The next morning I awoke feeling as though I hadn't slept at all. This was probably because that was partly true - I had been up most of the night studying for an important test in Defense Against the Dark Arts that I couldn't bear to fail. Professor Knightly had been very stern when he told us that this test would be of the utmost importance to him when trying to decide how well we were doing, and which careers to suggest to us. I therefor had to give him the best impression possible. After all, I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do once I was finished with Hogwarts, but I knew that it had to be something wonderful, and no one ever becomes someone wonderful if they fail their tests. That and Professor Knightly frightened me quite a bit. It was something about his bushy mustache and his short temper, and his very high expectations to us. As one of the best students in the class, I often fulfilled these expectations, but I still felt that I had to work hard to get there. Scorpius, who was also in my Defense Against the Dark Arts class - we had it with the Slytherins - was also one of the best students, of course, but he somehow didn't always seem to care enough about school to want to work as hard as I did.
This was obvious by the fact that when he showed up to Defense Against the Dark Arts that day (five minutes late, as usual) he did not have the dark shadows under his eyes like I did, and did not look at all worried or nervous about the test that lay ahead. He slid casually into the seat next to me and winked. I smiled at him and turned my attention back up to Professor Knightly at once, who was filling us in on the details concerning the test.
"There will be questions on everything that you have learned throughout all your years in Hogwarts. They will not be placed in order, however, so it is up to you to think back and remember what you have learned when-"
Scorpius poked me in the ribs. I jumped in my seat, and then turned around to glare at him, but he only grinned back. "Been up all night studying, have you?"
"Yes," I muttered. "Shut up."
I tried to give Professor Knightly my full attention again, but Scorpius naturally had to give me another poke in the ribs, right where I am the most ticklish, causing me to emit a high pitched giggle. Professor Knightly turned his stern dark eyes on me.
"Do you find the Unforgivable Curses funny, Miss Weasley?"
"No, sir," I said, almost shaking. "No, sir, not at all. I - a fly tickled me."
"A fly," Professor Knightly repeated dully, not sounding as though he believed me at all. However, he seemed to choose to ignore this and continued on his lecture on what we were to do during this test. Beside me, I heard Scorpius snort quietly with laughter. I gave him my best Death Glare.
"Thought that was funny, did you?" I hissed at him. "Knightly might have kicked me out of the classroom!"
"Oh, stop worrying about it," whispered Scorpius back. "You're going to ace this test. Completely going to kick my ass."
I rolled my eyes. "That's impossible, Scorpius, and you know it," I told him. "You always do well on these tests, though I have no idea why..."
"It's my extremely perfect memory," Scorpius said. "You know how I can remember almost anything. Just like the fact that you are unbelievably ticklish, right... there." He poked me in the ribs again. I tried to hold back any improper sounds this time and instead managed to kick the leg of the table with such ferocity that I possibly fractured a toe.
"Miss Weasley," Professor Knightly said, turning to me once more. "Is there a problem? Will you be unable to take this test? Are you having a fit that requires medical attention?" A few people from the back of the class snickered.
"No," I told him, feeling ridiculous.
"Then please try to sit still," said Professor Knightly. "Or I may feel compelled to place a Silencing Charm on you - or perhaps a Sticking Curse to your buttocks to ensure that you remain in your seat."
This being said he turned away and started passing out the tests.
"Stupid old bugger," said Scorpius casually beside me.
"Shut up," I snapped at him. "You could have gotten me a Sticking Curse! Or worse - gotten me thrown out of the classroom, so I wouldn't be able to take the test!"
"You know," said Scorpius, "most people would think it worse to have a Sticking Curse on their butt. You need to think about your priorities."
I glowered at him, but he only smiled in return. His smile was so genuine and sweet that I relented and smiled back, before taking a test from Professor Knightly.
"No talking," the Professor told us, frowning.
I took out my quill and turned to the test. The truth was that I perhaps not only was irritated with Scorpius for annoying me so much. I was also concerned as to why he STILL had not invited me to his house - or to his parents' ball for the holidays. I couldn't understand why he wasn't doing anything about it, why he hadn't mentioned anything yet, especially not if Demetria had had the conversation with him that she had promised me the day before. Perhaps she had forgotten. Or perhaps, an even happier thought, Scorpius had completely forgotten about asking me, and had assumed, like Demetria, that he had already done so, or that it was just implied that I would come. This comforted me a little, and I was finally able to concentrate on the test.
After Defense Against the Dark Arts, Scorpius and I left the classroom, accompanied by our usual flock of friends – Albus, Felicia, Demetria and Ophi.
"I thought that test was too hard," Ophi said, shaking his head. "I have no idea what the name of the curse to slow an object down is…"
"Impedimenta," Scorpius and I said at the same time.
"Oh, yeah…" said Ophi. "Now I feel even more stupid."
"How did you think the test went, Albus?" Demetria asked him, making me stop in my tracks and stare at her. Scorpius nudged me forward. Albus seemed just as surprised as I was.
"I… um," he said.
"Albus thinks it went well," Felicia, Albus' girlfriend, informed Demetria in a superior tone. "He thought that the questions were easy, and he's been studying quite a bit."
Demetria raised her eyebrows. "Oh, are you speaking for Albus now?"
Felicia blushed. "I happen to know Albus exceedingly well," Felicia said, and wrapped and arm around Albus' shoulders. Albus kept opening and closing his mouth, as though confused by the events taking place around him.
"Albus, what do you have now?" Demetria asked him. Her tone was almost kind.
"Divination," Felicia answered immediately. "We have to see into Crystal Balls today."
"Tough luck for Potter," Scorpius muttered.
I smacked the back of his head. I didn't appreciate Scorpius joking about my cousin's blindness. Demetria and Felicia seemed to be having some kind of staring contest, each trying to glare the other down. Albus was happily oblivious to this, and continued walking on with a smile on his face.
We parted ways in the Entrance Hall for our different subjects. Felicia and Albus had Divination up in the North Tower – a subject that I would never choose, as my parents had warned me of its uselessness and pointlessness – Ophi had Muggle Studies – another subject that I would never choose, seeing as I regularly spent summers with my very Muggle maternal grandparents – and Scorpius, Demetria and I had Arithmancy.
In the Arithmancy classroom Demetria immediately claimed a seat next to me, even shoving Scorpius aside to get it.
"Ouch," Scorpius said, mournfully rubbing his elbow. "That's twice you've nearly injured me fatally today."
Demetria rolled her eyes. "As if you can't handle it. Shove off."
Scorpius scowled at her and took a seat next to another Slytherin.
Demetria turned her wide silver – blue eyes to mine. She was smiling, something that was not only very rare, but also slightly unsettling, due to the pointiness of her teeth. Although I now thought that the theory I had had two months ago of Demetria being a vampire was silly, I still didn't exactly love the way her white teeth gleamed in the light from the window.
"What do you want?" I asked her warily.
"How serious is the relationship between Albus and Felicia?" she asked me.
I gaped at her. I had no idea why she would care about this. After all, some of Demetria's favorite hobbies were annoying Felicia and ignoring Albus. Demetria had a dominating personality, and so did Felicia. The two of them often clashed over stupid, silly little things, and I had the feeling that they only put up with each other because of me.
"I have no idea," I told her honestly.
"Oh, come off it," Demetria said, losing the fake smile. "We both know that they are two of your best friends. They must confide in you a little bit."
The thing was that they didn't really confide in me. Well, Albus did, Albus being my best friend and all. But all Albus ever said about Felicia was how perfect she was, and how beautiful she was. He never seemed to have anything serious to say about their relationship. Felicia, however, seemed to hardly ever talk to me anymore. It felt like I was with her a lot, because we hung out in the same group. But in reality, it was more Felicia being with Albus while he was talking to me. When we were in the girls' dormitory Felicia talked mostly to Eurydice and Ellen. Jane, the last girl in our dormitory, had suddenly started being uncommonly kind to me, though I had no idea why. Normally Jane was hard to pull out from behind her romance novels.
"Well," I said uncertainly. "Albus seems to be very fond of Felicia. I don't know how she feels. We don't… we don't talk much."
"Yeah, I've noticed that," Demetria said, frowning slightly. "She seems to have gone off you a bit, hasn't she?"
I didn't know what to say to this.
"Why are you interested anyway?" I asked, changing the subject. "And why did you keep asking Albus questions today?"
"Wasn't it just infuriating how Felicia kept answering for him?" Demetria said.
"Answer the question," I said.
At that moment, however, our Arithmancy Professor, a Professor Nott, called the class to order and began to review the homework for today. I was having a hard time concentrating though, because I could see Demetria being relieved about Professor Nott starting the lesson.
I kicked her under the table. When she turned to glare at me, I glared right back, until she sighed heavily and gestured for me to lean in closer. I did.
"It's because," she whispered in my ear, "I'm in love with Albus."
"WHAT?" I burst out loudly.
The entire class stared at me. "I was saying, Miss Weasley," said Professor Nott, looking at me as though he thought I was some sort of mental case, "that you should all have prepared your charts. This can hardly come as a shock, as I informed you of this last week."
"Oh, no, Professor," I said. Why did I have to blush so much right now? "I just… found a serious mistake in my own."
This was such a lie. I never make mistakes in my homework.
"Are you having a fit, Rosie?" Scorpius asked me from the other side of the classroom, smirking. Adrasteia Spiros, the Slytherin girl sitting next to Scorpius, laughed loudly and shook her dark, curly hair. I didn't particularly like Adrasteia. Especially not when she laughed at Scorpius' jokes.
Professor Nott chose to ignore the pair of them, which I found to be extremely unfair. He continued reviewing our charts, but I just could pay attention to anything now.
"Demetria," I whispered to her, "you can't be serious."
"Of course I am," Demetria snapped back. "Does it seem like something that I would joke about?"
"No," I said. "It's just… well, you never really seemed interested in him before."
"Well, I wasn't," said Demetria. "It's just come on lately. I don't know. He's just… he's really funny, you know? And good lucking. And – and kind."
I never thought that Demetria counted kindness as a quality.
"But look," Demetria whispered, turning in her seat to face me. "If you breathe a word of this to anyone – and I mean anyone - even Scorpius – I will kill you."
"I won't say anything," I assured her.
"No, I mean it," Demetria said, narrowing her eyes. "If I find out that you have told this to someone, I will seriously bat – bogey hex you out of this world. And then I will hunt you down, and I will perform the Furnunculus Curse on you, so you become so ugly no one will ever talk to you again. And then I'll perform a Leg – Locker Curse – you know how good I am at those – so you can't move, and then I will. Kill. You."
I stared at her, open – mouthed. "Okay," I said lamely, once I found my voice again.
"Great!" Demetria said cheerfully, flashing a pointy smile before turning her attention back to Professor Nott.
Though I was seriously shaken, I still worked up the courage to ask Demetria one more thing. "Did… did you have time to take that little chat with Scorpius that we talked about yesterday?"
"Oh, yeah," Demetria said. "Yeah, I did. Took it this morning. He has a rather nasty bruise on his left shoulder now."
"What did you do to him?" I asked, appalled. Demetria was frightening me a lot today.
Demetria shrugged. "Shoved him around a bit until he answered me. I know he's played Quidditch for years and all, but I'm stronger than I look, and he really is a skinny little thing."
Scorpius is skinny, and not much taller than me. Nonetheless, he is one of the most wanted boys among the girls in our year. The way his white – blonde hair falls into those witty grey eyes – and those full lips, always smiling, smirking or laughing… I could clearly remember Eurydice from my own House, who had had insisted that she had fallen in love with him about the same time that I did. Luckily, she forgave me for "taking him from her".
"Well," I whispered. "What did you find out?"
Demetria sighed. "Look," she said, "I think that you should ask him yourself."
"What? I can't do that! He'll think I'm begging for an invitation."
Demetria shook her head. "No, he won't. It's a good question to ask. He should have invited you, and you ought to confront him. But don't worry. It's not because he's ashamed of you or anything."
"Then why is it?"
"Ask him yourself!" Demetria snapped, and we turned our attention to Professor Nott at last, though I couldn't help myself from sneaking glances at Scorpius and Adrasteia once in a while.
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