"You're right, sorry." He said, but added. "Don't get too friendly with him, though, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you married a pureblood."

"Hey!" She heard James running up in excitement. "Teddy's back there!" He said breathlessly, pointing behind him. Teddy was Uncle Harry's Godson, which would mean he was their cousin. "Just seen him!" James continued. "And guess what he's doing? Snogging Victoire!" He stopped like he thought know one had heard him properly.

"Our Teddy!" He tried again, "Teddy Lupin! Snogging our Victoire! Our cousin! And I asked Teddy what he was doing-"

"You interrupted them?" Asked Aunt Ginny in disbelief. "You are so like Ron-"

"-And he said he'd come to see her off! And then he told me to go away. He's snogging her!" He added desperately. He evidently thought that this was the biggest news of the century. Rose had known about Teddy and Victoire for some time now.

"Oh, it would be lovely if they got married." Said Lily ecstatically. "Teddy would really be part of the family then."

"He already comes to dinner about four times a week," Said Harry. "Why don't we just invite him to live with us and have done with it?"

"Yeah!" Said James, he obviously didn't realize that Harry was joking. "I don't mind sharing with Al- Teddy can have my room!"

"No," Said Harry firmly, "you and Al will share a room when I want the house demolished." He checked his watch. "Its almost eleven, you'd better get on bored."

"Don't forget to give Neville our love." Said Ginny to James.

"Go ask him, ask him now." Rose said to Al, gesturing to Harry.

"He's busy." Said Al. Harry wasn't doing anything. "He's... he's listening to mom."

James swung his leg at Al, but Al kicked it away.

"See you later, Al. Watch out for the thestrals."

"I thought they were invisible," Said Al frantically, "You said they were invisible."

"Tell him." Said Rose in Albus' ear, "I'll be on the train." She walked to her parents who both kissed her. She hugged Hugo and he handed her his baseball cap, she smiled and rubbed his hair. They all bid each other farewell and Rose stepped up onto the scarlet steam engine.

Chapter 2.

A Long Awaited Ride.

Scorpius Malfoy had gotten onto the train before most of the other kids did. It was his first year and he already had the Malfoy reputation stamped on his head. And their reputation wasn't a very good one. All of his ancestors where in Slytherin and most were found on the wrong side of the war when it ended, twice. It made no difference that many members of his family had changed their ways, or had even given a formal apology. Harder for him was the fact that he looked so much like a Malfoy with his blonde hair and pale skin and blue, almost gray eyes, and even his pointed features, though they weren't as pronounced as his fathers.

He was struggling to get his trunk onto the top rack above his seat in the compartment. He would be able to get it above his head but not quite high enough to get it to the top rack. It was when he dropped his trunk with a loud crash that someone appeared at the doorway,

"Need help?" A boy asked. Scorpius looked up, the boy was a third year with sandy brown hair and was already wearing his robes that had a Gryffindor crest embroidered on them. "Yeah that'd be great." Scorpius replied. And with the boys help they were able to lift the trunk onto the rack with ease.

"Thanks." He said holding out his hand. "My names Scorpius."

The boy faltered when reaching for his hand. He looked into Scorpius' face for the first time and apparently recognized him as a Malfoy because he grabbed Scorpius' hand quickly and grunted "Finnigan." and walked out without another word.

Scorpius sat down, kinda bummed out. He looked at his reflection in the window. His dad had a picture of himself on his first day of school, and Scorpius looked almost exactly like it next to his features being a bit softer. Scorpius, still looking at his reflection, ruffled his perfectly slick hair until it was just hanging in his face, he ran his fingers through it and combed it upward. That helped a little , he didn't look as much like an exact replica.

He sat back in his chair and looked up. He had just noticed that there was another trunk in the rack opposite him. "Seriously?" he thought. "I was the first to get her and have picked the only compartment where somebody else had already chosen?" He thought about moving but than he'd have to take his trunk down and put it somewhere else. Nah, he'd just have to sit back and hope that whoever owned the trunk wasn't annoying, or whiny, or angry, or just stupid, he didn't get along with stupid people. Not a minuet later a pretty girl with red hair and freckles walked in.

When she caught sight of him, she looked suddenly uncomfortable and make the slightest gesture as if she were to head back out the door but seemed to change her mind because she sat down opposite.

"Oh," She said, "Sorry, I didn't know anyone else was in here."

"Well technically you were here first," he gestured toward her trunk, "so I'm sorry."

"No need." she said. "I'm Rose by the way, Rose Weasley." she stretched out a hand with a small smile.

"I'm Scorpius," he replied taking it.

"Malfoy right?" she asked.

"Yeah." he replied.

"Its only, my dad pointed you guys out on the platform." she said, every word that was spoken seemed to relax her a bit.

"Yeah," said Scorpius. "I saw your dad point us out on the platform."

"Oh," said Rose, "Sorry."

"Nah I'm used to it." he sighed. Al poked his head in the compartment,

"Oh there you are Rose." he said. "I was looking for you, here, give me a hand with my trunk." Al drug his trunk into the compartment. Rose stood up and they both heaved the trunk up and were trying to get it on the top rack.

"So I asked dad and he told me that I can ask the sorting hat." said Al heavily.

"Yeah?" Rose asked. "will you?"

"I-" Al started, but the trunk slipped from their fingers and started to fall behind them. Scorpius, who had stood up behind them just in case this happened, caught it. And together they heaved the heavy trunk onto the rack.

"Thanks." said Al. "I'm Albus." he said. Scorpius shook his hand.

"I'm Scorpius. Are you named after Dumbledore?"

"Yea, how'd you know?" asked Al.

"He's the only Albus I've ever heard of." Scorpius replied.

Rose and Albus looked outside the open window to get one last look at their parents. They noticed that many other heads where looking at her and Al's parents too.

"Why are they all starring?" Al asked.

"Don't let it worry you," Ron said from the platform. "Its me. I'm extremely famous." They laughed and waved to their families, and the train jerked suddenly and steamed away.

They both sat back down.

"So do you think you can choose any house that you want?" Rose asked.

"Yeah!" Al replied. "dad said that he asked the hat and it put him in Gryffindor!"

"I don't know Al." she said, "Neville told me that the hat was on his head for almost five minuets because he was arguing with the hat to be in Hufflepuff, but it still put him in Gryffindor." she finished. Al looked less confident. Rose wished she hadn't said anything.

"Where are you two going if you've got a choice?" Scorpius asked suddenly.

"Gryffindor." they said together.

"Well probably Gryffindor." said Rose. "Most of my family is, its kinda a family tradition."

"I want to be in Gryffindor." said Al. "Or Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff, just not Slytherin." Rose gave Scorpius an awkward side ways glance, knowing that all Malfoys were Slytherins. She expected him to lash back but instead he just nodded.

"I like Ravenclaw," he said. "but I'll most likely be in Slytherin, and that's fine too." Al goggled at him. "I really just want to go wherever I'll do best. And if I don't try to meddle, the sorting hat will put me there, and wherever I'm put, I'll do well, so I'm not worried." he finished.

There was a moment of silence that followed his words. "Hmm." Al muttered to himself. Rose looked around, she hated silences. "Are you trying out for the quidditch team at Hogwarts?" she asked.

"Yeah," Scorpius replied. "Seeker, that was the position my dad played."

"I want to be a beater!" Rose said excitedly. "My dad was a keeper in his school years, but he always said I had a good arm."

"I never really thought that girls should play quidditch." he said in an off hand. He looked up to see Al shaking his head with wide eyes in a warning. Rose glared at him mutinously. "Not that I think they're no good," he corrected quickly, "It's just, my mom always taught me that boys were suppose to be gentlemen, and girls were trained to be ladies, and the ladies I grew up with wouldn't even go outside barefoot that's all." Rose dropped her glare a bit. Scorpius cleared his throat and said, "What about you Al?"

"Nope," he said, "I like quidditch but I've never been a very good flier, I prefer to watch anyway. Besides, James is trying out this year and it wouldn't be likely for Rose, James, and me to all make it. And if I were to try out, I wouldn't do it in my first year. First years don't make the house teams very often, a lot more than they used to but still, not often." Al said.

"Well I'm gonna try this year, and if I don't make it I'll try next year, and if I don't make that, I'll try the following year and so on. I'm gonna be on the house team!" Rose said determined, she had a mad glint in her eye. Scorpius smiled.

"Do you have a favorite team?" Al asked.

"The Chudley Cannons probably." said Scorpius.

"That's my dads favorite team!" Rose exclaimed. "He gave me the book, have you read it?"

"No," he said, "You mean 'Flying With the Cannons'? I've been meaning to read it." Rose stood up and reached above her seat and retrieved her travel bag. From inside of it she pulled out her 'Flying With the Cannons' book and handed it to Scorpius. He examined the cover.

"My dad gave me that book but I haven't read it." Rose admitted.

"Are you letting me read it?" he asked peering up past the book.

"Well I didn't just hand it to you to look at did I?" she asked.

Scorpius reached into his robe pocket, pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on. He reached for the window and stopped, "You don't mind if I close this do you?" Rose and Al shook their heads and Scorpius pulled the window blinds and turned in his seat so that his back was facing the window, "Sorry," he said, "I get motion sickness if I read next to a window." And he opened the book which cracked at the spine. He looked at Rose, "You haven't even opened it?"

"No. Are you gonna read that now?" she asked.

"Might as well." he replied. Rose looked at Scorpius as he read. She had expected a Malfoy to be ignorant or impertinent based on everything that her father had told her about them. But he seemed perfectly respectful, or better yet respectable. He had an air of class. She shrugged and took out the cap that Hugo gave her. She undid the bun on her head and put it on so the bill was over her eyebrow.

"How do muggles see in these things?" She said with her chin raised so that she could see Al's face.

"No, you have to adjust it." said Al. He reached over and and lifted the bill so she could see. "Dad wears them all the time." He said. He reached through the back of the hat and pulled her hair through it. "That's what mom does when she wears them." he said. They were talking about different things muggles use to keep the sun from their eyes for a while. "Hugo loves muggle stuff," said Rose. "As you know. He never stops asking mom questions about it." Al looked at Scorpius who let out a short laugh.

"What so funny?" he asked.

"Its just something in the book." he answered. Al continued to look at him.

Scorpius cleared his throat and read,

"In 1922 Luki Matlock of Matchbox, who was voted the worst seeker of the 20th Century in the Wizard Sports paper, 'The Weekend Worlock' had, on November 12, took a ferocious dive into a buzzing crowd, during their tournament against the Chudley Cannons. In a later interview he confessed that had thought he'd seen the golden snitch which ended up being a decorative snitch atop an elderly witches hat. The dive resulted in Matchbox's forfeit and loss of the match, including injures to both Matlock and the witch. The elderly witch sued Matlock for the injury and in turn he tried to sue her for tricking him with the decorative hat piece."

He finished reading. Rose laughed. "I heard about that." Said Al. "It was a bad crash dad told me." he continued seriously. Rose and Scorpius stopped smiling. He didn't notice.

"He ended up slipping off the end of his broomstick, the dive was to steep. He fell some fifty feet. The broom ended up hitting a young girl in the eye. She ended up having to go to st. Mungo's for treatment." He finished and looked up. Both of them looked guilty for thinking it was funny.

"Sorry," Al said apologetically seeing their faces. "I have a habit of doing that."

"Yeah he does." said a voice from the compartment door. It was James, he walked inside. "Every year on my birthday, Al here tells me I'm a year closer to death. Its bloody depressing." He said.

"This is my brother." said Al.

James turned to see the boy who he had just been introduced to and his face dropped into a frown.

"You're a Malfoy." He said suddenly. Nobody said anything. James looked at Al and Rose. "Why," he asked, "-are you sharing a compartment with a Malfoy?"

"What's wrong with them sharing a compartment with me?" asked Scorpius, his voice becoming very slightly icy.

"You're a Malfoy." James said again. "Malfoys and Potter's don't commune."

"Shut up James." Al said quietly.

"You're a Potter?" Scorpius asked looking at Rose and Al.

"I am." Al replied. Scorpius just looked at him.

"Rose, Al, you don't have to stay in here," said James. "You can join me in my compartment, you don't have to stay with this filth."

"We want to stay." Said Rose coldly, becoming more and more angry with James.

"Al?" he asked in disbelief.

"I'm staying." Al replied. James looked at them.

"What is wrong with you guys?" he asked. "Do you not understand what this is?" he pointed at Scorpius.

"James!" Rose shouted. "Did you just call him an 'this'? You can just shut up! We're no-"

"Have I done anything to provoke you?" Scorpius interrupted. He said this calmly, but his knuckles were turning white around the book.

"You're a Slytherin!" James shouted.

"I haven't even been sorted yet!" Scorpius shouted defensively back.

"I know what you are," Said James, "-and what you're going to become. Your whole family was in Slytherin, and there isn't one who came out 'good'."

"My dad did." Scorpius said. James let out a fake laugh.

"That ferret? He was a filthy little scumbag." Scorpius stood up suddenly, enraged.

"My father is a good man!" He yelled. "I will not hear a word against him!"

"You'll be in Slytherin." James continued poisonously. "And you will turn out like all the rest of them, sick, and twisted."

Al looked horrified.

"I'll prove you wrong Potter." Said Scorpius in a voice trembling with anger. They stood there for a moment, James and Scorpius, glaring furiously at each other.

"I think you should go James." Said Al in a angry whisper. James looked at Al for a moment looking betrayed, then tore from the compartment in anger.

Scorpius stood for a moment longer, then sat back down and put his nose in 'Flying With the Cannons' again, rather aggressively. Rose nor Al said anything. They watched Scorpius with bated breath. He acted like he was reading, but Rose noticed that his eyes weren't scanning the page. After a moment of silence her and Al turned back to each other in search for a topic. 'SLAM' Scorpius shut the book abruptly.

"You know what I hate?" he asked. Nobody answered.

"Presumption." he said. "Everyone thinks that I'll be like my parents, or grandparents. Like you," he pointed to Rose, "I know you're a Weasley, but I don't expect you to be just like Hermione or Ron, you're your own person. I am my own person!" he spoke as if he was trying to convince them.

"We know." said Al.

"Why does everyone pre-assume?" Scorpius continued.

"We didn't pre-" Rose started, but he cut across her.

"Yes you did don't even act like you didn't." he said impatiently. "You don't think I saw you try to leave when you saw me? I've gotten that same look to many times for me to count, I got one just before you entered the compartment. I am a Malfoy. I look like a Malfoy, and there's nothing that I can do about that. Yes, I will probably be in Slytherin, and I will be the best one in history." He had a kind of mad glint in his eye.

"I understand." said Al.

"No you don't." Scorpius replied looking at him. "Your parents were brilliant, you're the prodigy of the famous Harry Potter, no one expects anything bad from you."

"There are two sides to presumption Scorpius." said Al hotly. "My parents were brilliant. So naturally everyone will expect brilliance from me as well." There was a silence. "My dad killed Voldemort, and was an excellent quidditch player. You wanna know why I'm not joining the Gryffindor team? My granddad was an talented quidditch player, along with my dad, and my brother, and uncle. And my mom played for the Holyhead Harpies and now writes about quidditch. Everybody will expect me to do the same. Nobody will see me as Albus Potter, they'll see me as Harry Potter's son." he finished...

"Same." Rose spoke up. "My mom was brilliant, very smart. People called her the brightest witch of the age, top of every class, there wasn't an question that she didn't answer. Both our parents were on chocolate frog cards." She gestured toward herself and Al. "You may have a lot to redeem, we have a lot to live up to, if we don't, people will be disappointed."

Scorpius was thinking, then he smiled. "Why are we so worried?" He said finally. "Why don't we just let everyone think what they want? Why don't we just surprise them however we turn out. Why should we give a crap?"

Their attitude changed dramatically after that. Their conversations became more enjoyable. They talked about quidditch and food, the classes they're most excited about. The conversation didn't roll over the sorting. They were all nervous about it, it was obvious, but none of them wanted to force the others to talk.

After a little while the food cart visited their compartment. With the money between them, they ended up being able to get at least one of each item. They only got one packet of the cockroach cluster, chocolate covered crickets, Bertie Botts every flavor beans, and yogurt dipped leaches, which were all bought by Al who insisted on trying everything. Scorpius, who was paying, thanked the elderly witch who smiled and walked on. He turned to go back when he heard a, 'Thump'. He turned to see that a girl had fallen hard in the corridor. He started toward her when someone else reached out of a compartment and pulled her in.

They all really enjoyed the food except for Rose who tried a bit of yogurt dipped leaches and almost hit Scorpius when she spit it out. They passed the Bertie Botts every flavor beans around, each trying one. Rose and Al, gagging, spiting, and almost vomiting, and Scorpius eating them without even wincing. And Rose knew she recognized an earthworm, vomit, and a sausage, and still he just swallowed.

"Okay," said Al eyes watering and face reddening from a chili pepper flavored one. "How are you not fazed by these? I saw you eat one red with green spots like I just have, there's no way you can't be sweating right now." Scorpius popped a black one in his mouth while Al spoke, and he smiled.

"I'm not chewing them." he said calmly. "Look." he took a light pink one and put it in his mouth swallowed, then showed them the absence of the bean. Then he twirled his arms in a 'Ta Da!' kind of way. Rose laughed and Al said "You suck. You know that?"

The compartment door swung open to emit Fred. "Thought I'd pop about the train and visit everyone." he said, sitting beside Scorpius and propping his feet beside Al.

"Fred," sad Rose delightedly, "This is Scorpius." Fred turned to look at him, noticing that he was a Malfoy, he turned back toward Rose, she nodded, and Fred looked, again, at Scorpius. "Nice to meet you," he said firmly shaking Scorpius' hand.

"What have you been doing to entertain yourself?" Fred asked.

"Reading." said Scorpius, "Talking." said Al. "And eating." said Rose.

"That won't do at all." said Fred, "I pantsed a prefect in my first trip."

"Yeah, well, we're not doing that." said Al.

"Suit yourself." Fred said standing back up. "I'm visiting Dominique. Oh and Rose," he turned around and bent low over her face. "You have a little," he licked his thumb and started rubbing her nose. "Stop Fred!" she laughed, while swatting his hand away, her face turning red. Fred walked out and closed the door behind him.

"I like him." said Scorpius suddenly.

"Do I really have something on my nose?" Rose asked Al.

"Yeah." he replied. "I think its chocolate, just there." he licked his thumb and started rubbing at her nose too. "Al!"

As the time streaked by, the sun did too, it was becoming very dark. The three kids introduced their wands, talked about what was in them, and whenever Al tried to do a shrinking spell on a chocolate frog, there was a loud POOF, and Al was engulfed in smoke. "Oh I think you have a little," said Rose. And both her and Scorpius licked their thumbs and rubbed at Al's face laughing. They played a game of cards, which made was difficult because the cards kept sliding across the seats whenever the train moved. Al's hand kept yelling "CHEAT! CHEAT! WE HAVE A CHEATER!" Every time it was his turn, and come to find out, he was looking at Scorpius' cards through the reflection in his reading glasses. They had a few more visitors. Molly visited them, along with Roxanne and Victoire. When Victoire arrived, Scorpius just starred opened mouthed. She was after all, 1/8 vela. Rose was getting tired. She kept waking up in pain from hitting her head against the window but didn't remembering leaning toward it. Rose watched Scorpius and Al throwing her glowing ball back and fourth and closed her eyes for a second then without warning the train jerked to a stop and flung her onto the train floor.

Al laughed and Scorpius said, "Oh, we're here."

Rose looked at Al and though disorientated from just waking up she said,

"Al, your robes." Al stopped laughing and looked down at the muggle cloths he was still wearing. "Go, go, change, quickly." She said. Al stood up and tried to run as fast as he could to the bathrooms, but it wasn't easy because of the many students pouring from their compartments. Together, she and Scorpius were pushed and shoved all down the crowded corridor. They did a little pushing and shoving back. There were a few people who,when the caught sight of Scorpius, moved out of the way quickly. All Rose had to do was follow closely behind him.

They made it out of the train, but when they heard Hagrid's booming voice yelling, "Firs' years! Firs' years over here! Come on, don' be shy!" Instead of joining him, they stayed to wait for Al. Hagrid was a half giant with big bushy brown and gray beard and hair. He was also one of her and Al's parent's best friends since childhood. He visits them from time to time at their homes. He's come around for Christmas for the past few years. Rose's dad Ron had told her that he was the one to bring the first years to the castle, and that they went in boats. A little while past and there was still no sight of Al. Rose suggested Scorpius going in there to get him, but students were still flowing from the train which made it almost impossible to go back in. They heard Hagrid saying, "So is that everyone?" They didn't have to raise their arms and wave frantically because a moment after he said it, he looked around and said. "Wait a momen'. I'm missin' some." Al burst from the train finally. "Where's Rose and Albus?"

"We're here!" Yelled Rose running up to him.

"Great." He said catching sight of them. "Alright, C'mon. We're goin' to the boats, stay close behind me."

They walked a short ways down a dark, narrow, decline. Since there were quite a few first years, everyone was tripping over each other. But in a moment there was an opening in the dense path and they heard many "Whoo's" and "Aaahh's" but being in the back of the line, they couldn't see what was so amazing. Until the crowd parted a bit and they were able to squeeze closer. Then they saw it. A beautiful, gigantic castle, settled atop a mountain across a vast lake which reflected the moon and stars across its black canvas. Rose felt a smile spread across her face and something grip her stomach, she couldn't tell if it was nerves or excitement.

"Four to a boat!" Hagrid called, "I don' wanna see any more than four to a boat!"

Scorpius, Rose and Al squeezed close together, so that they would be placed in boats together. A few minuets had passed and they were now gliding gracefully across the lake. It was all very quiet, the other first year must have that sick stomach feeling that was working its way through Al. The silence was broken a moment later however, by a small black boy leaning over the edge of the boat in front of them, and vomiting. There was an outburst of laughter. Hagrid looked around,

"Alrigh' that's enough. You okay?" The boy nodded weakly and Hagrid turned back around before he could see the boy puke again. The girls that he was in the boat with were squealing. After a little while longer where they were led through a hidden cave, completely dark except for Hagrid's lantern. They ended up on a gravel bank. The puking boy vomited once again. Hagrid patted him on the back as if he was coughing, but because Hagrid was so much bigger and stronger than he was, it almost knocked him into his own sick if it weren't for the many, much smaller hands, that pulled him back by the robes. "Here." Said a blonde boy holding out a piece of gum, which the puking boy ate greatfully. They were led up a stone staircase and to a huge pair of of oak front doors. Hagrid knocked on the door which opened right away.

Chapter 3.

A New Family.

In the doorway was a tall, broad, middle aged, dark haired wizard.

"All safe and sound." Said Hagrid.

"Thank you Professor, you may take your seat in the great hall." The man replied in a pleasent tone. Scorpius was looking around the entrance hall wide eyed. It was the biggest room he had ever seen. The walls were light by torches and there was a marble staircase that led upward and the ceiling seemed to just keep going forever, but than he thought that the ceiling could be only ten feet tall but a charm that was on it could cause it to look high. They were led past a door with chattering and excited voices inside it, to be taken to the left and into a rather small room.

The tall wizaed turned to look at them. "Welcome to Hogwarts." He said smiling. "I'm Professor Chadwick Dalbert. I understand that many of you are probably hungry, and the start of term banquet will begin soon so don't worry. But before anything else, you will have to be sorted into your houses. They are called, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Slytherin. Each house has its own splendid history. Whichever house you are in will be your family while you are here. You will eat, sleep, learn, and play with the others in your house. I'll tell you now, things like answering questions, winning sports or other competitions will earn your house points. But any foolery, disrespect, or other disregard for our rules will lose your house points. At the end of the school year, whichever house has the most points will be rewarded the house cup. But be warned, the Hogwarts houses will get very competitive in this competition, so try not to mess it up for them. Do you all understood what I have told you?" He asked looking around. "Any questions?"

A scared little girl raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"Umm, Professor Dalbert, umm..." Stammered the girl. "How will we be sorted?"

Many faces looked anxious.

"Well." Said the Professor. "You will try on an ancient hat, and it will tell your which house you will be in based on whats in your head."

Many of the students let out a sigh of relief. Clearly glad that someone had asked the question that many of them were dying to know.

"Alright then. Now if you will all please form a line, neatly, neatly, kids come on your not trolls a strait line. Good." And he led them into a great room Rose knew as the great hall. It was as if she had walked into a dream place, all the stories that she had been told, many had taken place in this room. There were thousands of light candles in midair above the students. There were four long tables each with older students wearing different color ties. One table was wearing green and silver, one with crimson and gold, one with yellow and black, and one with blue and bronze. There was one more table at the end of the room where the teachers sat. The first years were led all the way across the hall, and almost to the teachers table. Professor Dalbert conjured an old three legged stool from thin air, where it stood beside himself. There were a few "Wow's" from the first years. Muggleborn, Rose thought. Dalbert pulled a wizards hat from what seemed like nowhere and placed it on top of the stool. The hat was very old, very dirty, very patched, and burnt. Everyone was looking at the hat. One girl said,

"I have to put that on my head?" In a hushed disgusted voice.

Rose knew that they had to try it on, her mom had told her that after her dad had tried to tell her that they had to fight a dragon to be sorted. A seam tore near the bottom of the hat as they watched it. The seam moved for a moment than opened wide and began to sing;

"Hogwarts, oh, Hogwarts, how beautiful is she,

Home to many witches, wizard, beasts, and me.

For years upon years I have sat on your shelf,

Listening through walls in spite of myself,

I've heard laughter and fun, knowledge and learning,

War and confusion, crying and hurting,

Hogwarts together through thick and thin,

The rival between our houses is now at a mend,

For once we all fought, mocked and hated each other,

But here you are now, sitting beside one another,

First years before me know not where they'll go,

But all with nerves and excitement they show,

For some may be in Ravenclaw, smart with eager minds,

Or perhaps Hufflepuff, where kindness and loyalty vines,

Maybe Slytherin, where resourcefulness, and determination sets them apart,

Or it could be Gryffindor, ones with courage and possess a brave heart,

Whatever it be, you will soon find,

For when you try me on, I'll see into your mind,

So step up first years and take the test,

And I will put you where you will do best."

There was a great round of applause that followed the hats song. Dalbert raised a hand and the cheering slowly died away. "When I call your name-" He announced, holding up a scroll that Rose could have sworn she didn't have before. "-you will come sit on the stool and try the hat on. When the hat yells out your house, you will go and join your table." He held the scroll up and scanned the list.

"Albert, Benjamin." He called.

A brown haired boy clambered up to the stool and sat, white faced. He stood there for a moment, professor Dalbert gestured toward the hat, and getting the hint, the boy sat on the stool and pulled the hat onto his head. It slipped right over his eyes, it being so big. It took a little while. For a moment nothing was happening, until the hat suddenly and very loudly shouted,

"Ravenclaw!"

There was an eruption of applause from the Ravenclaw table and Benjamin ran down and joined his new family, leaving the hat on the stool.

"Americ, Kinnly!" Became a,

"Hufflepuff!"

"Ander, Penelope!" Was the next,

"Ravenclaw!"

And so it went on, name after name, some first years took a long time to sort.

"Balimp, Elvy!" Took a good three minuets before the hat pronounced him,

"Gryffindor!"

A great cheer broke out at the Gryffindor table and many people patted Max on the back and welcomed him.

"Crude, Poppy!" Became the first,

"Slytherin!"

"Dallas, Owen!" The puking boy walked up.

"Gryffindor!"

"Daniel, Kaitlyn!"

"Ravenclaw!"

"Everard, Vladimir!"

"Gryffindor!"

And it continued, until finally.

"Madison, Nolly!"

"Gryffindor!"

"Malfoy, Scorpius!" Al hit him on the back encouragingly. But to there surprise, he walked up rather coolly. There were murmurs when he walked up.

He placed the hat on his head and everyone waited... and waited... and waited. Rose looked at her watch, it was fussy and kept glitching, but she would guess that around four minuets had passed. She looked closely at him. His lips were moving silently, he was having a conversation with the hat! Until finally,

"Slytherin!"

Rose felt a little disappointment. She had wished that he might have been in Gryffindor, but like he had said, the hat would put you wherever you would do best... but if that were true, than why was he talking to it?

There were identical quadruplets.

"Merik!" "Merik" "Merik" and "Merik" This last one was a girl.

"Gryffindor!"

"Griffindor!"

"Griffindor!"

"Slytherin!"

There was a hush that went around the hall. The girl burst into tears and walked miserably toward the Slytherin table. Al's face went white. Rose grabbed his hand and held tight.

"Oxle, Reese!"

"Hufflepuff!"

"Potter, Albus!" There was quite a lot of murmuring at this. Rose gripped his hand more tightly, then let go. Al walked up and sat on the stool. He placed the hat on his head and they waited. Rose clinched her teeth so tight it hurt. She waited somewhere around two minuets. And finally forced herself to breath and calm down, when a voice yelled so loud that she jumped and all her muscles contacted,

"Slytherin!"

There was a spine chilling silence, but it seemed to be only in her head because when she looked around to the place Al was walking, there seemed to be people dressed in emerald green and silver, clapping and cheering. Though to only her it seemed, everything was muffled. Rose looked around toward the Gryffindor table and finally spotted James, starring with his mouth wide open in disbelief. She looked back at the Slytherin end and saw Al take the seat that Scorpius had made for him. He looked oddly blank. She starred for what felt like a short moment, but it wasn't a short moment because she suddenly heard Professor Dalbert's voice growing louder.

"Weasley, Rose..."

"Weasley, Rose!"

"WEASLEY, ROSE!" She spun around to see Dalbert starring down at her in a stern way. She ran up to the stool and sat down. She had apparently been lost in thought all the way through the Q, R, S, T, U's, and V'S. She saw Scorpius give her a thumbs up and Al give a weak smile before she slipped the hat over her eyes and she was plunged into darkness.

"Hmm..." Said a voice inside her head, "Well your not as difficult as your cousin that's for sure, but still. You are a good friend, but not patience to be Hufflepuff. You are eager and determined, well those are attributes that we look for in Slytherins. But I also see, oh my! What a incredible mind! Very eager to learn, you have a great memory too. But what I see the most of is, I think, nerve. Daring, it will get you into trouble though, oh yes, nerve, daring, brains, determination, and impatience, my what a perfect recipe for trouble. But yes. yes you are brave."

"You flatter me." Thought Rose jokingly, a smirk spreading across her face.

"And cheek as well, yes I think you're a perfect match for."

"Gryffindor!" She heard the hat yell out loud this time. There was a great round of applause as the hat was lifted back off her head, and she made her way back toward the Gryffindor table where she was greeted by slaps on the back and people rubbing her head, and all her cousins cheering even including James' greetings, though they were half-hearted, he was still looking at the Slytherin table.

The sorting was nearly finished,

"Zimmons, Poynt!" Became the last,

"Hufflepuff!"

Professor Dalbert rolled up the parchment and walked to a random chair at the teachers table.

An elberly wizard who was sitting in a throne like chair at the middle of the teachers table. Rose knew him to be Professor Eldric Kemp, the current headmaster of Hogwarts. He had a short brown and gray beard, sparkling eyes, and a wide grin. He was wearing robes of splendid indigo.

"Welcome to Hogwarts!" He began smiling. He had a rough voice, as if he had smoked a pipe in his youth. His tone however, was light and kind. "It gives me great joy to see you all here! Every year at the start of term banquet I ask for a moment of silence for the brave witches and wizard who gave there life for our freedom, and for us to be able to come together and learn in peace, without fear of prosecution. So if you will all please stand in memory of them" He bowed his head and everyone else in the hall did the same. After a moment raised his head and said,

"And now if we could give a round of applause for our superb chiefs for spending all day preparing the food that you will enjoy today." The entire hall erupted in applause. "And lastly," Professor Kemp started, "Don't make yourself sick." And all across the table was the most delicious smelling food that anyone had ever smelled, "Madam Pomfrey, our matron won't be to happy."

It was the most amazing food Rose had ever tasted. There was roast beef, pork, hot wings, potatoes, bread, stuffing, egg rolls, and anything else in the world that you could think of. Everyone else was stuffing their plates, so Rose started grabbing food as well, though being a bit more cautious about her portion. Everyone else was piling food, but Rose knew that dessert was coming next and wanted to save room. People all around were laughing and talking and telling stories. Everyone except James.

"Feeling guilty?" Asked Rose.

"I always teased him about it, but I only did it cause I thought that there was no way he'd ever actually be in Slytherin. If I had known, I never would have..." James replied. Rose scowled, she felt herself actually becoming angry.

"You never knew that it was a legitimate fear of his?" She asked coldly. "You never knew how many sleepless nights we spent on those hand mirrors talking? How many times I had to comfort him, that I had to encourage him because his own brother wouldn't? You never knew that Al's nightmares consisted of his own brother telling him that he was going to be evil, telling him that he didn't believe in him, and to go live among the snakes. That in his dreams you would walk away from him into a cloud of red and gold, while he was stuck in a room of death eaters who welcomed him like a brother. That when he lifted his sleeve there was a dark mark? You never knew how many BLOODY times I listened to him telling me about that dream?" She finished hotly. "It doesn't matter." Said James, "It doesn't matter what I did in a dream because I never did it. I would never tell him to live among snakes."

"Maybe," Said Rose casually, "But you did say that he would turn out like all the other Slytherins, sick and twisted."

"When did I ever-" James began in outrage.

"On the train." Rose replied quickly. James thought for a moment.

"No, I said that to the Malfoy kid." He said finally.

"Does it matter which one you were talking to?" She asked, "There both Slytherins now, and you told your little brother that his house will come out sick and twisted."

"Will you please just let it go." Said James miserably.

"I will let it go," Rose began, "When you tell Al that you were wrong, and when you apologize to Scorpius Malfoy about what you said about him, his house, and his family."

"There's no where in time I'll ever." James relied.

"Than I won't let it go, until you can humble yourself." She looked back up finally to find that most of the Gryffindors around them were listening to their conversation. They all became very awkward and started talking again. James put his head on the table and didn't eat anything. Rose started to feel bad that their argument had ruined his first night back. But her anger toward him quickly forced any remorse she felt for him, far away. Stubbornness. She thought, probably another reason the hat put me in Gryffindor.

After a little while James got up to sit by Dominique.

Rose was now sitting across from the three of the Quadruplets.

"So There are four of you?" Asked Rose.

"Nah," Said one of them, he had a Scottish accent. "There are five, ones a squib."

"Oh, that must have been awful." Rose said.

"Well it was uncomfortable yeah." Said the third, "I'm Oliver. These are my brothers Owen and Oscar." They held out their hands and Rose shook them. "And that's our sister Olivia." He said pointing to the Slytherin table. There was a moment of silence.

"How do you guys feel about her sorting?" She asked.

"Honestly," Said Owen, "I'm surprised about all our sorting. Both our parents were in Hufflpuff. And we thought if Olivia were to be in any other house, it would be Ravenclaw."

Just than all the food from the table and there golden plates disappeared, and was replaced by an amazing variety of sweets and puddings. The hall went mad and attacked the trays like animals.

The same girl that had been grossed out by the sorting hat was holding up her gold plate to the light, her nose upturned. She looked in her goblet.

"Germaphobic?" Asked a curly hair second year boy, addressing the girl.

"Everything here is just so dirty." She said placing her goblet down.

"Well your not very reckless." Said the boy. "How did you make it into Gryffindor anyway?"

The girl was stirring some mashed potatoes questionably.

"Here," Said the boy shoving a crumpet into his mouth and leaning over the table. He took a heaping spoon of potatoes and plopped it heavily onto her plate. "That's how you serve food." He said sitting back down.

She looked highly affronted.

Rose rolled her eyes and turned to the next conversation.

"Vladimir Pupil?" Said a voice from next to her. A third year was talking to a first year with yellow hair that had a red streak in it. "There aren't many Vladimirs in Gryffindor. That's not a name we hear often here." The second year said.

"Probably not." Said Vladimir. "My mom was a Slytherin and my dad was a Hufflepuff. That's not a match you see very often either. My dad'll be interested to find out where I was placed though."

"Whats with the hair?" Asked the second year.

"I'm one-fourth metamorphmagus." He said through a mouth full of cake. "I can change my appearance, not very well yet though. I thought I'd change my hair for the occasion. See?" and he changed his hair to red with a gold streak.

"That's awesome." Said the older boy admiringly.

After a lot of talking and story telling, the food vanished completely this time. And Professor Kemp stood up and the hall hushed.

"Before you go to bed," He called out. "I have a few announcements! Our caretaker, Mr. Filch has reminded me to tell you all that magic is not allowed in the corridors between classes. And as always the dark forest is forbidden to All students, as is the willow tree on the grounds. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term as always. If you are looking to join the house team or would like any further information please find Madam Hooch. Music auditions will also be held in the second week for anyone who is interested in joining please speak to Professor Flitwick. And now we will sing our school song." She waved her wand and gold ribbon appeared snake like above them to form words. "Pick any tune you would like," Said Professor Kemp. "One-two-three-"

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,

Teach us something please,"

The entire room erupted in song.

"Whether we be old and bald,

Or young with scabby knees,

Our heads could do with filling,

With some interesting stuff,

For now they're bare and full of air,

Dead flies and bits of fluff,

So teach us things worth knowing,

Bring back what we've forgot,

Just do your best, we'll do the rest,

And learn until our brains all rot."

Everyone finished the song differently. It sounded terrible, but yet Rose was laughing. It was perfect.

"Alright!" Called Kemp once the last few students finished their singing. "Prefects! I trust that you will lead the first years into there common room?" A few people from around the room waved. "Goodnight." said Kemp, "Get some shut eye, you have classes tomorrow."

A fifth year girl will curly blonde hair and a shiny badge that said 'prefect' pinned to her robes, stood up and announced to the Gryffindor table.

"First years! First years follow me! My name is Cian and I will lead you to the Gryffindor common room! Everyone else, I expect you all remember the way back, if not, follow Wilkins!" She gestured to a brown haired boy, also with a prefect badge.

Rose caught a glimpse of Al as she followed Cian out of the great hall. He caught her eye, and she smiled at him.

They walked for a very long time it seemed, or that could just be because she was so full and tired. They walked through passageways, secret doors, and up staircases, Rose looked up to see one of the staircases move. She watched the hundreds of portraits on the walls wave and smile at them. Finally, they stopped in front of a portrait of a fat lady wearing a big pink satin gown.

"Password?" Asked the fat lady.

"Pologia-mephmorphis." Said the prefect knowingly. The portrait swung open and the prefect smiled and moved aside to let the first years clamber in. The room was cozy and warm. There was a large fire blazing in the fireplace, and a few squashy arm chairs were seated in front of it. The rest of the room was large, full of couches and tables, everything was very red.

"Alright," Said Cian. "The girls dormitories is up this staircase and to the right," she said pointing toward a passageway next to the fireplace, "boys dormitories is the same, but on the left. All Gryffindors must be in there common room by nine-thirty or points will be taken from our house. We do not have a 'lights out' once we're in the common room but I expect all of you to be sensible enough to get to bed at a decent hour. I expect the older students to welcome you home and answer any questions you may have, and if they don't you can ask me or Jack Wilkins. All of your stuff has already been brought to your rooms, including your pets for those of you who brought them. And while we're on the subject of pets, just an fyi, Sam," She pointed at a tall fourth year with blonde hair, "has a tarantula who, all to often, escapes from his box. So if you happen to see a tarantula by your feet, please don't stomp on Stewart. Do you all understand?"

There was an all around nod from the first years.

"Good," Said Cian, "Hopefully you lot won't have as much troll brains as others before you." She looked around the room at the older students, one of them had a three foot tongue spilling from their mouth and Dominique was on the floor laughing hysterically, a few tongue tongue toffee wrappers lay by her feet. "Three!" Dominique was saying through hysterics. "He took three!"

The crowd of first years dispersed and Rose joined Roxanne.

"Does your dad know you took these?" She asked picking up the toffee wrappers.

"Know?" Roxanne said regaining herself. "He gave both me and Fred an entire skiving snack box."

Rose looked up to see a group of students gathering around her holding out coins. "How much for the toffees?" They were asking. "I want to give some to Filtch."

Rose knew that Filtch was the Hogwarts caretaker who waged war against the students. James had told her many stories about his trouble with Filtch. It was common knowledge to everyone that he was a squib, (someone born to magic parents that has no magic abilities.) It was believed by most that that was why he hated students so much, because he was jealous of them. Almost as bad as him was his many ugly gray cats. His old cat Mrs. Norris had died a long time ago and now all of her grandcats wander the castle looking for rule breakers.

Rose felt her robe pocket growing warm. She pulled from it, her silver hand mirror. She ran up the staircase to her right and down a long hallway. Each door had numbers starting from seven and working their way down, odd numbers on the left side of the hall, till finally she arrived at the ones. There were four doors with the number one, she scanned the doors which all had names on them until the name, 'Rose Weasley' showed up on the door at the very and of the passageway. The mirror was becoming hot now, she swung the door open and plopped herself down in an armchair by the window. And pulled the mirror from her pocket and waved her hand across the glass, it rippled and Al's face appeared on it.

"Al?" Said Rose. "How are you? Are you alright?"

"I don't know." He said. "Rose it happened, Rose I'm a Slytherin." And he held up a green tie with silver stripes.

"Okay, what did the hat say to you?" She asked.

"Well, it was talking about proving myself, not giving up, being strong and hardworking. For a moment I thought it was going to put me in Hufflepuff. It gave me different reasons why I would be good in different houses. But during the last minuet it just thought and talked to itself, as if it was trying to convince itself of something. It kept saying things like interesting, curious, well that's odd, an odd case, well I suppose. But than right before it called out my house, it said to me, 'Be strong, I know what I'm doing.'" Al finished saying. There was a silence.

"So this defiantly wasn't a mistake." Rose said.

"How's James taking it?" Asked Al.

"Not well." Rose replied. "We got into a bit of an argument so we're not on speaking terms at the moment."

"Rose." Said Al in the same tone that her mom used when she was trying to reason with her. "James is probably having a harder time with this than I am. You need to be there for him." Rose looked away. She was still angry with him.

"Who are you rooming with?" She asked.

"Scorpius!" He said excitedly. "He's been real helpful so far. Also someone called Alac Mishpetsie, Ethan Holac, and Quin Bryan. You?"

"Umm," She got up and opened her door to read the list on the outside. "There's a Pamela Potent, Danielle Daniels, Alexis Micherl, and, oh I can't pronounce that, I think its... Sydrick-wolfred-marybeth... I think, Sydrickwolfredmarybeth Pye... wow, that poor girl."

"I wanna see your room. Dads told me about it. Does it really have a view of the mountains?" Rose walked over to the window.

"Umm, no. I see the black lake. Maybe the view is different for the boys. But look." She faced the mirror opposite from herself. "See, there are five beds, two armchairs, umm, one table, oh no, two tables. Red curtains, I think I like this bed best," And she took her robe off to place it on the bed closest to the window. "... lets see," She walked to the bathroom and swung the door open. "Oh! This is actually pretty nice." Their were four stalls, two showers, two sinks, and one long counter top and mirror.

"What's your view?" She asked turning the mirror back to herself. Al's face split into a grin, "Okay this is kinda cool." He said facing the mirror to the window. "We're under the black lake!"

"No way!" Rose said amazed. She saw the murky green of the lake from the window. Then she saw a great shadow pass the window. "Is that?"

"Yep." Said Al. "The giant squid! That's why everything in the Slytherin common room looks green. Because of the lake. Yes I wish it was a bit brighter, but everything is dark because we don't get any sunlight and everything is light by torches."

He turned the mirror around to show the rest of the room. There was five beds, all in different spots than the Gryffindors, two green lounge chairs, the flour seemed to be made of marble, in the center of the room was a small fountain, the walls were smooth stone, on one side of the room were three very large windows that took up most of the wall, through them, she could see the lake ground, heavy emerald drapes were cast beside each window, torches were light all around the room, above on the ceiling was a silver chandler, there were five dresser drawers and the water from outside gave the room a cool sort of ghostly ripple. The Slytherin dormitory wasn't an any way cozy or warm looking, but it was magnificently elegant.

The door swung open and Scorpius walked in.

"There you are," He said, "I was looking for- whats that?"

He asked looking at the mirror in Al's hand.

"Is that Rose? Why do you have a picture of Rose on that mirror? That's not the best picture though," He continued, "Her hair is kinda all over the place and from this angle she kinds looks dead."

"Hi Scorpius..." Said Rose.

"Oh! That's not..."

Al turned over laughing.

"No Scorpius, this is not a picture."

"Oh... well, that's a really cool mirror."

Rose heard footsteps coming toward her door.

"Alright I should go, someones coming."She said. "Goodnight Al. You too Scorpius."

Both boys smiled and the mirror showed her own reflection again. "I do look dead from this angle." She thought.

She smiled thinking about Al and was just glad that he wasn't crying in a corner.

The door swung open and two girls walked in. One of them had long strait black hair and bright blue eyes, the other curly brown hair and green eyes Rose recognized this girl as the germaphobe. They stopped when they saw Rose.

"Oh, hello." Said the brown headed one. But the blue eyed girl wasted no time in grasping Rose's hand and shaking it enthusiastically.

"Hi! Its nice to meet you! My name is the one that no one can pronounce."

"Oh," Said Rose, "Your Sydrick-wolllll-"

"-wolfredmarybeth." Finished the girl. "I know its weird, Sydrick was my dad, Molfred was my grandad, Mary was my mom, and Beth was my third cousins best friend, but you guys can call me Mary."

"I'm Alexis." Said the other girl.

"Hi, I'm Rose Weasley." She said.

Mary gaped at her,

"You mean like the Weasley? Like Ron Weasley?"

"Yeah," Said Rose. "He's my dad."

"Really?" Asked Mary in awe.

"Must be." Said Alexis. "Look at her hair, it only makes sense. But that would mean Hermione Granger is your mom. She was a huge role model for me. I'm muggle born too and have looked up to her. I've never thrown away one of her chocolate frog cards, I only have three, but I'll never throw one away."

The door swung open again to revel a girl with strait blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She walked in confidently and threw her robes off and onto an empty bed, then she spun around abruptly and shot her hand out in front of her facing the other girls. Rose had to take a few steps to reach it. As soon as she grasped the girls hand, the girl spoke.

"My name is Pamela. And you all?"

"Oh," Said Rose and she released the girls hand. "My name is Rose, and this is Mary and Alexis."

The last girl walked into the room.

"And this must be Danielle."

Chapter 5.

A Day Off

Al woke the next morning, laying horizontally across the top of his four poster bed. Scorpius was fast asleep next to him. Scorpius and Al had stayed up so late the night before talking that they must have dosed off where they were sitting. Al looked out the window to see if the sun was out yet but saw nothing but the murky lake water outside. He had no idea what time it was. He looked around the room to see everyone else fast asleep. Al looked over at something glowing next to him. Scorpius' wrist watch was emitting a beautiful purple/blue glow. But it wasn't a watch, there were no numbers or hands. It did however have tiny pictures of the sun and moon circling the face. Al grabbed Scorpius' wrist to get a better look.

"Its a daylight dali." Said a tired voice next to him.

"Its a what?" Asked Al.

Scorpius sat up sleepily.

"A daylight dali." He repeated. "It lets me no where the sun is. Dad gave it to me because he knew I wouldn't be able to tell the time from down here. See?" He pointed at one of the suns. "That one is highlighted. That means the sun is just about to rise. The color, the purple and blue, shows what color the sky is outside. See? Its changing, its turning red."

"Alright come on, we're awake and breakfast is almost ready." Said Scorpius looking at his daylight dali.

They dressed into there new Slytherin robes, packed their book bags with the subjects they'll need for that day. Grabbed there wands and headed out. The common room was deserted and seemed rather eerie. As they made their way through the corridors leading to the great hall everything there seemed deserted too. They were apparently the first ones up. Or maybe they weren't supposed to be up. Al thought.

There were an awful lot of stairs in front of them. Every time he thought they were almost there, another staircase seemed to appear before them. It didn't seem as many when they were heading to their common room the night before, but than again, they were going down stairs that time.

Finally they emerged from the thirteenth staircase and ended up in a hallway which led them to the door to the great hall. But to their surprise there was someone else sitting at one of the tables.

"Rose!" Cried Al.

She turned around and ran to them.

"Al!" She said embracing him. "Scorpius!" She said, also embracing him in a group hug. "I knew Al normally woke up early. I figured he'd come down early." She took a seat at the Slytherin table with Scorpius and Al.

"How'd you both sleep?" She asked, mainly to Al though.

"Oh I slept great!" Said Al. "Once we did get to sleep, we were up half the night. You?"

"Oh it was fine once I did get to sleep. This girl named Mary wouldn't shut up! She's nice enough but my god!"

The table suddenly bore all kinds of food before them, bacon, grits, toast, eggs and corn flakes. Goblets also appeared with pints of pumpkin juice. They all dug in talking and laughing. A few Slytherins looked confused to see Rose at their table but sat anyway.

"Rose?" Said Al later. "You don't even have a bird." He pulled from her red hair a large brown feather.

"Agh!" Said Rose, "Mary's owl! She refuses to lock it up and its seemed to have bonded with me!" Scorpius let out a laugh. "No I'm serious! It slept on my pillow half the night nibbling on my hair! I finally had to throw it out the window."

"There's another one." Said Scorpius reaching across the table and pulling another smaller feather from her hair.

"Does this bird mulch badly?" Al asked pulling yet another feather from her hair.

The rest of breakfast was spent with Scorpius and Al de-feathering Rose and cracking stupid jokes about it.

A little while later their conversation was interrupted by a loud screeching and hundreds of owls began swooping down from the high window. Packages and letters fell from the sky in front of whoever they were addressed to.

A letter fell in front of Rose and Al, and small package landed in front of Scorpius. He tore it open quickly.

"Another daylight dali?" He said, pulling a wrist watch who's face was bright blue now.

He took a note from the inside of the paper,

"I'm not sure weather or not your father gave you one yet. So here you go just in case. Congratulations on making it into Slytherin sweetheart,

Love, Mommy."

"Oh." Said Scorpius, slipping the note into his pocket. "You can have this one Al. Seeing I've already got one." Al took the watch.

"Thanks..." He said. "How did your mom know that you were in Slytherin?

"The school sends an owl to each students house, telling them the results of the sorting."

Rose answered. "Mom told me."

"So that means..." He looked down at his letter.

"Oh come on Al." Said Scorpius. "Open it. They can't be upset at you."

Al tore open the letter cautiously and discovered his mothers neat handwriting.

"Hello James-

"James?" Said Al turning the letter over. "Oh this isn't addressed to me." He looked up and saw his brother holding up a letter for Al to see.

Al stood up and made his way to the Gryffindor table, still holding the wrong letter.

"Hey..." Al said, once he arrived right before James.

"Hey Al. This it yours." James handed Al the other letter that was addressed to him, this one with his fathers neat scrawl.

"Look Al," James started. "I'm sorry. Really I never meant-"

"Its alright." Al interrupted. "Its really not that bad."

He was about to walk away but remembered, "James, please take it easy on Rose."

"I'm not speaking to her until she apologizes." James replied stubbornly.

"Well she won't." Said Al. "At least not until you apologize to me and Scorpius, and since you've already said sorry to me, all you have left is Scorpius... And I'd expect Rose'll probably want you to apologize to her too."

"I'm not doing that." Said James. "Maybe I'll say sorry to the Malfoy boy. But definitely not to her."

"If you're really okay with me being in Slytherin, than you wouldn't have this problem. Good morning James."

He walked back to the Slytherin table and sat beside Scorpius.

The letter that James had exchanged was written in black ink, and this time said,

"Goodmorining Albus,

I miss you already, Lily misses you most probably. She keeps saying, "I want Al." She burst into tears yesterday after we got home because she remembered that you wouldn't be there to tell her you stories at night.

I know you're going to be an incredible wizard, you have your mom's natural talent for charms. I thought about when you made that toad tap dance for Lily on her birthday last year, and without a wand. Hopefully you'll be better at potions than either of us were though. But no pressure.

I know you'll be great! You've always had so much determination and strong will.

But I need you to be strong. And send me and your mom an owl whenever you get a chance, I want to know how your first day went. -Dad

Al starred at the letter for a little while. Dad had mentioned nothing about the sorting. "Are you sure our parents get an owl the night of?" He asked Rose.

"That's what I was told." She replied. "And obviously Scorpius' mom knew. Why?"

"Well dad didn't mention anything about my being in Slytherin."

"Well maybe its not a big deal to him." Suggested Scorpius.

"What do we do after breakfast?" Asked Rose. "I mean normally we'd start classes the day after the banquet, but its Saturday isn't it? What are we suppose to do?"

They thought for a moment.

"Well I suppose we can have a look around the castle." Suggested Scorpius.

"I want to visit Hagrid." Said Al. "Before we do anything else."

"Yeah." Rose said. "Yeah we should do that."

"Whose Hagrid?" Asked Scorpius.

"The Hogwarts games keeper and the care of magical creatures teacher." Replied Al.

Scorpius still looked confused as to why they would want to visit one of the teachers.

"He's the giant guy that brought us to the castle." Said Rose, "He's a friend of ours."

"Alright," Said Scorpius. "I'm done. Why don't we go now?"

They got up from the table and made their way through the entrance hall. And out the oak front doors, and onto the grounds. It was a warm, sort of pleasant day.

Their cloaks however, made them hot.

They arrived at the top of a hill and looked down. Hagrid's cabin was very small at the bottom of a very large hill and was located aside the forbidden forest.

So they began their decline. They arrived at the cabin fifteen minuets later.

Al knocked on the door. But know one answered. He knocked again, still no answer.

"Well he wasn't expecting us today." Said Rose. "He may not be here."

Al looked around the grounds to see if he was working.

"Well the doors unlocked." Said Scorpius pushing the door open.

They let themselves in the tiny cabin.

Rose had never been in Hagrid's home before, but now that she looked around she noticed how truly small it was. It was a one room cabin with a ginormous bed in one corner and a fireplace in the other. Sun shone through the windows which illuminated the dusty room.

"We might as well stay till he gets back." Suggested Al.

Rose and Scorpius took to sitting in a great armchair big enough for both of them. Al however, busied himself with tea.

In a moment they were sitting in the armchair, Al on the arm, drinking tea and discussing various items at Hagrid's.

Time passed, and still no Hagrid. They had run out of topics from things hanging from Hagrid's ceiling.

"We should go look for him." Said Rose after about an hour since they got there.

They agreed and stepped out back onto the grounds. They marched away from the cabin and began their trip.

All the way around to the greenhouses. Their were four very large ones. Al peered into greenhouse four, and spotted the the back of the Herbology Professor Longbottom having a furious fight with a giant red, spiky plant that looked like it was trying to grab the Professor.

"Its best to leave them at it." Said Scorpius grabbing Al's arm and taking him away from the window, which was a good thing because just then a long red vine smashed through the window right where he had been standing.

They went around the black lake, and got distracted by the beautifully flat stones and spent about a half hour skipping them, Rose and Al trying to teach Scorpius who had never done it before. He finally made a triple skip when they remembered that they were looking for Hagrid.

They ended up at a dead end. They stood in front of an old stone wall covered in vines. So they made their way back to Hagrids in hope that he might have returned by now.

But still, he was absent. So they took to looking around his gardens. Scorpius stopped in front of the forest.

"What do you thinks in there anyway?" He asked.

Rose and Al joined him.

"Centaurs," Said Al. "Unicorn, thestrals, werewolves maybe."

"And acromantula." Rose reminded him.

"Oh yeah there's that too. And their may be a wild Ford Angular somewhere in there."

"Well if that's the case," Said Scorpius, "I undersand why its forbidden."

Scorpius suddenly had a small smile.

"How far do you think I can make it?" He asked slyly.

"Make what?" Asked Rose Suspiciously.

Scorpius took a few steps forward, than one large step into the forest.

"Scorpius!" Barked Rose. "Get out of there!"

"Oh come on Rose." Scorpius pleaded. "I'm bored! Its just a step."

"Al, tell him he's being ridiculous!" Rose demanded. "Al!"

Al had just walked forward, and took one step past Scorpius.

"Come on Rose!" Said Al. "Its not far."

"Its Forbidden!" She scolded.

"And your a Gryffindor." Said Scorpius, "Please, can't even manage a step."

Rose knew they were trying to push her buttons. But even so, she walked forward, took one step in, then back out again.

"There." She said. "Now I can say I've been in the forbidden forest."

She reached in and pulled the boys out by their ties.

"Ow Rose!" Said Scorpius fixing his tie.

"Really Rose," Said Al. "You're just like your mom."

"Good!" She said. "She had some sense. Your both so stupid."

"What'r you lot doin' here?" Came a booming voice from behind them.

Scorpius and Al spun around. It was Hagrid, coming toward them from the forest.

"You weren't thinkin' bout goin in there were you?" He asked.

"No." Said Rose, "Hagrid where were you? We've been looking for ages."

"Well I've been on a walk with Growp."

Rose knew that Growp was Hagrids, full giant, half brother.

"Ohh!" Said Al. "Can we visit him?"

"Uhhh, No." Said Hagrid. "He's just retired to his cave."

"Hagrid?" Said Rose. "Why don't you just build Growp a house beside yours?"

"I did." Hagrid replied. "But he didn't like it much. Preferred his cave. So we took it down. How bout comin in for a cup of tea."

They all entered his cabin, which was made more cramped now that Hagrid joined them. In a moment they had resumed their original seats with more tea and some treacle fudge.

"Hagrid brings fudge every Christmas. You have to such on it a bit before you try to chew." Rose whispered to Scorpius right as he stuck it in his mouth. "Otherwise it'll glue your jaw shut."

"To late..." Murmured Scorpius through clinched teeth.

Al choked a little bit on his tea.

"So who's this?" Asked Hagrid addressing Scorpius.

Scorpius looked up, still unable to talk through a locked jaw.

"This is Scorpius Malfoy." Answered Al.

"So you made friends with a Malfoy?" Said Hagrid amused. "Quite unlike your parents before you. But I can't say I'm as surprised now as I was at the sorting. Albus Potter a Slytherin." He turned back toward Scorpius, "Firs' year at Hogwarts I see. How'r you enjoying it?"

Scorpius, mouth still stuck, gave a thumbs up.

"A lot quieter than your dad aren't you?"

"Scorpius gave an unconvincing smile and nod. Apparently the fudge was really starting to hurt.

"Oh," Said Al. "No, He just ate to much fudge."

"Awe," Said Hagrid knowingly. "Good isn't it? I wouldn't eat to much though, its a bit heavy on the stomach." He patted his great stomach with a chuckle.

"No Hagrid," Al tried again. "No, I mean his jaws is stuck together."

"You're suppose to suck on it first. Didn't you know?" Hagrid replied.

"No..." Scorpius muttered flatly.

"Hagrid can't you unstick it?" Asked Rose.

"Well I can, of course I can," Hagrid replied. "But I can't guarantee some of his teeth won't come out with the fudge."

Scorpius quickly shook his head from side to side.

A little while later the conversation was skiing across the subject of Hagrids past injuries with magical beasts when a loud,

"DEAR MOTHER OF MERLIN!" Broke Hagrid's detailed description of a particular gruesome burn he had gotten from a scroot.

Scorpius was holding his mouth, red faced. He lowered his hands to say,

"Unstuck."

Albus and Rose roared with laughter.

About another hour later the sky was growing dark, and they decided to set off with the promise to visit him Friday after James had left, they had told Hagrid about their dispute.

"What I don't understand," Panted Scorpius as they made their way back up the steep hill back toward the castle, "is how in the world Hagrid manages to hike up and down this mountain multiple times a day."

"Longer legs?" Suggested Rose, also panting.

They had missed dinner, which Rose and Al were bummed about, but Scorpius seemed pleased considering they were having fish and he hated seafood.

But they did make it for dessert, which was delicious.

Scorpius and Al accompanied Rose to the portrait of the fat lady where they bid goodnight, and with a,

"Pologia-mephmorphis." The portrait which shut behind her.

The fat lady looked suspiciously at Al and Scorpius as they walked away.

They made their decent down into the dungeons.

And stopped before a blank stone wall.

"Ambition." Said Al and a doorway hidden in the wall slid open to emit them. The Slytherin common room was light by torches and green glass bobbles handing from a giant dome ceiling by chains. Their were black leather couches and chairs, fur rugs, and a giant magnificent fireplace with a serpent head above it. Their were also many tables and chairs, and a banister around the entire room.

Al and Scorpius join a couple of other student at a round table near the back of the room. Al grabs a spare bit of parchment from the table and a quill from a tiny cauldron, dips it in some ink and begins to write.

"What are you writing?" Scorpius asked.

"I'm writing to my parents about my first day." He replied.

"Oh, Yeah I should write too." And Scorpius also took parchment and quill, and began to write.

After a little while, Scorpius an Al fold their letters, walk all the way to the owlery, which wasn't a quick stroll considering the Slytherin common room is under ground and the owlery is in one of the highest towers at Hogwarts. But they made it panting, tied their letters onto a couple of the school owls which took off out of the tower, in two different directions, and out of sight. The boys made their way back down and to bed.

Scorpius' owl had flown many miles, and into the morning. Finally arriving at a large house to 'peck, peck, peck.' at the living room window. A pretty brunette woman slid the door open, removed the letter, and stroked the birds feathers before it flew off.

She opened the letter, read it, and smiled.

"Draco dear!" She called walking into the dining room where her husband was sitting, doing paperwork.

"Yes?" He replied not looking up.

"Scorpius wrote us."

Her husband looked at the letter in her hand.

"I think you'll find it interesting."

She handed him the letter which he opened and began to read.

"Dear mom and dad,

I really like Hogwarts so far, of course I haven't had any classes yet.

I really like our Slytherin common room, though, the marble floors are very cold in the morning. I have to put on my shoes before I step out of bed. And I do wish everything wasn't so dark.

Thank for the daylight dali too, you're right I can't see a thing down here.

I think you'd be pleased to know I've made a couple friends, ones a Gryffindor which I think is kind of funny.

I met both Albus Potter and Rose Weasley on the Hogwarts express.

They are really good friends. Since there was no class today, the three of us explored the grounds. Dad, they taught me how to skip stones! I made a triple skip! I can show you when I get home.

We spent the rest of the day with Professor Hagrid. He's nice, but not the best cook. His fudge made my teeth stick together, I had a job getting them back open.

I think we're probably going to explore the castle tomorrow, Al was telling me about a secret room called 'the room of requirement' I really want to visit.

We missed super in the great hall which was fine because they were having fish and of course you know I'm allergic.

Anyway I miss you both. Oh! And I think you'd also be interested to learn that Albus Potter was sorted into Slytherin. A Potter in Slytherin.

-Scorpius."

Draco put the letter down and looked at his wife.

"What in the name of-"

But many miles away. Al's dark haired, scared forehead, glasses wearing dad and pretty red haired mom were bending over the other letter. Both with blank expressions.

"Ginny dear?" Said her husband not removing his eyes from the letter.

"Yes?" She replied still gazing at the note.

"Do you think we should tell Ron?"

"No." She replied.

"Let Rosie tell him?" He asked.

"Yup..."

They looked at each other and began to laugh.

Chapter 6.

The First Day.

Rose woke the next morning painfully. She turned in her four poster bed to see was that stabbing pain was. And on her pillow was Mary's bloody owl! Rose stood up angrily, grabbed the owl, and threw it out the window where it screeched indignity and flew away.

"Better not let Mary see you do that." Said a tired voice. It was Danielle. "She won't like it much."

"I don't give a crap what Mary thinks." Said Rose angrily. "If she refuses to lock that bird away she shouldn't expect anything less than for someone to throw it from a window."

"It's already seven, I'm going for breakfast." Said Rose.

And she slipped on her uniform, brushed her hair and teeth and made for the great hall.

She got there to find the great hall already quite full of students. But there was no sign of Al or Scorpius at the Slytherin table.

So she joined her other classmates with the Gryffindors.

She looked up to see Vladimir, the metamorphmagus Gryffindor across from her.

"You know my cousin is half metamorphmagus." She said addressing the boy, who's hair was a violent shade of orange.

"Yeah?" He replied looking up, and she noticed that he had small freckles across his nose and purple eyes. "What can he do?"

"Everything."

"I have trouble changing my height." He said through a mouth full of toast. "I'm Maddox." And he stretched out if hand.

"I thought your name was Vladimir." She said confused.

"Oh, well it is. But I go by Maddox. Its my middle name see? And I prefer it."

"Oh well, I'm Rose." She replied taking his hand.

"Yeah?" His hair turned her same shade of red. She laughed. "Look, I don't mean to be nosie, but I've seen you hanging out with a couple of Slytherins, what's that about?"

"One of them is my cousin, and the other is my friend." She replied.

"Its just, one of the boys in my dormitory told me that we shouldn't become friendly with Slytherins."

"Yeah," Said Rose flatly. "A lot of people seem to have that idea. I heard you say at the start of term banquet that your mom was a Slytherin."

"Yeah, she was." He replied. "I'm not prejudice. No, I was just wondering why, because the other first year Gryffindors don't seem to fond of them. I just didn't no weather to be at all cautious, my mom wasn't one of the sweetest people in the world."

"Wasn't?" Asked Rose.

"Yeah she, its not a big deal, its just, she walked out on us."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Said Rose becoming awkward.

"Nah," He said brushing his medium length hair from his face, and Rose noticed that he also had pointed ears.

A moment later, there was a rush of footsteps behind her, and Al and Scorpius sat beside her at the Gryffindor table.

"What took you guys so long?" She asked as the boys started gobbling up eggs with wet hair.

"Scorpius was hogging the showers." Said Al.

"Why didn't you use the other one Al?" Rose asked.

"The boys dormitories only have one shower." Said Al. "It seems they think we don't bath as often."

"Alright. This is Max... Can I call you Max?" Asked Rose.

"Sure." He shrugged.

"Okay, this is Scorpius, and my cousin Al."

Max reached out a hand and shook theirs.

"Why do all the red heads seem to be in Gryffindor?" Asked Scorpius.

"I'm not really a red head." He said, turning his hair back to orange.

"Oh," Said Al. "You're a metamorphmagus, my cousin's one of those."

"Look, Rose," Said Scorpius moving closer, "I really want to see the room of requirement, but Al doesn't remember how to get in."

"You walk past the wall on the seventh floor across from the picture of that dude getting beat up by trolls, three times, thinking hard of what you need, and it'll open." Said Max not looking up from his newspaper.

The three just starred at him. He looked up.

"What? My dad was a Hufflepuff, he knew most of the castles secrets. But you shouldn't spend to much time in the room of requirement. I can show you something real interesting after I finish the paper."

A spark of curiosity twinged in Rose. And with a look at Scor and Al, they had it too.

"What interesting thing?" Asked Rose curiously.

But Maddox didn't answer. He did however, reveal a small smirk on his face.

A few minuets later Max dropped the newspaper, 'The Daily Prophet' on the table and said, "Alright come on." He swung his tie over his shoulder and got up from the table confidently, Scor, Rose, and Al followed.

He led them out the oak front doors and onto the grounds. They walked for a while, Max still not talking. Rose was starting to think that this wasn't such a good idea. She had just met him, and now she was allowing him to lead her mysteriously away from the castle. But than she thought, he's still only in first year, what can he really do? Sure he was a far few inches taller than her, but he was rather skinny, and Scor, Al, and herself would have no problem against him.

They stopped in front of the same ivy covered stone wall that they had come to the day before when they had been looking for Hagrid.

"Where are you supposed to be bringing us?" Al asked.

Max looked at the wall intently for a moment, then said,

"Alright guys, start looking for a nob or handle or something behind the ivy."

They all started feeling across the wall.

"My dad told me he could see it from his dormitory window." Said Max.

"What from his window? Maddox where are you taking us?" Rose asked.

"Oh!" Said Scorpius, "I think! Yup."

Max ran over there and brushed the ivy away to reveal an old curly handle.

"Alohormora!" Said Max pointing his wand at the handle.

The door swung open, and when Max moved away, Rose saw the most beautiful, majestic, and quite literally, magical garden she had ever seen. House elfs were all around the garden, sorting through vegetables.

House elfs are waist tall, big eared, slightly ugly creatures that serve as slaves for large mansions or buildings. Rose's mom had worked temporally in the, 'Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures' office at the Ministry of Magic. She had fought for the rights of house elfs, trying to get them proper wages for their work. But her mom had told her that the house elfs at Hogwarts had refused such benefits.

"When did you find this?" Asked Rose in awe.

"Just now." Max replied. "My dad had told me about it. See that window up there?" He pointed to a row of round windows in the stone.

"That's where the Hufflepuff common rooms are. Dad said he could see the garden from his room so I'd expect it would have been one of those." He pointed at the two windows at the end of the the row.

"Are we allowed to go in?" Al asked.

"Well we were never told not to." Max whispered walking in. "Shut the door behind you won't you Scorpius? That's the thing about Hufflepuff's," He continued. "the teachers never seem to keep the same kind of tabs on Hufflepuff as they do on the other houses. They seem to think they can trust them or something. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed I wasn't in Hufflepuff. You have no idea how much dad got away with."

The garden was more like a large meadow, with soft grass and wild flowers. On either side of the scrambled stone path they were following, were enormous rows of every type of vegetables imaginable. Rose didn't even know there was a such thing as blue tomatoes.

Funny enough, the house elfs didn't seem bothered at all by them being there. In fact they would glance at them, smile and continue working.

As they walked further, they ended up in an orchard. All sorts of trees surrounded them. Even tropical ones such as coconut, banana, and cocoa bean trees. In the distance they spotted a large pumpkin patch. They ran toward it, which brought them to a large wooden mine looking building. Inside looked kind of like a winery. There were several large wooden barrels, which were all spinning and shaking madly. Whole pumpkins were floating upward and into them one by one. There were several different tubes coming from the spinning machine, from one tube came seeds, pumpkin peeling, and stem, and from the other came a thick frothy orange liquid which ended up in large metal buckets. The buckets were carries down a stair case and out of sight. House elfs were directing the floating pumpkins into the barrels, other were carrying them in and placing them into piles.

"Excuse me?" Al said to one of them. "But what are you doing?"

"Us?" Asked the elf surprised, it spoke in a very squeaky voice. "Well we're making pumpkin juice of course."

"You mean you actually make fresh pumpkin juice every day?" Asked Rose.

The elf turned toward her.

"Of course!" It said. "We don't serve our masters yesterdays beverage."

"Oh," She said. "Well thank you."

The house elf smiled, and they continued down a wooden staircase.

It led them into the kitchens. Hundreds of house elfs were busy in this area. Ovens as big as small elephants stretched across en entire wall.

"I wonder," Said Scorpius quietly. "how many elfs have died by falling into- hph!"

Rose elbowed him in the stomach.

"That's a horrible thing to say."

There were four long tables in the center of the room spaced out exactly where the four house tables were.

"Looks like we're having tacos for lunch." Said Max.

They left the kitchens and ended up spending the next couple hours still exploring. They came across all kinds of nut trees. They decided to stay clear of the chestnut area, Max had pointed out that the chestnut protective shell was very sharp, and its barbs would stick into their shoes.

Rose learned that Hogwarts also made homemade peanut butter, jam, butter, apple butter, milk, ice cream, chocolates, and bread. Rose didn't know what she had expected, but her family normally just bought their food from the grocery store. She guessed she had kinda thought that Hogwarts did the same.

They roamed until, around lunch time, when they decided they'd take refuge in the orchard and eat from the trees there. They kicked their shoes off so that they could feel the soft grass beneath their feet. And spent most of the evening there talking and eating.

A peach had fallen from the tree above and landed between her and Max.

"Don't eat that yet Rose!" Said Scorpius. He pulled out his wand and said, "Scourgify." The peach blew up her hand. "...Well that didn't work..."

"That's alright Scor," She said picking another off the ground. "I'll use my skirt to clean it."

They watched the house elfs picking the fruit from the trees. Some were using ladders, but others had to stand on each others shoulders. There were one group that had a stack of three elfs to reach the oranges.

Al had tried to help them, but when he asked, another elf came rushing toward him, shoved a plum in his hand, and have him sit back down. Scorpius and Max laughed.

"Its a matter of pride Al." Said Rose. "They don't want help."

They laid back in the grass and listened to the elfs gossip, "Did you hear?" They would say, "Quincy, she was bit by a giant roach! Yes! And the gnome division is having quite a task with them lately, keep trying to eat up the grapes!"

They laid their till they could see stars out.

"Look." Said Maddox pointing up into the sky. "Its Scorpius."

"Its what?"

"The constellation Scorpius. You see, those stars there make the claws, that one makes the tail... Don't you see it?"

They turned their heads to the left.

"No." Said Rose.

"Oh..." Max said. "Well that's a pity, its really cool."

"I wonder how many students know about this place." Thought Rose.

"Only the Hufflepuffs that live in those dormitories. And whoever else they had told."

"But the quidditch pitch isn't far from here. If the players got high enough, surly they would see it." Said Rose.

"No," Said Al. "From above it looks like a large greenhouse."

"How do you know?" Asked Rose.

"Its in 'Hogwarts a History'. Haven't you read it?" Said Maddox.

"No." She replied.

"Well you should." Said Al. "It has a lot of important information. It mentioned the gardens, but it never said where on the grounds it was, or how to get in. I don't think they wanted to many students to find out."

…...

"I'm cold..." Scorpius finally voiced what they all were thinking.

Al walked to one of the elfs, and they noticed that there were much fewer than had bee an hour before, "What's the time?" He asked.

"Emmer!" Called the elf in a slightly more rough voice, "Master wants to know what time it is."

"Its ten-o-three!" Emmer called back.

"It ten-o-three young master." Said the elf.

"Thanks." Al muttered in panic.

"We're suppose to be in our common room by nine-thirty!" Scorpius gasped.

They sprinted out of there as fast as they possibly could. But the more they ran, the further the castle seemed to be, not ti mention they were running up the ginormous hill. The castle was now in sight looming above them in a frightening way.

"Please for the love of god let the doors not be locked." Rose muttered as they neared the oak front doors, and to her utter astonishment, the door swung open when Scorpius and Maddox pushed.

They bolted into the entrance hall, Al and Scorpius split for the Slytherin common room and Maddox and Rose had to hurry up the stone steps.

It was very dark and they had trouble seeing anything, twice, she had trodden on Max's foot. They were extremely out of breath, and as they covered their fourth flight of stairs, Rose heard an odd choking noise from behind her. She tried slowed down to turn and see what it was, but before she could, a hand grabbed her collar and she made that same choking noise.

The hand spun her around aggressively to face its owner, her stomach dropped.

It was Filtch the caretaker. He had Maddox by the tie and her by the back of the shirt. He was probably the worse person to catch them at this moment, he was known for having no mercy, and pleading was not a language he understood. He was very old, how he was strong enough to hold both her and Maddox at the same time was beyond her, specially considering Maddox was putting up quite a fight.

"Well," He said in his old wheezy voice. "Well two catches in the first two days. Tututu." He tutted sarcastically, a grin spreading across his face revealing yellow teeth.

He began walking in the opposite direction as they had been heading. Maddox continued to fight and pull away, but Filtch would pull his tie tighter and cause Max to choke, he ended up having to quit fighting in fear of death by strangling.

"Professor Dalbert's office is closest I think." Wheezed Fitch, "We'll pay him a visit shall we."

It was difficult having to walk a strait line considering Filtch had grabbed a large chunk of her hair with her collar which was very uncomfortable.

"I was just heading down to lock the doors," He said, "I had forgotten, good thing too, I would have missed this catch."

"We're not animals, so stop calling us a catch will you?" Said Max angrily, his hair was turning crimson as was his eyes.

"You shut up!" Barked Filtch pulling Max's tie and causing him to choke again, Rose now felt her ears getting hot. "Your in enough trouble as it is."

Honestly, Rose thought, how has this guy lasted this long? Why haven't Hogwarts sacked him already?

They ended up walking through a door with a sign above it saying, 'Defence Against the Dark Arts.'

So Professor Dalbert was the D.A.D teacher.

They were lead across the classroom and to a door at the other end.

'Bang, Bang, Bang!' Fitch knocked. A moment later Professor Dalbert appeared in the doorway in a black dressing gown and looking tired.

"Filtch?" He said, "What's this about?"

"Students out of bed, two of them." He replied, "Quite a lucky catch."

Dalbert looked down at them confused,

"On the second day?" He said. "Hold on." Dalbert walked from the doorway and into the classroom. "Take a seat." He said to Maddox and Rose gesturing toward a couple desk chairs.

Filtch finally let go of them, Maddox rubbed his throat glaring.

"Thank you Filtch you may go." Said Dalbert.

"But P-Professor," Stammered Filtch. "I will need to escort them back to their common room."

"Mr. Filtch," Said Dalbert irritably, "I will not need you to torment these students any longer, you have done your part, you may go."

Filtch looked mutinous as he stormed out. He seemed to have really wanted to see them punished.

"And you two," Said Dalbert pulling out a quill and paper, "What are your names?"

"Rose Weasley." She murmured.

"And you son?" He asked.

"Vladimir Everard." He replied crossing his arms.

"Alright Mr. Everard you can calm down." Said Professor Dalbert, "Your hairs gonna catch fire she color its going. Now, why were you two out of bed?"

"We were in the grounds and lost track of time." Said Rose. Maddox was starring at Dalbert.

"Okay," Dalbert scribbled something on the parchment. "Was there anyone else with you?" He asked not looking up.

Maddox looked down at his feet very quickly. Dalbert seemed to have noticed.

"Miss Weasley?" He said. "Was there anyone else with you?"

"No." She lied, also looking at her feet.

Dalbert sat back in his chair, "Stupid question to ask." He said, "I expect even if there was, you wouldn't tell me. Miss Weasley, Mr Everard, I will have to give you two a detention and I will be writing to your parents. I will also be taking ten points from Gryffindor each."

They both looked up at this, Rose starting to feel very sick.

"It would normally be more," He continued, "but I'm going easy because classes haven't even started yet, so Gryffindor would be negative thirty points."

"Thirty?" Protested Maddox, "No twenty."

"I have already had to take ten points from another Gryffindor for acts of violence." Said Dalbert, "Thirty. Now if you will come with me, I will escort you to your common room."

They got up and left the office.

"Honestly," Said Dalbert as they walked. "I don't know how Filtch still works here. I mean the way he treats you guys. I think the other teachers feel bad for him, considering he's..." Dalbert stopped.

"A squib." Finished Rose.

"Yeah, didn't want to tell you if you didn't already know. Here we are." He said stopping in front of the portrait of the fat lady.

"Pologia-mephmorphis." Said Rose, and the portrait swung open.

Dalbert turned to walk away and Maddox and Rose stepped into the common room.

It was half full of other students who looked at them as they walked in.

"Ohhhh," Said a fifth year girl. "Well somebody's up after dark."

"Rose?" Said her cousin Victoire disapprovingly. Even James looked up.

Maddox ripped off his tie and threw it over a chair and sat down by the fire. Rose sat in the armchair across from him.

"Well that could have been worse." Rose said relieved.

Max looked up at her in disbelief. "We got detention Rose," Said Max. "It was pretty bad." But Rose was distracted by Max's eyes going slowly from red back to purple, it was so cool.

"Rose?" Said Maddox. "What are you starring at?"

"What?" She said blinking and looking at him directly.

"What are you starring at?"

"Oh, sorry." She said.

"I was watching your eyes. They went back to normal. Its really cool."

"Oh." Said Maddox smiling. "Thanks, I can change my hair, but I don't have control over my eyes. They change depending on my mood, which believe me is very inconvenient. I suppose they're purple when I'm chill or relaxed. Well I can sometimes control my hair, but it also changes sometimes depending on my mood."

"Does your eyes change color when you're lying?" She asked.

"No." Max laughed. "Unless I'm under a lot of pressure."

"Oh. I just notice you looked down quickly when Professor Dalbert asked if there was anyone else with us. I thought it might have been because your eyes were changing."

Maddox stopped smiling. "No." He said. "My eyes weren't changing colors."

The atmosphere became suddenly tense and she couldn't understand why.

"But really we did get off easy." She said to break the silence. "My mom, uncle, and another Gryffindor all got fifty points taken away in their first year when they were caught out of bed after hours, and detentions."

Maddox's mouth fell open.

"Fifty points each! That shouldn't be legal. What did they have to go for detention?"

"They had to go into the forbidden forest." She replied.

"What that's it?" He said looking relieved.

"Well they had to go in to find a monster that had been killing unicorns."

His look of relief vanished.

"But that's not the only kind of detention." She said quickly. "My dad had to polish the trophys in the trophy room, he also had to clean hospital pans, my uncle had to go through old records, he had to do some gross things in the potion classroom. But whatever we have, it will most likely be dull work."

Max split to go to bed. His dormitory was at the end of the hall and his door had a brass number one on it.

He walked in to see two of his other classmates already in their beds.

"Detention." Said a boy with yellow hair. "And on only the second day."

"Shut up Calvert." Maddox replied.

"I heard that Filtch hangs students by their thumbs for detention." The boy called Calvert said.

"Who told you that?" The second boy asked.

"Filtch." Replied the boy.

"That's stupid." Said Maddox.

He laid back in his bed, which was right beside the window, took his quill, parchment and scribbled,

"Dad,

I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. Classes start tomorrow.

Yes, I've made a few friends. Tell Beverly I said 'hi' back.

-Vlad"

He laid back in his four poster bed and had just noticed writing on one of the bed posts; it had been carved into the wood.

He read the largest word, 'Prongs' and smaller around that were the words 'wormtail, padfoot, and moony.'

He woke the next morning feeling distinctly frazzled. He had dreamed that Filtch had hung him in his office by the tie for detention. And Rose had to go into the forbidden forest alone armed with a plastic spoon to tuck a manticore in for bed. And that Filtch had forgotten about him in the office and he was forced to hand there past all his classes. And that one-hundred points were taken from Gryffindor for not showing up for any of them.

It had been a horrible dream. But now that he thought about it, it hadn't much sense at all. For one, he would die if he was hung by his tie, and that would be considered child abuse, no, that defiantly won't be their detention.

He had just noticed a slip of parchment on his bedside table that hadn't been there the night before. He picked it up to discover that his time table had been set out for him. And below that, directions to the classes, which he was really thankful for.

He showered, chose to go with indigo hair today, and made his way downstairs. As usual, he was one of the first up.

The common room wasn't crowded, the early risers had already gone for breakfast and the late risers were still in bed.

Maddox looked around to see if he could find Rose; she came running down the girls staircase a moment later. She was in the middle of putting her hair in a ponytail and had her school bag dangling from her shoulder.

"Morning." She said in a rush as she approached him.

"Good-" He started. "What's wrong?"

But before she could answer, their was a loud piercing scream.

"CROMWELL!" The voice shouted from the girls staircase. "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? ROSE!"

"Oh shoot!" Rose whispered and she tore from the common room; Max ran after her.

"What did you do?" He asked as she hurried down a flight of stairs.

"I didn't mean to." She replied guiltily. "Its Mary's owl. The things a menace, honestly. So I... well I tried to shrink it; it didn't work. The thing ended up sprouting an extra wing from its head."

Maddox snorted with laughter; Rose smiled sheepishly.

They entered the great hall and joined the Gryffindor table where there were a good few already eating. They sat and began buttering toast. She had a new appreciation for breakfast that day, the strawberries, toast, butter and jam. And Rose savored every last drop of pumpkin juice.

Scorpius and Al joined them for breakfast. They still didn't know what had happened the night before.

"Morning." Said AL looking perfectly cheerful. "You won't believe how lucky we got last night." He said. "We almost ran into one of Filtch's cats."

Maddox gave a snort, "Yeah well we ran into the real thing."

"What!" Whispered Scorpius.

"Yup, we were strangle, brought to a teacher and punished." He replied stabbing his eggs with his fork. Scorpius and Al's mouths were open.

"It wasn't that bad, don't exaggerate." Said Rose rolling her eyes. "Filtch caught us probably around the third or fourth staircase, brought us to Professor Dalbert, you know the guy who did the sorting, and he was very reasonable in my opinion. We did get detention, he wrote to our parents, and we got twenty points taken from Gryffindor."

"What?" Said Al looking over at the Gryffindor hourglass, which had absolutely no rubies in it. "That sucks for you guys."

The post arrived just then. Hundreds of owls came swooping down dropping packages and letters upon the students. Two letter fell in front of Rose.

"That'll be the reply about last night." Said Al.

One had her mom's handwriting, and the other had her dad's. She ripped her mom's open and read,

"Rose Weasley,

I am very disappointed in you. Breaking rules on your second day! What a horrible first impression! You haven't even started classes yet! I bet Gryffindor is negative points. And caught with a boy! You're only eleven! What in the world were you doing! I just hope you you two met on the staircase and happened to be caught at the same time! Alone! With a boy! I never would have thought it! I really hope you have a good explanation for this! -Mom

Rose handed the letter to Al to read.

"I can't tell her I wasn't alone, that would give you guys away." She said to Scorpius and Al.

Al handed it to Scorpius, who read it , and gave it to Maddox.

"Oh..." Max said. "That's a problem. What are you going to tell her?"

"I have no idea." She replied taking her dads letter that Al was handing her, this one was longer.

"Rosie,

She read,

Your mom and I got a letter from Professor Dalbert last night about you being out of bed after lights out. I am very disappointed that you were caught breaking rules on only the second day. I thought I would have taught you better, Rosie... you can't get caught. Your mom is writing a letter right now, most likely telling you off. Look, next time your out of bed after hours use the marauders map! James took it from Harry's desk in his first year, you can nip to the boys dormitories and snatch it. But don't sneak out unless you have it. I don't want to 'hear' about you breaking rules again. Be smart about this, detentions are Not fun.

But I did want to touch on the matter of you being caught in the grounds after dark alone WITH A BOY! What on earth were you thinking? It better have been a Gryffindor! I do expect an owl with your explanation! -Sincerely,

Your protective dad"

She handed the letter to Al.

"This one's not as bad." She said.

Maddox stood up from the table. "I have to send a letter," He said and began to walk away.

"ROSE WEASLEY!"

Screamed a familiar voice from the entrance all, nearly the entire great hall turned to see what the noise was.

"Hold up Maddox!" Rose called, " I'll come with you!"

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY OWL!"

Rose slipped the hood of her robe over her noticeable red hair and walked behind Max, right past Mary.

"I think she's part vela." Rose muttered to Maddox. "Just without the drop dead gorgeous part. Her mood changes so violently.

"YOU!" Mary called and walked right up to Scorpius and Al; Rose and Max had already slipped past, and out of the hall. "You guys hang out with her. Where's Rose?"

"Why do you want to know?" Asked Al, scooting away from her.

"She was the last with my owl and now he's ruined!" She shouted.

"It can't be that bad." Said Scorpius reasonably.

Mary pulled a large lump from inside her robes and shoved it toward them. It was her owl, it had what looked like a shriveled wing protruding from the side of its head; its face was looking oddly squashed; however, the bird was hooting merrily and seemed completely cheerful.

"Ugh, get it away from me!" Said Scorpius throwing out his hands.

Mary began to cry.

"Look," Said Al, "go take it to the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, or Madam Pomfrey; they'll fix it up."

Mary stormed from the hall angrily, holding her owl in arm.

"Geez." Said Al turning back toward his bacon.

"Not to be rude," Said a stout fourth year, "But what are you guys doing over here? This is the Gryffindor table."

"We're eating." Replied Scorpius Casually.

"Actually," Said Al, "we're leaving. We're gonna be late for History of Magic."

Al got up, slapped Scorpius on the back, and they both walked swiftly from the hall.

The other Gryffindor watched them leave.

"I like them." Said a sixth year boy.

"I think they're kinda cute." Said a giggly first year.

They just made it into their class room in time to see Professor Binns glide through the black bored. Professor Binns was the only ghost teacher.

It was soon clear that History of Magic was a class not to look forward to. It was extremely boring.

Al could understand that what Professor Binns was saying could be interesting, if he didn't talk in such a drawl as if he was speaking at a funeral. The Ravenclaws were also looking tired and bored. Though as much as he would like to fall asleep right now, he still had his book, notepad and quill and was half heartedly taking notes on the centaur qualification of 1669. Because even on his first day, he wanted to be the best wizard that he possibly could be.

"God I hope Herbology will be better." Scorpius was saying as they emerged from History of Magic.

"It will." Al replied. "Professor Longbottom's my godfather, he's pretty cool. And we're having it with the Gryffindors."

Al followed Scorpius out onto the Hogwarts grounds and toward the greenhouses. The ground outside was solid and warm, it was a beautiful day. Al turned around to face the castle while walking backward. It was an amazing sight. The castle towered over them in a intimidating and impressive way. The white puffy clouds seemed to twirl an a halo above.

"Greenhouse one." Said Scorpius, scanning the map in his hand. "Looks like the Gryffindors are already there. Funny, I thought we were early."

But as they grew closer they saw that it wasn't their Gryffindors. In a sudden moment the greenhouse door swung open and all the fifth year Gryffindors and Slytherins came from it almost knocking them over.

"Oh." Said Scorpius. "We are early."

They were the first of they're year to arrive at the greenhouse, and the first to enter. Professor Longbottom, the Herbology professor looked up when they walked in.

"Albus!" He said and strode over to him, and gave Al a fatherly side hug. "I saw the sorting a couple nights ago. I had meant to come visit you guys sooner but I've been a bit tied up here." He said. His voice was rather deep and his grip very strong. "I understand." Said Al thinking of the first day when he had watched Longbottom fighting that giant plant. "Very surprising." Continued the Professor, "But I suppose whats Hogwarts without a few surprises. Oh you must be a Malfoy." He had turned to Scorpius now.

"Umm Scorpius sir." He held out a hand.

Professor Longbottom seemed surprised by this but took the outstretched hand and shook. A large group of Gryffindors and Slytherins made their way into the greenhouse now as well.

"Rose!" Professor Longbottom said gripping her hand when she walked in. "Wonderful to see you."

Professor Longbottom, or Neville. He was tall and broad, he had dark hair a round face and a wide grin.

"Now line up around the table, that's it. Today we will be pruning umple shrubs." Said Longbottom.

The shrub looked as ordinary as anything, the only thing interesting about it was its crescent shaped leafs.

"Can anybody tell me whats special about the umple shrup?" Longbottom asked.

Both Rose's Scorpius' and some other Slytherin girl raised their hands.

"Yes Mr. Malfoy."

"Well the umple shrup or the moonaple catches the rays of moonlight and reflects it back in the morning always emitting a nightly glow to the garden. Some people find it creepy."

Neville opened his mouth to say something but was distracted by Rose's hand that was still up.

"Yes miss Weasley?"

"Scorpius was right, but it also is a key ingredient in the wolfsbane potion. But the plants are greatly disliked by werewolfs because if one were to walk into the glow of the plant, even in the daytime, they're transformation will begin, at least until they walk out of the ray of moonlight."

"Very good!" Said Neville. "You really have inherited your mothers brains. Ten points to Gryffindor and Slytherin for answering my question."

Now that Al looked closer, he did see an eerie glow that the plant was giving off.

"But Professor Longbottom?" Asked a blonde girl. "I don't see any glow."

Neville looked at a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Miss Hoppkins, I want you to look closely at your umple shrub."

She, and most of the class watched the shrub. With a wave of his wand, all the greenhouse windows went dim. The leafs, or petals now that Al felt them, were letting out a silver glow that was actually quite beautiful but made all the students faces look ghostly.

There were "Ooooh's and Ahhh's" Around the room. But with another wave of Longbottoms wand, the windows went completely black, and the shrubs glowed so bright it was giving light easily to the whole room. All the walls and other plants from around the room were drenched in silver light. And in a moment, the windows went back to its original state. And the leaves were now silver.

Professor Longbottom smiled at the look of awe on his students faces.

"And that," He said, "is why today, we will be polishing the petals, that glow was quite feeble."

So the class spent the rest of Herbology using 'Antsy's Pants Plant Polish Solution' and gently polishing each individual petal until they could easily notice the glow in direct sunlight.

"Professor Neville?" Said Al. "How much would it cost to buy a umple shrub seed? And could one grow it themselves?"

"Well the seeds are rather expensive." Neville replied. "Yes someone could grow it themselves as long as they took proper care of it."

"I have some!" Said a gray haired Slytherin boy. "All around our house. Keeps them nasty werewolf away!"

Rose, Al and Scorpius scowled. Neville cleared his throat.

"Mr. Kelpik..." Said Neville calmly. "Just... don't. Not in here." And he began stringing a purple cactus looking plant, a little more aggressively than would be normal. The boy looked confused.

It was common knowledge to Al and Rose that Neville had been friendly with a werewolf named Remus Lupin during the second wizarding war where he was killed. And Remus was also the father of their cousin Teddy, and one of both Rose and Al's uncles was almost a werewolf . But Al couldn't understand why Scorpius seemed angry. Scorpius was rubbing one petal so hard that it broke off the stem. Al supposed it may be because Remus was Scorpius' second uncle...Maybe. But they had never met, and Al knew the Malfoy's were known to be anti werewolf. But than again, Scorpius had proved to, so far not to be a stereotypical Malfoy.

"Rose what in the world did you to that owl?" Asked Al.

Maddox laughed, "She tried to shrink it."

"How did a shrinking charm cause an extra limb?" Al asked in disbelief.

"I think I said the incantation wrong." She said.

"Nah, I think you did it perfectly Rose." Said Scorpius sarcastically. "Honestly, that thing's eye was stretched halfway across its face. I'm telling you, she'll be out for your blood."

The class ended and everyone was now filing out, all smelling strongly of chemicals, one girls spilling half the bottle of 'Antsy's Pants Plant Solution' down the from of her robes. Al turned to walk out with everyone else, but Professor Longbottom called him back. "Uhh, Hold on there a moment Al." He said.

"Yeah?" Al said turning around.

"I would like a word with you." Neville replied.

Al nodded to Scorpius who continued out the greenhouse without him.

"Look, Albus." Said Neville half sitting on the greenhouse table and gesturing to Al to do the same. "I know this must all be very scary for you. you now being a Slytherin."

"Oh!" He said. "Oh, no I'm fine."

"Fine?" Neville replied. "How can you be? Al I know you're being brave but you must not be completely fine."

"Well," Thought Al, "I was scared the first day, and yes I'm slightly nervous about- about my character, you know, most dark wizards being from Slytherin..."

"Look." Neville interrupted. "Slytherin is not what it used to be. It has changed, the house just doesn't host bad kids. After the war, the whole of Hogwarts became united as one. Some of the teachers wanted to just take away the entire sorting and just be one house. But of course the history went to far back than to allow that. Not many people know this, but some of the Slytherin students came back to fight during the battle of Hogwarts. I saw them. Slytherins do have some Gryffindor in them. They care about the school too. Your friend even, umm Scorpius, he should be proof that it has changed. I knew his dad, and we didn't have a friendly relationship, in fact I hated him. But his son seems like a good kid. Al don't worry about this. Your dad was the bravest person I've ever met, and now its your turn to be brave."

Al didn't say anything. He loved Neville as a Godfather, but this talk was making him feel uneasy. He had managed to look past Slytherin's reputation and to some degree accept it. But that speech made him slightly apprehensive. But he looked at Neville and smiled as to not hurt his feelings.

"Here." Said Neville. And he reached deep into the umple plant pot and pulled from it a small seed. "You can't let anyone know I gave this to you." He placed it in Al's hand. "Take care of it. It may add a little light to that common room."

He had to run from the greenhouse to make it to transfiguration, but to his horror he remembered that Scorpius still had the directions. He had no idea where he was going. He made it to the castle and after a bit of frantic searching had to ask directions from a Hufflepuff prefect.

He made it to the transfiguration class room, and in his hurry he flung the door open a lot harder than he had meant. It BANGED open and every head in the room turned to him, including the Professor who was a

"Mr. Potter," Said a plump elderly witch who's curly gray hair was worn completely on the side of her head and had a round patchy

He found transfiguration to be a highly fascinating subject. He was writing her words vigorously with parchment and quill.

They were all handed a bronze knut with the task of turning it into a muggle pence. This part was slightly more dull, because for the next forty-five minuets everyone in class had to wave their wands, speak a incantation, and hope to Merlin that the knut will do something... anything.

By the time the class had ended, Al had managed to change the face on his coin to Elizabeth. He was quite pleased with himself.

Lunch was meatloaf. Scorpius and Al joined Rose who was already sitting at the table. They had to ignore the looks they were getting and the snide remarks from the other Gryffindors they were sitting around.

"When are you guys with us tomorrow?" Scorpius asked before taking a bite of green beans.

"We have defiance against the dark arts tomorrow with the Slytherins." She replied. "Nothing else."

Defense against the dark arts was taught by a wizard called Professor Jilkon Knox. He was a rather lively wizard with striped gray and brown hair. He was very enthusiastic and always seemed excited about his lessons. He would jump around the room waving his wand in the air. They learned about Dutch fairies in the lesson, quite ugly little things. They had pointed faces and stringy hair, they were the color of sour milk and had long necks. Professor Jilkon froze one of them and blew it up to the size of a regular human to make it easier study.