chapter 2;


An owl had swooped down to where I was sitting the next morning at breakfast in the Great Hall with an envelope in its possesions.

"Hi, Hermes," I said once I noticed that the owl was my owl, Hermes. Hermes looked up at me pecked my index finger affectionately as I was trying to untie the letter that was tied to Hermes.

"Thanks," I smiled at him. Hermes pecked my finger one last time before flying away.

"Ooh, letter. Whose it from?" I heard a voice behind me as I opened the seal on the letter.

I turned around and looked up to see who it was: Lily. "Hey, Lil. I think it's from Mum," I greeted my cousin as she took a seat next to me. I had noticed that my name was written on the envelope in Mum's usual neat handwriting.

"Awesome. Tell Aunt Hermione I say hi," Lily replied as she loaded her plate in front of her with bacon and potatoes.

I finished my oatmeal before reading the letter,

Dear Rosie,

We heard the news from Harry and Ginny through Lily! The Yule Ball is coming back to Hogwarts. You probably don't want to hear about how MY Yule Ball went, I'll just tell you that it was a memorable experience. I'm so excited that something like this is happening at Hogwarts again and when the Yule Ball came to Hogwarts when I was a student, I was in ny fourth year also! I'm sure you're going to have a lovely dress and you're going to have a great time! Tell your brother that if he wants to ask someone to go with him and there's someone he wants to ask, tell him that he needs to ask them BEFORE and not at the last minute. Just saying from experience... Your father is saying that you better accept going with someone respectable and no Slytherins... be sure to write back!

Love, Mum and Dad

I smiled as I tucked the letter into my book bag. After breakdast, I headed to my first class of the day, Herbology.

"See you later, Lily," I said to my cousin as I headed down to the greenhouses for Herbology.

"Hey, Rose! Wait up!" I heard my name being called as I walked out of the Great Hall.

I turned around and saw my friend/dormitory mate, Zoe. "Hi, Zo. What's up?" I asked her once she caught up with me. We were in the same Herbology class at the beginning of the day and she was one of my only friends/the people I was close to/knew in Herbology class so it was fun to have a friendly face.

"Nothing much. I think I hate Herbology right now," Zoe shrugged, twirling a lock of her chocolate brown hair around her index finger as we headed down the stairs.

"Why?" I asked her. Herbology wasn't too bad. I was close with Professor Longbottom who had been my mum and dad's friend and learning about plants was interesting.

"What we're learning. It's kinda gross though," Zoe explained.

I opened the door to our greenhouse classroom, "Oh! Yeah, it's kinda gross, but kind of interesting." Right now we were learning about bubotuber pus and it was kind of gross.

"Yeah. I really can't wait until the Yule Ball," Zoe changed the subject as we took a seat near the back of the greenhouse.

"Oh, yeah. The Yule Ball," I said slowly, pretending that I had forgotton about it.

"Why you don't like it?" Zoe studied my face.

I didn't really know what to say about the Yule Ball. When I first learned about it, it seemed kind of fun and interesting, but after Lily started bombarding me with questions about dresses and asking people to it, I had kind of shyed away, you know? I wasn't one of those gossipy girls in my year, I wasn't one of those girls who strolled around Hogsmeade with their boyfriends going on dates and everything. In fact, I had never had a boyfriend before nor was I sure if anyone I ever liked me before.

"I dunno. It just doesn't seem like my thing," I replied honestly.

"Because it's not Quidditch?" Zoe asked me playfully. Almost all my friends had known about my love for Quidditch. I was one of the three Chasers on the Gryffindor house team and the wall right next to my four poster bed room was completely covered in posters of the Falmouth Falcons taped with Spellotape.

"Somewhat," I joked to her.

"Knew it," Zoe said.

I was about to add something on but at that moment, Professor Longbottom walked into the class, signaling the start of class and the end of our conversation about the Yule Ball.

The bubotuber pus wasn't that gross, so I guess you could say that Herbology class went well, and we had no homework, which was a bonus.

The next classes I had were Arithmacy and Care of Magical Creatures, and by the time Charms rolled around next, I was already tired even though we had a period before lunch. We had to do 2 worksheets for Arithmacy and notes on Blast-Ended Skewts. I wasn't prepared on what was in store for Charms class as we usually had the most work and homework for Charms class.

By the time I had walked into Charms, most of the class was already there and there was Professor Flitwick standing on his little wooden stool, looking happy and greeting students as they walked in. We were having class with the Slytherins today as the Slytherins had all sat together and near each other in the front of the class, and a few Slytherins were in the back to the class

"Hello, Miss Weasley!" Professor Flitwick greeted me cheerfully.

"Hi, Professor Flitwick." I smiled at him before taking a seat next to my friend, Summer Grant, in the middle row. Summer was a good friend of mine in my year.

"Hi, Summer," I greeted her as I took a seat in the chair next to hers. She was doodling something in her notebook before she looked up at me. Typical Summer, I thought to myself. Summer was really artistic and was often caught doodling in Charms or Astronomy, a class we had together.

It took a moment before Summer noticed that I was sitting next to her. "Hey, Rose!" she greeted me once she noticed I was there.

"It took you long enough," I joked at her playfully.

Summer laughed while fixing the front of her awfully straight and shiny light brown hair that I was really jealous of. Sure, I loved the colour of my hair as not a lot of people at Hogwarts- except for people in the Weasley clan, had bright red fiery hair but I had wished that my hair could be that straight and shiny.

"I heard that Professor Flitwick is going to give us a project to work on," Summer continued.

"Really?" I perked up a little. I really liked projects in classes. They were much more fun than doing the regular classwork and homework.

"Yup," Summer replied as Professor Flitwick cleared his throat, signaling the start of Charms.

"Good morning everyone!" Professor Flitwick squeakes cheerfully. I really liked Professor Flitwick, he always had this happy vibe around him and was cheerful and he made class fun.

"Good morning, Professor Flitwick," the class replied in unison. I shouldn't have said the entire class because you could mostly hear the Gryffindors and not the Slytherins.

"I have exciting news for all of you!" Professor Flitwick replied happily, "I've decided for your final grade this quarter, we'll do a project!"

I looked up when Professor Flitwick mentioned the project. So Summer was right, I thought to myself.

"The objective is to present and teach the class about a spell or charm that we have not learned yet. This will be worth half your grade for the quarter. There is a writing component on how this charm or spell is helpful, one roll of parchment minimum. You will be judged on how fluent your presentation is, how well the charm is taught, and how the writing piece will turn out," Professor Flitwick continued.

"Are we going to have partners?" a Slytherin girl asked Professor Flitwick.

"Ah, yes!" Professor Flitwick nodded, "I've assigned the partners!"

There was a slight groan from the entire class and I think I know why; us Gryffindors would surely be paired up with a Slytherin, and Gryffindors and Slytherin still rivals. Personally, I wasn't part of this rivalry much because I was friends with Scorpius who was in Slytherin and I had never had a bad experience or encounter with a Slytherin.

Professor Flitwick began reading off the partners on his list. Like I guessed, Professor Flitwick had paired Gryffindors up with Slytherins and from the look of it, most people weren't happy at all.

"And we have Rose Weasley with Scorpius Malfoy," Professor Flitwick read off of the list.

"Good luck with that," Summer whispered from next to me. She was still working on the picture she was drawing before class started.

I was still frozen, unable to speak. Of all the people in Slytherin that I could be paired up with, I was paired up with Scorpius? The thing yesterday with Lily and how she told me to ask someone in my year that I was friends with still lingered in my head. Yeah, I hung out with guys, but they were my cousins, and looking at it, Scorpius was really my only guy friend.

The thought of asking Scorpius to the Yule Ball was forever stuck in my head. Thanks, Lily, I thought to myself annoyedly.

"Those are your partners! The project will probably be due before the holidays, so it is important to start meeting up and discussing the project," Professor Flitwick explained.

For the remainder of the class, Professor Flitwick handed out a worksheet for us to work on and then it was time for lunch.

"Rose!" I heard my name being called as I was heading out of the Charms classroom and out to the Great Hall for lunch.

I turned around to see that it was Scorpius, of whom I was partners with for this project that was worth half my Charms grade. Insert unidentified emotions.

"Yeah? Hey, Scorpius," I said to him.

"So I guess that we should meet up eventually for the project? How about next Tuesday in the library? After dinner? Maybe 7:30?" Scorpius walked closer to me.

"Yeah, that sounds good. I'll see you then," I smiled at him.

He was about to say something else before getting interrupted by a voice behind him. "Scorpius?" Someone else called him. He turned around to see who it was. I looked and noticed that it was another Slytherin girl in our year as she was holding the fourth year Charms book and had the Slytherin house crest sewn to her robes. She had long dirty blonde hair and an "I'm a Slytherin" expression on her face.

"Oh, this is Serena. Serena Whiteley. Serena's my girlfriend..." Scorpius explained, trailing off at the 'girlfriend' part.

I blinked slowly before saying anything. "Oh, I'm Rose!" I introduced myself, trying not to seem like I was weirded out or annoyed or MAD at the fact that even though Scorpius and I were friends, he never mentioned having a girlfriend? Who am I to sound mad? I didn't like him at all, so why was I sounding so jealous? Was I?

"Oh, well, let's go to lunch, Scorp. Bye, Rose," she said swiftly before turning the other way with Scorpius in tow, heading for the Great Hall, leaving me alone in the corridor.


A/N -

Chapter 2! Thank you to all the people who have alerted/favourited Last Rose of the Night! You guys are amazing! Can we get one review at least? ;) Love you guys!

-Juliet