Disclaimer: As far as I can tell, I am not J. K. Rowling, nor will I ever be, therefore this story is merely a fanfiction, and not a work of her own.
Trees rolled by for what seemed like hours. Lazy clouds looked frozen, unable to move with the speed we were already traveling. The blue of the sky did not dim to black, despite the agonizingly long wait. My watch ticked slowly with each second, waiting an extra five before moving. The wait to Hogwarts was awful. Although Aunt Hermione clearly stated to me once that Time-Turners could not propel the user into the future, I was – at that moment – tempted to steal one from the Ministry, if only to try: one day of my life less wasted.
Accompanying me on this endless track to Hogwarts were my cousin, Rose Weasley, and a boy that appeared to be sleeping. Our compartment was far from full, but the last one left. This meant that we were sitting at the very back of the train, doomed to be the last to leave. The only point of this excessive wait was to strike fear into the hearts of First Years, who were speculating the horrors of getting into the wrong Hogwarts Houses. If only life were easier than that.
The boy sitting across from Rose shifted in his sleep, making me hope he might wake up. Someone to talk to other than my know-it-all cousin would be quite nice for my already swiftly shrinking ego.
The boy sitting diagonally away from me grunted, before his stressed looking eyes opened up, just only a sliver. I realized that Rose noticed this too, as we then exchanged glances. Hopefully this wouldn't turn into a war of whose new best friend the mysterious character would be. However, if it did come to that, I would surely win with my less irritating personality.
"Potter," the boy whispered, and we both jumped. He knew my name, yet we'd never spoken a word! "That's what you're called, isn't it?" he asked. Yawning, the boy sat up. Now fully awake and uncovered by his makeshift blanket, I noticed his features more easily. The boy's hair was slicked back with shiny gel and appeared platinum blond, while his eyes looked rather tired and dark blue. His pointed face made him look rather snooty, though. I wasn't very good at making friends with snooty boys.
"How did you know?" I finally got the Gryffindor courage to ask. Rose looked a bit offended, so it was safe to assume that she was going to say the same thing. Either that, or she disliked the way the boy was talking to me. It was really hard to tell with Rose, actually.
The blond boy shrugged. "'Saw your picture in a book, I think," the boy shrugged, much to my surprise. As far as I could remember, I'd never been a book-model, "but you should have a scar . . ." He stopped speaking immediately, causing me as well as Rose, probably, to feel slightly confused. "No, of course! That would be your father. Never mind me."
Rose and I exchanged another peculiar glance. "I guess Uncle Harry does have a small scar on his forehead," she replied smoothly. "I don't see why that would have any importance, though."
A look of realization dawned on the boy's face. "You don't know anything, do you?" he asked before biting his lip apologetically. "Forget I said anything, okay? Please."
I blinked at the strange reply. "Sure," I told him, not really caring. Maybe he was too weird to be my new best friend.
"No problem," Rose agreed.
While I assumed that he'd simply made a mistake, it was obvious that my cousin believed otherwise, as she was staring at the boy intently. Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed, because only a brief moment later he asked her exactly the reason for doing so.
"Nothing, I suppose," she replied, smirking a little. "I just suddenly recalled my father telling me never to marry a pure-blood." This was either a sad attempt at flirting, or Rose was trying to tell me something. I had to think for a little while, but she had to be referring to something recent, right?
My eyes widened, and I immediately blurted out, "Malfoy! You're Scorpius Malfoy!" I stood up angrily, as the boy's stupid expression made him look slightly scared. It didn't fool me, though. Malfoys were born for trickery, like all Slytherin gits.
Suddenly, the train made an unpleasant lurch at exactly the wrong time, causing me to fall forward onto the floor of the train. Rose and Malfoy burst out laughing simultaneously, causing my face to morph into a contorted scowl.
In no time at all, I stood right back up and got ready to yell. How dare they laugh at my discomfort. "Stop it!" I screamed at them, hoping for the giggling to subside. "S'not funny." Rose pressed her lips together into a definite smirk.
"Sorry," Malfoy told me, trying to hold in his evil laughter. "You just seem far less fearsome than I originally speculated." Rose failed to hide her equally taunting smile, and I shifted my heavy glare momentarily to her.
Gingerly, I sat back down, glaring at the both of them as I did so. Malfoy and Rose were the meanest people I knew at that brief moment in time.
Rose introduced herself to the horrid blond, as I looked away in disgust. "It's nice to know that you aren't as evil as I'd thought you'd be." I snorted. As if!
"The same goes for you," the cunning boy stated with a fake-cheerful reply. How could Rosie be falling for such obvious tricks?
My red-headed cousin pointed a finger casually in my direction. "Thank you. Oh, and that grumpy oaf sitting next to me is Albus." Malfoy smirked as she said it, and I made a face.
"It's rude to point," I said tightly. I couldn't understand how she could speak to our family's arch nemesis with such nonchalant ease! This boy was going to influence Rose into Slytherin, as he was just the bad influence she didn't need. He was such a suspicious wizard, with his pure-blooded and prejudice ways.
"You're being such a killjoy, Albus," Rose stated, forcing my frown to fall further. Malfoy was nodding his head slightly in agreement. What did he know, that prat?
So the two of them decided to ignore me, and instead attended to their own devices. What I actually mean by that, of course, is their chitchat and frivolous mind games. I, myself, fell asleep, before being woken up by the crunch of chocolate frog wrappers, and Rose's unintelligent (I was at first convinced) query of, "Is the answer to this question no?"
At that point, I wanted to blurt out that it was the most useless question one could think of, but I knew that she wouldn't care even if I said so. If I thought anything was stupid, that automatically made them the cleverest things in the world, in Rose's book.
"Of course not," said Malfoy, beating me to it. He had a smug look on his snobbish face, and I couldn't understand why.
"Nicely worded, Scorpius," Rose congratulated, resulting in the enragement of me, myself, and I. They were on first name terms? They might as well just go off and get married! They were perfect for each other, with their stupid, Slytherin-like qualities. "That was a perfect answer for the question." It was hard to admit, even to myself, that I would have only answered no.
I waited to hear Malfoy's riddle. "Nothing on the outside, nothing on the inside. Lighter than a feather, yet ten men cannot lift it. What is it?" Rose appeared to be absolutely stumped, and I could only agree. Could it be air? No . . . air doesn't have an inside. Maybe it was a log, but it couldn't be. Logs weren't lighter than feathers; not unless it was a really small log. I thought some more. Bird bones were apparently hollow . . .
Finally, Rose opened up her mouth reluctantly. At first, I thought it was to give up, but I was sadly mistaken. "I would say that it would have to be a bubble, right?" she asked. A bubble? Why that was the dumbest answer I'd ever heard! It was – well, it was far too lame to be the correct answer. That I knew. "It's the only thing I can think of that's hollow, yet still impossible to lift." Dang it.
Malfoy nodded enthusiastically. "You're right, Rose. That's absolutely brilliant that you got it on your first try!" I scoffed, though shrinking a little bit in my seat. He was just buttering her up.
"You're pretty smart, too, Scorpius," Rose told him happily. Happily! My cousin was betraying the Weasley-Potters. How dare she befriend the enemy, yet she did. "I'd bet that you'd be in Ravenclaw for sure."
"He's too busy being a Slytherin prune," I muttered to myself, but neither of them were paying enough attention to hear.
The Malfoy prick shook his head. "No. I'm aiming to be in Slytherin like the rest of my family." I snorted again, and Rose looked at me angrily. "You should be in Ravenclaw, though. You've definitely got the brains for it."
Before Rose could even open her mouth to speak, I exploded with fury. "Rosie and I are going to be Gryffindors, just like our family. No Slytherin scum is going to tell her otherwise!" Rose's jaw dropped, and Malfoy looked extremely offended.
"Albus!" she shouted, sounding eerily like Aunt Hermione. Rose pushed me away as she said this. "Don't you dare be so rude to my new friend!" Her eyes were blazing with absolute fury, and so were mine.
But those words did it for me. I could not stand it any longer. "Friend, Rose? Friend? He's a Malfoy; a stupid blood-purity fanatic! How could you even talk to him without the least bit of distaste? His family has been making fun of ours for centuries. Can't you feel even a small amount of spitting hatred towards him?"
According to her, my point had not been made, because she dared argue against me. "No, Albus!" she yelled angrily. "And do you want to know why? It's because, despite what you may think, Scorpius is neither his mum nor his dad, regardless of how terrible you assume they are." Malfoy appeared to look rather awkward, caught up in the situation of the moment. Let him be uncomfortable, I thought venomously. Let him be scared off with my words.
I could feel my face turn red through the heat of the argument. "Can't you understand, Rose? Their blood-traitors! Their bloody fu-"
"There are two types of blood prejudice, Albus," Malfoy interrupted, in an eerily calm voice. Rose and I broke away from our battle in order to stare at him blankly. What could he possible be talking about? "There's hatred of Muggles and the Muggle-borns," he stated coolly, "and there's hatred of those who think their blood is absent of it."
Rose and I stared at him silently. Realization spread across her face, but I still didn't understand it. "You don't believe that there's such thing as Muggle-free blood, do you?" she asked with awe, though I had a feeling that there was more to his words than that. It was plainly a trick, but I could see where Rose was coming from.
Malfoy sighed loudly, and stretched his right arm across his body. "It's proven by science, isn't it?"
"I never thought of it that way," Rose commented after a few moments. I didn't know was this science was at the time. Probably some kind of powerful wizard magic, right?
"And since you, Potter," Malfoy said, shifting his eyes to me, "wouldn't seem to mind me leaving, I shall do so."
As Malfoy stood up, Rose stood up in order to stop him. "You don't have to go. Albus didn't mean it." She turned to me with a hardened expression, giving me one of her deadly death-glares. "You want him to stay, don't you, Albus?"
I sighed, feeling rather frustrated at the time. "Fine. He can stay in our compartment," I surrendered, although only to keep Rose from killing me.
The stupid Malfoy sat right back down as I said this, with a sheepish smile on his face. "Thanks, actually. All the other compartments are full, so it would've been difficult to join another one." Rose elbowed me, and I stuck my tongue at her, like a seven year old girl.
It was silent for a few moments, and I could feel Rose and Malfoy's eyes looking at me expectantly. Not knowing why, at last I said, "I know a good brain teaser, as well." Rose rolled her eyes, the familiar kindness returning to her face.
"So," I began, feeling rather pleased with myself. "There's a cowboy who goes into town on Friday, stays for three days, and then leaves on Friday. How did he do it?" At that moment, I realized that they had only waited for me to finish because they were trying to act polite. It was all written in their bored expressions.
"The horse's name is Friday," both Malfoy and Rose stated in unison, not a second worth of hesitation.
I frowned. "That was an easy one, anyways." They nodded slowly, looking curious yet unsure. "How about this one: What is a wolf, yet not a wolf?"
Rose sighed, as Malfoy told me, "No offense, but that just sounds like a bad way to say werewolf." I looked at Rose for support, but her face portrayed an equal sign of pity. I groaned, feeling vaguely annoyed.
It was then when Malfoy handed me a piece of paper. "Why don't you try this one out?" he told me. I snorted, yet took the paper anyways.
Looking at the words scrawled on the parchment, I immediately felt confused. "The next statement is false. The previous statement is true," I read aloud.
"Hopefully it isn't too confusing for you," he said, infuriating me. I could figure out any puzzle he could!
I laughed confidently. "It's easy, I tell you!" Quickly I scrawled down a random guess, and handed it back to him.
"The first statement is true and the second one is false," he read slowly. My heart stopped. What if I was wrong? How stupid would Rose and Malfoy think I was? "True, but it would have been slightly less complicated if you just had done the opposite."
I snorted, sticking my nose in the air like a prissy girl. "Shut up." I then stood and grabbed my uniform. "We're going to arrive soon, I think. I should go change." In all truth, I just wanted to get away from Rose's new best friend.
"It is getting rather dark," Malfoy agreed, to my immediate disappointment. Noticing where this was headed, I began to wish that I'd changed before arriving at the train station, just like Rose had done. "I'll come with you, then."
As Malfoy left through the compartment door first, Rose pulled me aside for a moment. "Gosh darn it!" she shouted, to my surprise. "You sounded like a snorting pig in there. Stop it, Albus!" Red in the face, I ducked my head out into the isle. I needed to find the dressing compartment before I oinked in anyone else's faces. Secretly, I vowed to never snort again.
Thought of the Day: What two coins make up 30 cents if one of them is not a nickel?
