Chapter 2

"Rose you're late."

"Sorry Mum. I lost track of time."

"You missed dinner, so I have your supper waiting on the stove. Also, I have that letter from earlier on the table, if you'd like to read it."

"Ok thanks Mum," I said, walking over towards the mysterious letter. There wasn't anything abnormal about the letter, except for the fact that I had no idea who sent it. The penmanship was a tidy cursive unlike Al's sloppy loopy letters and Nash's sharp print: nor was it like Leena Robin's girly script or Zada's bold type. I opened the envelope to find a note that read:

Dear Rose,

How has your summer been going? I am so glad to hear that we are both going to be prefects this year. I hope that we have the opportunity of conversing more as we haven't done in the past. I know that you may have some negative preconceived notions of me, but I hope I can prove to you that they are in fact untrue. I really hope you do not take this message as a challenge, but as an olive branch. I know that our history hasn't been the greatest, but I sincerely hope that we can become friends this year for the betterment of ourselves and for Hogwarts.

Sincerely,

SM

SM? Great, that's just great. I go through years of trying to avoid him, and now he's my freakin' partner. Well, at least he's trying to be a gentleman about it, unlike in the past where he made a total fool of himself. This letter really doesn't sound like him. Maybe he changed over the summer. He might have grown up, at least a bit. You never know. After dinner, I made sure that there was nothing I had missed in my rushed packing. I let out Athena, my eastern screech owl, for her last flight of the summer, and went to bed.

"Wake up, Rose!" my mum yelled into my room. I looked at my clock: 10:30. Shoot. I quickly hopped in the shower, and was out in five minutes. I combed my hair as best as I could, mum could do a hair straightening charm on it in the car. I brushed my teeth, and hurried to breakfast. Half eaten eggs and oatmeal bowls scattered the counter and no one was to be found. I quickly looked to the key hanger to find that the keys were indeed missing. How could they forget me? I checked upstairs to find that they did not in fact forget my trunk. Hopefully, I could catch them at the Potter's house before they all left.

I hurriedly grabbed a handful of floo powder, and stepped into our fireplace. I quickly emerged from my cousins' fireplace to find an almost identical scene as was at my house. "Merlin! Everyone must have forgotten about me!" I tried to think how I could possibly get to Kings Cross Station on time. Then I remembered a little wizard tea shop just down the street from the station that was invisible to muggles. What was the name of it though? Was it Lock arms? or Key hearts? What was it? Then it finally came to me, Lockheart's Tea Shoppe. I said the name and rapidly appeared in an old run down shop. At first I thought, I had come up with the wrong name until I saw a rusted old sign over the counter saying Lockheart's Tea Shoppe. Phew!

My momentary celebration was cut short as I saw the time on the clock: 10:56. I ran out of the shop and spotted my destination. As fast as I could, I took off for the station. I ran like a dragon was behind me.

As I approached the platform, I took off for the wall only to be knocked off my feet by some strange force. I stood up and realized that I had literally run into my family, as Albus was the one who had knocked me off my feet. He knew that we didn't have time for conversation as it was now 10:59. He went through the wall first, and I soon followed. When we reached the train we were both panting heavily.

"Rose, why the hell did you take off without all of us?"

"I didn't take off without you. Both my family and yours left before I got down there."

"Rose, we were supposed to come to your house this year, remember? We were all waiting in the car for you and you never showed."

"Oh." That was really stupid of me. Why had Knott appointed me prefect?

With that we hugged and each went our separate ways. I went down to visit Leena and Zada, which I hadn't seen all summer, and he went to visit his guy friends, most likely Nash and Malfoy.

Scorpius Malfoy and Albus became fast friends on their first day at Hogwarts much to my dismay. They had met on the train, when Malfoy couldn't find room to sit anywhere else. He just swaggered into Al and I's compartment only asking if he could sit down after he had already entered. As I had already been told to keep clear of him, I stayed silent for the majority of the ride. Al, on the other hand, was not warned of his heritage, and began chatting up a storm with him. Their friendship only solidified after the sorting ceremony, after a long amount of debate, they both were placed in Slytherin. That night, I went to meet Albus and console him for his placement in the house he had least wanted, but found him with Malfoy having a great time. I yelled at Al for hanging with the wrong sort, saying many words that I am not proud to admit.

Since then, Al and I have reconciled, but Malfoy and I have had a strained relationship to say the least. We only talk when it is absolutely necessary, either when we are around A, for his sake only, or when teachers pair us up in class, which is frequently. I guess it's because he is probably the only real competition Nash and I have for grades, but I'd much rather be paired up with Nash than him.

"Rose! I missed you so much!" came Leena's peppy voice along with a hug of such force that could rival a muggle pro-wrestler's tackle.

"Missed you too Leena, but seriously you're smothering me," I said through struggling breaths.

"Oh, sorry," Leena apologized and got up.

"I missed always picking your butt up," Zana chuckled, offering me a hand. Zana and Leena were about as different as night and day. While Leena was a voluptuous blonde who always had a smile on her face and a boy after her, Zana was a cool, calm, and collected brunette with a pencil thin body and a sarcastic sense of humor. Somehow, they worked together though and could always make me laugh and feel better when I was down.

"So, how does it feel to be a Gryffindor prefect?" asked Leena jumping up and down.

"Nauseating, in both ways," I responded.

"Oh, and do you know who the guy is?"

"Not for sure, but I heard it was McLagen."

"Well I heard that he dated this rich muggle girl over the summer, and he invited her over to his house and she saw his mum and dad dressed in wizard robes and got all freaked out, and then she told him to never to talk to her again, and then—"

"I hate to interrupt, but Rose, the prefect meeting is in five minutes and it looks like you just jumped out of bed," stated Zana.

"Don't worry, we can fix you up," piped Leena.

About halfway through straightening my hair, there was a knock on my compartment. Sure enough, there was a tall, and (I hate to admit) handsome Silias waiting on the other side of it.

"Whoa, Rose, are you um, feeling okay?" he said, slightly amused.

"Yes, I'm feeling fine, I just got off to a bit of a late start this morning. What do you want?"

"I was hoping we could, um, walk to the prefects' meeting together," he said with a suppressed chuckle. I must look like a bloody idiot, but I guess I'd just have to own it.

"Fine," I said grabbing a hair tie from Leena's box. I put my hair up in a quick braid, said goodbye and walked up to the front of the train.

"So I am really looking forward to spending so much time with you this year."

"Look, McLagen, I know that it's not your fault you were picked to be a prefect, but please do me a favor, and don't act like this changes anything between us. I will get along for the sake of Gryffindor, but I will not, nor will I ever, go out with you."

After that we walked in silence until we got to the room and opened the door.