They passed Cambridge within the hour, it was just after the Hogwarts Express passed by Birmingham that the trolley came around. Rose asked for a pumpkin and goats cheese pasty, as well as a bottle of Jenny Any Dot's never-ending spring water, straight from the gorse covered hills of Northern Wales. She also bought Remy a can of liver pate, and cat milk. She poked Albus' foot. He awoke for the first time since boarding and ordered his body weight in Chocolate frogs, then gave most of them to Lily and told her and Hugo to go and give them to anyone who wanted one on the train. After they'd run off, he turned to Rose.

"You know, I think that's the same trolley lady that our parents had when they went to Hogwarts."

"Probably." Rose replied, her mouth full with sweet pumpkin and flaking pastry. "What was her name again? She must be pushing 100 now. I wonder what she does on the other 363 days of the year?"

"Hmm." Albus stretched. "I have no idea." He said sleepily, before crossing his arms and turning to face the window. "Maybe Malfoy knows, I think he's only three carri-" He was cut off by the remainder of Rose's pasty splatting across his face. If he wasn't awake before, he definitely was now.

A long intake of breath and Rose knew she'd fucked up. A grin spread slowly across Albus' face.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She squealed with laughter as she tried to make it out the door to the passageway. Remy hissed and arched his back. It was all in vain, Albus caught her arm and proceeded to stuff pasty down Rose's pullover and rub it in. Rose's laughter filled the carriage and she conceded defeat. Pumpkin chunks and cubes of goat's cheese smushed against her skin and clothes, warm and lumpy. Albus turned back to his seat, wiping flaking pastry and crumbled cheese from his seat.

"Well don't just throw them on the floor!" She pulled her wand from her skirt belt, where she'd stored it before boarding the Hogwart's express.

"Scourgify." Most of the bits of food on the floor and in the air disappeared with a slight popping sound, like the sound your ears make when you go through a tunnel. But there were still half a dozen crumbs on the floor. She furrowed her brow and wiggled her shoulders.

"Losing your touch?" Albus smirked.

"Shut up. It's been a while, besides, she's going to be annoyed with me for a time, until she realises I still love her." Rose's wand, acacia wood, 12 ¾ inches with a stiff constitution and a phoenix feather core had always been temperamental. Ollivander had described mastery of an acacia wand to her as like tuning a violin by ear. She needed to push and pull until the rhythm seemed just right, like a perfectly tuned string. It seemed to pull against Rose, only fully becoming part of her when she relaxed and let the magic flow through her naturally. As such, in a stuffy carriage with her pain of a cousin and lumps of goat's cheese slowly sliding down her back, Rose could not relax. With a flick of her wrist the remaining crumbs disappeared from the floor and she poked her tongue at Albus, who rolled his eyes.

"You still have pie all down your back." His voice was monotone and matter of fact.

Luckily she had not changed into her robes yet. She pulled her clothes trunk from the luggage rack above the seat and took out the ones she'd put aside for the Great feast; Black lace-up ankle boots with a flat heel, thick black tights, her black robe dress, which fell to her ankles, covering her arms and chest, and the tall pointed hat they wore for feasts and other important school activities. Her father had also given her a small pin, a golden lion's head which would roar silently between looking around, surveying the area with his deep ruby eyes. It wasn't strictly regulation uniform, but no one seemed to mind for the Great feast. A little house rivalry was always encouraged and since Rose was thinking of running for prefect this year, she figured it would be a nice touch to help her stand out.

She only took the dress to the bathroom, which was in the next carriage along and tried her best not to leave a trail of crumbs on her way. Covering the bathroom was another matter, but she figured she could clear that easily enough. She piled her pullover and blouse into the sink before slipping off her knee-length gathered skirt, she realised she'd subconsciously dressed in the Gryffindor colours, a burgundy pullover, black short sleeved blouse and tights, a faded gold for the skirt and brown kitten heels for shoes.

She shrugged on the robe-dress and adjusted it, the collar came right to her neck and the sleeves were wide, which was a pain when eating. They weren't the most fashionable things in the world, but Rose had to admit they cut a pretty sharp figure. Besides, they were only for one night before the every-day uniform kicked in. Rose leaned in to examine her appearance, her freckles from the summer were already beginning to fade and she'd inherited her mother's curly hair, though it wasn't quite as frizzy. She was happy with what she saw. It's not a bad face, really. She would put make up on back in the carriage, just line her eyes and frame her face.

She gathered her clothes, quickly cleaned the floor of pumpkin and washed her hands. She slid the mahogany door to the bathroom shut, turned and made her way back towards her carriage. When she'd reached her carriage room door, Albus again napping on the seat, this time with Remy perched on his hip, his paws tucked up underneath himself, she felt another presence in the passage. She stilled and looked up. Scorpius Malfoy was looking down at his hands with disgust. In one of them was Rose's blouse, covered in food crumbs, but still very much her blouse. Shit. Okay, do I acknowledge the clothing? Do I abandon it? I mean he could cast a charm to find the owner…She turned to face him, conscious that she'd stood in the passage for approximately 70% longer than she should have. But then he'll think I'm some gross Mudblood who can't even eat pastry properly. She'd learnt that word from a group of particularly vicious 6th years just after her first Christmas at Hogwarts, unlike her mother, it had never really bothered her. Stupid words for stupid people. But, fortunately, or unfortunately, Rose no longer needed to make a decision regarding Food!Blouse, because, directly in front of her now stood Malfoy, arm outstretched, offering said blouse.

"I believe you dropped this." His voice had dropped a few octaves, though it still crackled with youth.

Rose reached out and took the item of clothing, silently. A few flakes floated to the floor. Scorpius stood there and let his arm fall to his side. He looked at Rose, raising an eyebrow. Am I staring? I'm staring. He had turned to head away when Rose blurted out –

"I know how to eat properly!"

After a beat he snorted and sneered. "Okaaay?" With a shrug of his shoulders, he went on his way, pausing to let a group of third years past.

Rose stood, dumbstruck in the passageway, clothes clutched to her chest. Before groaning internally, turning back to the door and pressing her forehead to the glass, cold and hard. What the hell just happened? Well, he's still a prick, that's for sure. He's just a hot prick now. She slid the door open. Her make-up bag lay on the top of her open trunk. She picked it up and busied herself. Ugh, I swear, I need to not think he's hot. He's a bigoted, narcissistic, asshole. Why would I forget that?

Rose Weasley had good reason to not like Scorpius Malfoy. Despite his surname, she determined to give him as much of a break as she could. Her parents had taught her to be understanding of all creatures, great and small, and the Malfoys were as tiny as humans could get. That had changed in her second year.

***2 and a half years ago***

It had been the coldest winter for 70 years, so cold in fact, they almost wouldn't allow students to travel home for Christmas. But it was in January, when the students returned, that things got really bad. It had snowed solidly for 13 days, the snow piled 15 feet deep and had to be blasted away by the professors and the house elves and those who felt confident enough not to blow their gloves off. It even drifted all the way up to the windows of the Gryffindor Common Room, slowly encasing the room, blocking out the light. Eventually they cancelled classes and so the students were restricted to the castle.

Obviously, they got bored.

There were pillow fights and food fights, the seventh years enchanted the younger year's toys and staged knockout tournaments. They made pumpkin soup and hot chocolate, hot cinnamon milk and steamed blueberry muffins in makeshift cookers made from cauldrons and with ingredients stolen from the kitchen by James and his friends. The girls in Rose's dorm all piled their mattresses on the floor and made one huge blanket fort, roasting marshmallows over wand fires and talking about their dreams and what they were going to do when they grew up.

After 4 days of the shut in, it got really cold, the temperature rarely reached above -5 centigrade. It didn't snow anymore; it was too cold for that. Instead the sun made the snow shine and sparkle. Across this field of snow, the Great Lake turned to ice. The sound of it solidifying could be heard all the way from the Gryffindor tower, a deep, booming sound, deadened by the snow. The snow swallowed all the sound, either that or all the wildlife had either died or been buried. The Forbidden Forest was no longer composed of trees, it had been replaced by a lumpy blanket of white, occasionally a sentinel tree poked through. Rose thought it was magnificent.

On the evening of the 21st, Albus passed a message from James. They were going to go and skate on the lake. The plan was to sneak out down the snow which had piled against the tower, James then girl-friend, Tatiana, a beater on the Gryffindor quidditch team, had taken 7 broomsticks from the store. They would fly out the window and down the snow at 7pm and be back for lights out at 10.

The Great Lake was eerily quiet.

"You go first." Albus clung to his broomstick, hovering 6 inches from the ice of the lake. Both he and Rose wore at least 4 layers of clothes. They had enchanted the bottom layer so it warmed them to room temperature, but it was at least -20 degrees Celsius, so it was shirt and pullover and jacket and coat, thick scarves and fur mittens, woolly hats and thermal underwear, 5 pairs of socks and knee-high boots. The clothing alone made agility impossible.

"Chicken." Rose smirked in the moonlight and buried her nose in her scarf as her breath swirl away into the night air. She swung her leg over and placed both feet on the ice. The solidity of it startled her, almost as if she had expected it to bend under her weight. It felt so strong, so powerful, Rose suddenly felt very small. It was just her and Albus, on the flattest surface, which stretched for at least a mile in either direction. James, Tatiana and 3 more fourth years were off in the distant, their shrieks the only sound in the milky darkness.

"Is it slippery?" Albus still hadn't come off his broom.

"Umm, kinda." Rose held onto her broom and brushed her boots over the surface of the ice.

"It's kinda bumpy, from the bubbles in the ice. Ooh!" She slipped and held onto her broom even tighter. Albus eventually slid off his broom and together they spent the next hour or so racing and slipping and falling and laughing.

Then the Slytherins appeared. At first they kept themselves to themselves. Rose and Albus grew wearier. Rose asked Albus to go, to leave and go back to their dorm. Albus said that would be admitting defeat, that they were there first and they should stay, at least for a while.

Things were fine until they discovered they could make the ice crack. The first crack shot across the lake like lightning. Albus jumped and Rose fell on her bum. Slytherin laughter followed.

"Hey!" Shouted Rose. "Don't do that." She used her broom to pull herself up, with a hand from Albus. The Slytherins were 3 black shapes, only an inch or so high, dark against the blue of the edge of the lake.

"Like we're going to take orders from a Gryffindor. Especially one like you."

What was that supposed to mean?

Albus bristled. "Scorpius! Is that you?"

Another crack in the ice, this time it spread singularly towards the two Gryffindor children. By this time James and his friends had gone back to the Common Room, yet Albus still glanced towards where they had been.

"Malfoy, what are you doing?"

"Oh! I'm a Malfoy now? Does that make it easier to talk to me, Potter? Just lump us all together. Maybe we just came out here to have fun!"

Another crack, this time splinters of ice jumped up. This one was deep and jagged, creating blocks of ice which popped up from the pressure of the water below, dark water seeped up through the fissures.

"I'm scared." Rose held onto Albus' shoulder.

"It's okay. He's not going to do anything extreme." Albus' voiced waivered. "Stop it!" He shouted.

A laugh drifted across the ice.

"You know it's funny, it's almost impossible to make a wizard's murder look like an accident. Muggle deaths however…" The ice cracked again, Rose felt the ice shift beneath her feet. Her heart thundered against her chest and she couldn't feel anything.

"Muggles may have actually got something right for once, people die in accidents all the time. This will be a fitting death."

Albus turned to Rose, shouting. Albus would later tell her that it was "Get on your broom" or something like that. To this day, Rose cannot remember, all she could hear was the roar of the cracking ice. All she felt was the fabric of Albus' coat slip slowly from her grip. The ice turning, thick and sharp. Her boots slipping on the new angled floor, the bite of the ice as she bashed her head. If it hadn't been for her grip on her broom, Rose would have been in the Lake and under that ice immediately. The thought of what could have happened had brought her to the edge of tears for almost a year. Albus grabbed the back of her coat and she clung there for a beat before clambering up onto her broom. Her heart pounded so hard she could hear the blood rush around her body. There was a ringing sound in her ears and her vision went grey. By the time she had gathered her wits, they were back in the Gryffindor Common Room. Her feet were soaked with the water from the Lake, so she told Albus she wanted to go straight to bed, to warm up.

She had cried herself to sleep that night, not from the fear of what could have happened, but because she had had no idea that someone she thought could have possibly been her friend, could hate her so much.