Mmkay, I shouldn't be doing this, but here's a brand new multi-chap fic for you all! Yeah, yeah, I know, go update one of the others, but I've been feeling Rosy these past few days, so this is what you get.
Enjoy :)
-:-
Rose was sitting in a boat on the lake with Albus and Alice Longbottom when she first saw the castle. She fell in love. It was all lit up and beautiful, towers blacking out the stars in the sky, positively overflowing with possibilities and magic. She could only stare, and Albus's chatter faded away into the background.
This was home. She still had her home with her parents and Hugo—the house she'd grown up in—but this was different. She didn't even have to step inside to know that this was the place for her. She just felt it.
The first part of the castle that she set foot in was the Boathouse, and it would always hold a certain magic for her, with its tall windows and floors halfway covered in algae and water that reflected the starlight.
Rose stared around her, breathless, before being pulled along by the crowd into the Entrance Hall, and then the Great Hall for the Sortings. The whole evening was a bit of a blur because she was so very much in awe of her surroundings. She probably looked like a complete muggle, but she couldn't help it in the least.
She was sorted into Ravenclaw, and Albus went to Slytherin. Perhaps she should have been shocked by that, but she wasn't, not really.
The prefects led everyone up to Ravenclaw Tower, but Rose was in a daze the whole time. In the common room, she collapsed into an armchair instead of scurrying upstairs like the rest of the first years. She gazed around her, eyes hungry for still more Hogwarts. She didn't think she would ever get tired of this place.
A little while later—or, apparently, an hour and a half, Rose was shocked to find out—a tall boy with sandy hair and glasses approached her. "You're Fred's cousin, right?" he asked, taking the chair across from her. "I'm Fletcher."
She nodded. He looked a bit familiar—maybe she'd seen him with Fred somewhere? "I'm Rose."
He looked at her for a minute before saying, "Well, I think it's probably time we went to our dorms. Everyone else is already gone."
Rose blinked and looked around herself, shocked. "When did that happen?" she asked, a bit dazed.
Fletcher just laughed and shook his head. "You remind me of myself at your age, you know that?"
She cocked her head at him, but he did not elaborate before he stood up and went to the boys' staircase. Rose shook her head and went to her own dorm, falling asleep almost immediately but not forgetting the exchange.
-:-
The first day in potions, Rose walked right up to the infamous Scorpius Malfoy, introduced herself, and said, quite coolly, "My dad says I should beat you on every test."
He blinked at her, seeming a bit shocked by the suddenness of her speech, and replied, "Oh."
She smiled. "Don't worry, I still like you. I'm just going to beat you."
He colored slightly and grinned as well, replying, "I wouldn't bet on it."
Brushing auburn curls over her shoulder, she raised an eyebrow. "I would."
They stared at each other for a few seconds.
"Do you want to be my potions partner?" Rose blurted.
Scorpius grinned again. "Sure."
And that was that.
-:-
Rose didn't go back to the Boathouse until midway through October. A bunch of sixth years had snuck in firewhiskey (Ravenclaws don't always have to be model student, you know) and were being noisy in the common room, and Rose needed somewhere to work on her newest gadget. She liked making things. She wasn't sure when it had started, but somewhere along the way she'd begun sneaking into her Uncle George's testing facilities for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and had been fascinated from the get-go.
She could have gone to the library to do her work, she supposed, but she didn't want this particular project gaining too much attention. First years, after all, were not allowed to have brooms.
Right now she was working on an absolutely ancient Shooting Star she'd found abandoned in, ironically enough, a broom closet. It was in horrible condition—as if someone had driven it straight into the Whomping Willow and left it there. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but the handle was chipped and twigs in the tail were all out of place, sticking out at random angles.
She had—rather foolishly, she now thought—tried riding it to see how bad the damage was, and ended up flat on her face. It wouldn't follow her instructions or even fly in a straight line.
Now she got out her broomstick servicing kit and clipped twigs, manually pulling as many as she could back into place. It looked fairly sleek when she was done.
The handle would be harder. She wasn't nearly good enough at Transfiguration to fill in the chipped out areas in the wood—she was only a first year, after all. She did, however, carry some muggle supplies with her that could help. Rose rummaged around in her bag and pulled out some putty, and molded it into the cracks and chips until all were filled. Then she took out her sandpaper and smoothed out the areas, and polished over them. It looked oddly spotted, but functional. She shrugged.
She had learned how to fix things the muggle way when staying with her grandparents. They didn't have any magic, so Grandpa Granger would teach Rose how to do things like fix pipes and doors and such without using spells. It was quite useful, actually, especially with her lack of skill with magic at this age.
Rose straddled the broom and kicked off. The broom rose, and she laughed in delight. She leaned forward slightly, and it moved. She tested it with other directions and was pleased to see that it always obeyed her will, albeit sluggishly and with a trend of sinking to the ground when she wasn't paying attention. But it was progress, and she could fix those other things later.
Grinning, she allowed the broom to descend and hopped off, with the intent of stowing it away somewhere in the Boathouse.
"First years aren't allowed brooms, you know," said a voice behind her.
She whirled around to see Fletcher Emsley standing there, smirking at her, and began wringing her hands and mumbling about just finding it lying around.
He laughed, and said, "Don't worry, I won't say anything. Not a bad job you did on it." He considered the broom for a moment. "You should try redoing some of the levitating charms on it to fix that sinking problem."
Rose looked back to the broom, excited.
"Not now, though," he added hastily. "It's almost curfew and I don't want to have to report you." He gestured to the prefect's badge on his robes.
Rose sighed. "All right." She looked up at him. "And thanks," she added, grinning and wondering why her face felt so hot.
-:-
Rose did, in fact, go to the library to look up charms that were put on brooms so that she could refresh some of them. Most of the spells looked rather difficult, so she decided to just pick a few. As she played Keeper, agility was more important than straight-up speed; she would rarely have the chance to fly in a straight line for more than a few seconds.
First, she'd have to fix the whole sinking problem. That would require levitation charms, and the only one she knew was a basic Hover Charm, which would be quite useless once she lowered her wand. She supposed it would have to do, though, since more advanced levitation charms weren't taught until fifth year.
She'd also like to add a Horton-Keitch Braking Charm, which were generally only put on Comet brooms. Her father was always talking about it, and he still favored Comets over Firebolts or Nimbuses for this reason. Her Shooting Star had a normal Braking Charm right now, but the Horton-Keitch looked easy enough that she could upgrade.
As speed spells were exceedingly difficult, Rose decided to just stick with simple direction-change spells for now, which would improve her agility on the broom.
Using her knowledge of muggle aerodynamics concepts, as well, she decided to sand down the bulky handle even farther and completely removed most of the knobby twigs in the tail in favor of smooth, uniform ones she found and refined.
It took her ages, but by the end of the school year her broom was fully remodeled and now flew better than the one she had at home.
-:-
It was the end of June when she first got to try her broom in a family game of Quidditch. It was just the kids this time, because whenever Ron or Ginny got involved it got way too serious.
Rose was Keeper on Fred's team, with Albus as Seeker, Fred, James, and Grace Longbottom as Chasers, and Fletcher and Dominique as Beaters.
The opposing team had Roxanne as Keeper, Lily as Seeker, Hugo, Molly, and Victoire as Chasers, and Louis and Teddy as Beaters.
When Rose got out her broom, James started laughing. "Is that a Shooting Star, Rosie?" he asked. "Aren't those, like, sixty years old?"
Rose raised an eyebrow. "Yes."
He snorted. "Fred, can we have Roxanne instead?" he called. "Our Keeper's gone batty."
"Give her a chance, James," Fletcher interjected. "You might be surprised." He winked at her.
Rose grinned and blushed, and the game began.
She kicked off, and was pleased to see that the broom did not try to sink back to the ground immediately. She leaned to the side, attempting to go to her end of the pitch, and the broom turned so quickly and abruptly that she almost fell off. Embarrassed, she looked around to see if anyone noticed, and breathed a sigh of relief that they weren't looking her way. Zipping over to the goalposts, she maneuvered around them a few times to get the hang of the quick turning mechanisms. At least her direction-change charms had worked.
Then Molly came rocketing towards her with the Quaffle in hand and launched it at the left goalpost. Rose leaned almost imperceptibly (that was the trick, see, using small motions) and the broom zoomed off. She caught the Quaffle squarely and held back a crow of delight, tossing it to Fred and sticking her tongue out at James, who was staring.
Rose had only missed three saves an hour and a half or so later when Lily started racing off after the snitch. Albus saw her belatedly and joined the chase, but he wouldn't be fast enough, Rose could plainly see. It would be a tie if she caught it, Rose knew from some quick calculations, but Victoire was fast approaching with the Quaffle and Rose absolutely had to save this one. Victoire faked left and Rose fell for it, shooting off in that direction but seeing almost immediately that the Quaffle was going right. She pulled out her last trick, hoping desperately that it worked, and shot her broom into reverse, intercepting the Quaffle right in front of the goalpost and winging it in Grace's direction.
Lily caught the snitch before either team could score another goal, so the game ended as a tie.
"Did—did your broom just go backwards?" James spluttered when they had all dismounted.
Rose raised an eyebrow at him. "Of course. It's a Shooting Star, after all," she said, and everyone started laughing.
"No, but seriously, how'd you get it to do that?" Dominique asked.
Rose shrugged. "I was just adding some new direction-change spells and it seemed simple enough, so I figured, why not add a reverse option? Muggle cars can do it, so I decided my broom should, too." She shrugged again, trying to act nonchalant about the broom that had taken her the better part of seven months to fix.
Fletcher slung an arm around her shoulders and she hoped her face wasn't getting too red. "Told you, didn't I?" he said, grinning. "You're joining Ravenclaw's team next year, right Rose? We need a Keeper now that Maura's gone."
Rose knew that she was blushing visibly now, but said, "Yeah, sure."
"Can I try reversing on it?" James asked eagerly, and Rose was glad for a distraction.
Rose laughed. "Sure." She handed him the broom and he mounted quickly and rose into the air. "Don't fall off, though, turning can be a bit of a"—James fell off the broom while attempting a left turn—"shock. Oh." Rose grinned at James's form lying prone on the ground. "Told you."
-:-
Sooo, I really shouldn't be starting a new story when I've got three other multi-chaps floundering, but I really wanted to write this one, and I never claimed to be good at finishing things… Sorry.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed :)
I'll try to update soon. Please don't favorite/alert without reviewing. Thanks :)