The atmosphere was tense in the common room, and the sound of James and Rose bickering was starting to get on Albus's nerves.
"For the last time Rose, I did not take your firewhisky! And if you had some firewhisky and its gone missing, it's what you deserve. Ickle third years are way too young to be drinking. You should be glad its gone, someone no doubt much older and wiser than you has removed the temptation. It's for your own good."
"You lying thief! You took it and you're not even trying to hide it! I'm going to get you back for this, James potter!" Rose accused.
"Oh, I'm quaking in my boots, Weasley." James scoffed.
"You ought to be! You can try and act tough, but I've got dirt on you and you know it! I wonder what gran would say about that time you and Fred took the car to London in fourth year!"
"Hey, leave me out of this!" Protested an alarmed Fred.
"That's rich coming from a thirteen year old girl throwing a fit over her missing alcohol!" Bellowed James.
Albus had had enough, he got up and left the common room, heading outside. He walked for a while, without quite having a destination in mind. It was a melacholy fall day, with a dark grey sky and a cold wind that blew through the dying grass.
It had been drizzling for quite a while by the time he reached Hagrid's hut, without really having intended to go there. Hagrid served him a giant size cup of tea, and he waited out the rain there.
Meanwhile, Rose was attempting to investigate Scorpius Malfoy.
Nobody was sure how a Malfoy had been sorted into Gryffindor, or why he'd transferred to hogwarts, or where he'd even gone to school before.
Rose, being insatiably curious, stayed up to talk to him when came back in.
She gave up and went to bed around one thirty am. As it turned out, Malfoy never did turn up that night, or even at breakfast the next morning, making his first appearance in class.
The first class was defense against the dark arts, taught by professor Longbottom. He gave Rose and Albus a smile as they walked in, but otherwise didn't aknowledge the fact that he had a closer relationship with them than the rest of the class.
Neville Longbottom was an inscruitably just teacher. And the kids respected him for that. He was also popular for jumping straight into the subject matter, with no frills or niceties attached. He, like many of their parents, was a war veteran and it showed.
Class was progressing well, with everybody following along and seeming interested.
Until Neville's eyes landed on Malfoy, who was slumped over his desk, leaning his head on his hands.
"Malfoy!" Snapped Neville. "Name the three unforgivables."
Scorpius jumped a little. He looked up, blinking and looking bleary eyed. "What?" He asked, sounding very out of it. Someone snickered. Scorpius shot them a glare.
"If you'd been paying attention, you'd know what I just asked." Said Neville, voice uncharacteristically flinty.
"Well obviously I wasn't paying attention. So I don't know." Said Scorpius.
His tone was neutral enough, but Albus, who was sitting a row in front of him, could see the look on his face. Pure hatred. It actually creeped him out a little.
It was clear Professor Longbottom could see it too. His jaw was set. "Maybe Rose can answer the question for us. Rose?" said Neville.
"Yes sir!" grinned Rose, "The imperious, the cruciatus, and erm, avada kedavra." She said, smirking in the general direction of Scorpius.
"Very good. Five points to gryffindor. Try to stay awake next time, Malfoy. I'll let it slip this time, seeing how it is the first day, but this better not happen again" Said Neville, and continued on with the lesson.
Rose was pleased to have been made to look good next to Scorpius. It wasn't often that she came off as a model student.
Albus was one of the only people who knew it was a sore spot for her to be constantly held up to her mother, the brightest witch of her age.
Unlike Rose, Albus was a little unsettled. Once more, he had gotten a bad feeling from Malfoy. The look he'd given Professor Neville, it was, well, evil was too extreme of a word, but it was certainly an overly strong reaction for being told not to doze off in class.
At lunch Malfoy showed up late and proceeded to heap his plate with every food within reaching distance. He then started to eat like a starved dog, wolfing everything down so fast Albus was surprised he didn't choke. After scraping the last bit of food off, he piled it high again and finished that off too, in mere minutes. He reached for thirds.
By this time even Rose, the bottomless pit, was staring.
"What, didn't they feed you back at the Malfoy house of horrors?" Said a male voice, not quite joking.
It was Josh Taylor, an athletic muggleborn fourth year. (With his tidy dark hair, muscular physique, and blue eyes, he was jestingly referred to as superman by Rose, Lily, and Roxanne.)
Scorpius set his fork down and looked up.
"Eff off." (Well he didn't say "eff") He spat, in the sort of tone one would use to address someone who purposely ran over their dog.
Josh looked taken aback, then incensed.
"Why don't you make me, Malfoy."
And that was all it took. Scorpius hurled his plate across the table at Josh's face. Albus heard Lily gasp. Josh, with impressive reflexes, dodged the plate, and it smashed against the wall sending food and porcelain shards flying.
"What the hell?!" Josh shouted, instantly infuriated. "You almost took my eye out, you freak! Who does that?!"
Scorpius stood. By now the entire great hall was watching the incident go down. "Next time, I'll aim better." ground out Scorpius, every bit as angry as Josh. And with that he hurled himself at the other boy.
The two of them fell to the floor, a whirling dervish of swinging limbs and curses.
The entire gryffindor table watched in amazement as the scrawnier and younger Malfoy came out on top. He fought just like he ate, a frenzied mad dog.
"Accio glass!" He snarled, one hand around Josh's throat, the other holding his wand. A drinking glass came hurtling into his hand. He lifted it high above the other boy's head. Everyone had been watching up until this point, but now Louis Weasley, who was a prefect, suddenly realized what Malfoy was about to do.
He leapt into action. Louis jumped up and waved his wand. "Stupify!"
Scorpius fell sideways off of the struggling fourth year. The glass fell to smash on the stone floor next to Josh's head.
Josh scrambled up, pale and visibly shaken. He had a split lip.
"The freak tried to kill me! You all saw that! He would have smashed that glass in my face!"
"What is going on here?" Demanded a commanding voice. It was Mcgonagall.
"Malfoy tried to kill me!" Said Josh.
"There's been a fight." Said Molly at the same time.
"A fight, my arse!" Josh snapped.
"He attacked me for no bloody reason! He's mental! First he threw a plate at my head, then he attacked me, and he almost broke that glass over my face!"
"It's true, professor!" Confirmed Louis.
"No need to yell!" Molly snapped at Josh.
"Enough!" Mcgonagall put an end to the sniping. "I will not tolerate this kind of disgraceful commotion in the great hall! You should all be ashamed. Twenty points from gryffindor."
"Good job, Taylor." Someone muttered.
Josh spun around. "How can you blame me?! He's the one-"
"I said enough!" Mcgonagall shouted.
By this time Malfoy had climbed unsteadily to his feet. "Malfoy, come with me!" She commanded. She strode out with Scorpius reluctantly following behind, hands in his pockets, his already customary glare on his face.
Rose and Albus were playing exploding poker by the lake (this was the name they'd settled on after about three minutes of deliberation)
They weren't allowed to do it in the common room anymore, after the incident in which the sofa had caught fire and Dominique lost most of her hair last year. Though it soon grew out, and she sparked a trend of spiky pixie cuts among the older girls, to the horror of most boys attending hogwarts.
Albus would have commented on how badly she was playing, but he was on his first winning streak in months, and he wasn't about to bring it to her attention.
"D'you... Well... Do you feel like.." Rose was oddly hesitant.
"Just spit out, Rose." Albus prompted. He probably wouldn't talk to anyone else that way, but this was Rose. They were close enough to be rude to each other and not care.
"I just get a weird feeling from Malfoy. Yeah he's a pure blood brat and his dad was a death eater and all that, but its like-its like there something off about him that goes deeper than that. Am I crazy?" she asked.
Albus looked up from his cards."No, actually. I noticed it too. The way he looked at you that first day? He looked at Neville-professor Longbottom that way too. And he had the same look on his face in potions today."
"It's like he hates everyone. Really hates them. Like he wouldn't mind going on a killing spree down the entire great hall. I can just see the headline: Scorpius Malfoy, serial killer, singlehandedly annihilates entire gryffindor population. Last seen choking Albus Potter with his hair."
"Right." said Albus, shaking his head.
A card exploded, ending the conversation, and both of them threw themselves backwards. Rose looked mournfully at the small smoking crater where the deck of cards had previously been.
"Damn! It's taken the rest out with it. That was my last deck." she complained.
"Never mind that, we'll get some more in hogsmeade this weekend." Albus trie to be comforting.
"That's not the point, Al. Do you know how bloody long it takes to enchant them?"
"For you? ...thirty minutes."
"Yeah but that's thirty minutes I could have spent planning my U.R.A.J"
This was her "short"hand for "ultimate revenge against James" whom she still held a grudge against over the firewhisky. It wasn't so much that she really cared about it, it was more that she couldn't stand to think James had gotten one over on her.
Albus wasn't quite so keen on revenge. He was the one that had to live with James, after all.
Transfiguration was taught by Professor Vera Goss, a trim thirtysomething former ravenclaw.
She was a very thin, angular looking witch with perfectly straight brown hair.
Her face was stern and so was her teaching style.
Scorpius seemed to be having an exceptional amount of trouble with the current task.
They were supposed to transfigure a koi fish (in a bucket of water, of course) into a water lily.
Professor Goss had decreed that the lily must sit on a lily -pad, and absolutely must be pink.
"Try again, Malfoy!" She ordered.
Albus winced. She had a shrill voice that was just the right tone to, as Rose put it, "make your ears bleed"
Malfoy waved his wand and muttered the incantation.
"You are not enunciating! Move your lips when you speak! And for Merlin's sake, speak up!"
Scorpius tried again.
Professor Goss seized his hand.
"I said to flick your wrist, not your whole arm-"
"Don't touch me!" Scorpius wrenched his arm back, jumping to his feet.
"For Merlin's sake, boy, sit down! I've never seen anyone who was such a monumental dunce at transfiguration! What on earth did they teach you at that school?"
Scorpius sat back down after a pause. He was breathing heavy, his jaw was clenched hard.
"Now try again!"
"Psst!" Rose bounced a crumpled piece of paper off Albus's arm.
She had been one of the first to finish, though she'd had to go back and redo it, as Professor Goss refused to accept her blood red lily.
Albus smoothed out the piece of paper.
"Malfoy's pissed" was all it read.
"No kidding" Albus muttered under his breath. But then he really looked. Rose was right, Scorpius was the angriest either of them had ever seen him.
His fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. His face was drained of color. His eyes looked black.
His whole posture practically screamed "back off" but professor Goss either didn't get the message or was purposely aggravating him. He had evidently failed to even budge the fish from its original form for the eighth time in a row.
Professor Goss was looming over him, right up in his person space, her hand directing his.
"How can you be so thick?! Again, again, again! And move your hand properly this time, not like a limp dishrag!"
Scorpius was all but blowing steam from his nose.
They were finally let out (all but Scorpius) and rose was shaking her head.
"I swear that woman doesn't know when to quit. Prissiest teacher we've had yet."
She put on an exaggerated snotty expression. "I said pink, Weasley! Now you are either colorblind or willfully disobedient. Do it again! Again I say!
Well I won't be surprised if she winds up dead after today. Malfoy looked ready to murder her."
Albus ran a hand through his hair. It had been one long day.