Chapter 2
"What!" Rose grabbed a handful of her long bushy hair and examined it. Her fiery red hair was now lighter in color. She glanced at Scorpius with wide eyes. His hair was turning strawberry blond, but it was getting deeper in red slowly every second. Then she looked back at her own hair. It was getting lighter. Both of them dashed towards the mirror on the wall. Scorpius got there first but Rose violently pushed him out of the way.
"What did you do?" she cried. "What's happeni—"
"What did I do?" Scorpius echoed. He stood behind Rose, and with his height, peered over her head at the mirror. "What did you do? You casted the unknown spell!"
"I told you I never casted any spell!" Her fingers felt her cheeks. Then she yelped, "My freckles! They're—they're…going away!"
"No!" Scorpius gasped. "What the bloody hell? I have freckles!"
Indeed he was having freckles. His once pale face slowly blushed as freckles appear one by one on his nose and cheeks. Meanwhile, Rose's cheeks, once red, were now turning pale. And simultaneously, her freckles were diminishing. It was like they were going away from her face and settling on Scorpius' face. Rose's hair was now so light that it was light brown. The hair of Scorpius was now deep red, although not as red as his ears. Rose tugged on her hair furiously as it colored slowly into platinum blond.
Rose stepped away from the mirror, backing into Scorpius in the process. She looked at him with angry eyes, "What did you do?"
"It was only a shield charm!"
"Does this look like a shield charm?" she said dangerously as she held up a glossy lock of blond hair.
"N—no…" Scorpius blinked. "Look at me! I look like Strawberry Shortcake! No worse, I look like a Weasley!"
"Oh boo-hoo for you!" She said sardonically. "I'm blonde!" Her voice faltered at the last word. She faced the mirror again and noticed something. "Hey…I still have brown eyes."
She turned around to peer at Scorpius, "You still have your gray eyes."
Scorpius looked deep into her eyes and found a pretty shade of brown. He might've looked a little longer than normal so Rose said, "What are you gawking at!"
Scorpius snapped out of it. The fall was really a bad one. "I'm just thinking of a word to describe how you look with a pale face and a blond hair. Ugly doesn't seem right. I need something more horrid."
She rolled her eyes, "This is really your fault."
"My fault?" He said in disbelief. "Again with the blame-Scorpius-for-everything thing. Do you know what a shield charm is, Weasley—"
"So you're pushing the blame on me? Because you said that you just 'used a shield charm'?" She imitated a troll-ish voice that was supposed to sound like Scorpius'. "It is perfectly clea—"
Scorpius grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her towards the door.
"What are you doing?" She shouted as she pulled away from his grip. Scorpius released her and she stumbled backwards.
"We're going to Madam Pomfrey. She could fix this," He said impatiently after pointing to his hair. "Now come on!"
Scorpius grabbed her hand again but Rose shouted, "You don't need to hold me! Get off!"
. . .
Rose kept her head very low and hidden in her blonde curls as she insecurely clutched her robes tightly around her. Scorpius kept running his hand through his hair and groaning every time he did so. As soon as they reached the third floor, were the hospital wing was, a voice called them from behind.
"Mr. Weasley, Ms. Malfoy," both of them spun around to see the Hogwarts Headmistress Professor McGonagall. "Ms. Davies and Mr. Byron informed me that you two are assigned to check the second floor. Did you see the students behind the dung bomb outbreaks?"
"No, Professor," Rose said hesitantly. There was something that McGonagall said that confused her.
"Well then," the headmistress sighed. "You two ought to have your dinner now if there isn't any business anymore. And Mr. Weasley, please fix your hair. It's standing everywhere."
Scorpius was taken aback. McGonagall was actually referring to him as Mr. Weasley. "I'm sorry professor, but I think you're mistaken," he glanced at Rose, who was equally looking bewildered, then looked back at McGonagall. "I'm Scorpius Malfoy. You see there was this little…er, accident and it seems that our appearance—"
"Whatever are you talking about, Mr. Weasley?" McGonagall snapped. "Take your dinner now then rest. You must be tired. Although I can't blame you. Mr. Filch kept complaining about those dung bombs. Go on, eat your dinner."
Professor McGonagall left them. When they were sure that she was out of earshot, Rose stared at Scorpius with a shocked expression.
"She's going loony, isn't she?" he said. "The old woman needs to get a husband, if it isn't too late."
"She couldn't have mistaken us like that," Rose complained. "I mean, we still look like our normal selves, right? Minus the hair and the...transposition of—of freckles, of course…"
She opened her mouth and closed it again. She racked her brain on what to do next. "Should we go on to see Madam Pomfrey?"
"Alright," Scorpius replied sceptically.
They continued walking until they reached the hospital wing. They found Madam Pomfrey stocking a cabinet with things that looked like medicines. She looked up at the company and raised her eyebrows in question.
"What is it Mr. Weasley and Ms. Malfoy?" she said. "I'm quite busy right now but if the two of you are throwing jinxes again at each other, the headmistress might strip off your badges. Of course after I check if your jinxes haven't done any damage."
Scorpius felt his ears redden as he became frustrated. Before he could even speak, Rose said very quickly, "We just happened to pass by. Alright, we'll go now."
She dragged Scorpius out of the double doors of the hospital wing. Scorpius stopped and faced Rose, "What was that all about? She was supposed to fix us!"
"Didn't you notice what she called us?" she said.
"Yeah," Scorpius replied with irritation. "She mistook us like McGonagall—"
"Exactly," Rose said calmly. "Don't you reckon it's a bit odd? It's not just McGonagall—"
"We should've explained it to her rather than running off."
"But what if she doesn't believe us? McGonagall didn't believe us. Something abnormal is happening."
"Yeah, besides a blab-mouth like you exists, I really think that some abnormal stuff is going on," he said coolly. Rose decided to disregard the negative comment. "So what do you suggest we do now?"
Rose thought for a moment, "Why don't we go to the Great Hall? See if anyone might mistake us for each other again…"
"And then?"
"I don't know. Now come on."
They didn't know what was happening. It was a silly thing that two people mistook them. They weren't really that unrecognizable. Rose was now blonde and pale but other than that, she still looked like Rose. Scorpius has red hair and freckles, but he still looked like Scorpius too. Upon reaching the doors of the Great Hall, a hand clapped the back of Scorpius. He jumped.
"Whoa," Albus said. "It's just me. I've been looking all over for you! Where've you been?"
"Al!" Rose said in relief. "Thank Merlin you're here—"
"Er," Albus said with a confused look on his face. "Hello Rose…So," he said turning back to Scorpius animatedly. "Did you find the dung bomb culprits? James is very proud of those kids. He wants to meet them."
"No," Scorpius said slowly. He was also confused by the actions of Albus. Albus usually greeted Rose brightly, but moments ago, when Rose addressed him, he looked uncomfortable and perplexed.
"Oh well," he shrugged. "Come one, I'm starving."
He walked towards the Gryffindor table but after two feet, he turned around only to find that Scorpius hadn't followed him, but Rose did instead.
"Scorp?" Albus asked. "Aren't you coming?"
"What?" Scorpius said.
"Dinner," he said slowly along with gestures like he was eating as if he was explaining something to a toddler. Then he turned to Rose, who was standing beside him. "And, er, Rose, please don't take this the wrong way but…what are you doing?"
"What do you mean?" she said, befuddled.
"I mean, the Slytherin table is over..." Albus pointed on the other side of the room. "There."
"Slythe—what do you—"
"Alright Scorp, come on," he walked back to Scorpius (whose mouth was hanging open), rested his hand on his shoulder and started leading him to their house table. "Seriously, your prefect duties must be getting hard on you. You have to talk to Joey Byron about letting you loosen up a bit. Just because he's the Head Boy doesn't mean he can boss you around while he snogs his girlfriend-slash-fellow-head-slash-seventh-year-hottie…"
Rose stood there alone, hopelessly waiting for Albus to turn around and say, GOTCHA! But he didn't. She looked down at the patch of her robe. What she clearly remembered to be Gryffindor was now a Slytherin patch.
"Why was Malfoy acting like that?" Albus asked Scorpius as they sat down. Albus began placing food on his plate, waiting for an answer.
"Like what?" Scorpius was still gobsmacked. "What are you talking about?"
"I mean," he said after swallowing a big bite of fried chicken. "She called me by my first name. No wait, she called me by my nickname."
"She always calls you by your nick—"
"Scorp, you know she doesn't. She's not exactly our friend, is she? And anyway, have you seen how relieved she looked like when she saw me. It gave me a case of shudders."
"Are you pulling off some joke?" Scorpius said.
"Huh?"
"Scorp!" Hugo sat beside Scorpius with a huge grin. "Hey, you know, Malfoy just addressed me. She never acknowledged my existence. The weird sociopathic blonde..."
"What?" Scorpius said. Hugo just called her sister Malfoy. Something was going on. He didn't know what to do.
"What did she say?" Albus asked
"She said 'Hey Hugo'. I just looked at her then walked away."
"She is acting weird," he mused. "You know she just called me Al some time ago."
"Really?" Hugo's eyes were wide. "Do you know something about this, Scorp? Scorp...hey Scorpius!"
"What?"
"You seem like out of your game tonight," Albus said.
"I need to go," Scorpius stood up.
"You have a small bladder,"
Scorpius sighed impatiently, "Not that kind of go,"
"You know, I think mum dropped him on his head when he was a baby," Hugo and Albus laughed. Scorpius froze and stared disbelievingly at Hugo. "His acting weird is actually normal behavior for him."
"What did you say?"
Hugo held his hands up in front as if to surrender, "Hey, I was just kidding. But you know it could be true." He added a snigger.
"Mum?" Scorpius said. "Whose mum?"
"Our mum," Hugo answered, confusion etched on his face. "Seriously, maybe it's true."
Scorpius sprinted away and headed for the door, but Rose wasn't there. He scanned the whole of the Great Hall and found Rose seated on the Slytherin table. She looked uncomfortable and panic-stricken. He ran towards her and tapped her impatiently on the shoulder. Rose looked at him and stood up immediately. The Slytherin girls sitting beside Rose started to whisper with each other, giving Scorpius mean looks.
"We need to talk," he muttered so that Rose can only hear.
"Yeah," Rose agreed breathlessly.
Scorpius led the way out of the hall and behind a large statue of a wizard in the Entrance Hall. He looked around if the coast was clear and when he saw nobody, he looked intently at Rose.
"We have a problem,"
"You humongous genius," Rose snapped. "This is the only time you realize it?"
"Would you just listen," Scorpius said. "Hugo came up to Albus and me. He said he was surprised you addressed him—"
"Yeah," she said softly. "The look on his face when I called him...he—he just...went away...as if I'm a flesh-eating virus or something."
"You? Flesh-eating virus...close enough," he joked, then turned serious. "Both Al and Hugo called you Malfoy while they were talking about how you're acting strange. Albus was also surprised because you called him by his nickname."
Rose crossed her arms against her chest, "But I always call him by his nickname."
"That's what I said to him," Scorpius leaned against the wall, his hands in his pockets. "And you know what's more bizarre...Hugo actually mentioned something about our mother—"
"What do you mea—"
"Our mum. Mine and Hugo's—"
"What!"
"Shh!"
"What in the—"
"Do you have any idea what's happening?" Scorpius asked.
"I'm not sure," Rose was beyond panic. "But look at my patch! It's a Slytherin patch."
Scorpius swiftly examined his own. It was a Gryffindor patch. He pointed at Rose's House patch and lamely said, "That's supposed to be mine."
Rose scoffed at him, "You think!" She fell silent and proceeded to bite her thumb, thinking hard. Then she slowly straightened up and looked at Scorpius with frightened eyes. "You don't think..."
"What?" Scorpius felt fright seize him as he saw Rose's visage. He leaned forward to Rose.
"Well," she started. "People called me Malfoy and you Weasley. Look at us...I look like a Malfoy and you look like a Weasley. I'm suddenly in Slytherin and you're in Gryffindor. And then that bit about Hugo and Albus. I...think...w—we exchanged—" she swallowed painfully "—lives or something."
Apologies for wrong grammars and spellings.
Sorry it took this long. I think this chapter is verging on lameness xD
