A/N: Thank you for all the feedback! I decided to continue this story since I had more ideas planned out for it anyway. I should be updating fairly regularly. Hope you enjoy!
The train came to a jerky halt and I gathered up my things and successfully managed to exit the train without coming across my lovely, dear soulmate. Albus, Lily, Hugo and I were able to grab the next empty carriage as it pulled up to the station. I always thought that the black wooden carriages were a bit spooky with the lamps hanging off the front of them and the fact that they drove themselves. The night was clear and cool and we were thankfully blessed with being able to have the tops of the carriage down. It was really stuffy and cramped when the tops were up during the poor weather and I'd almost rather be soaking wet with rain.
I hoisted myself up and climbed into the carriage, sitting myself next to my brother Hugo. He kept looking back at the train as though he was looking for someone. I rolled my eyes. He was wondering where his soulmate was. How lucky of him that he ends up with a soulmate that isn't repulsive.
"So, Rose," Albus said, breaking the silence. I knew what was coming next and all I could think of was please no. "What did Malfoy want?"
Why? Why right now in front of my other cousin and brother?
"Prefect duty assignment," I replied, hoping that would be good enough for Albus even though I knew better.
"What kind of assignment?" Albus asked innocently.
"A normal prefect one," I said coolly, ignoring the curious looks I was receiving from Lily and Hugo.
"I don't know, Rose. Seemed kind of important if Malfoy had to personally tell you it in private." Albus continued and I narrowed my eyes at him. I was not in the mood to deal with this.
"Ooh, Rose! Getting special assignments from Malfoy? Maybe he's your soulmate." Lily joined in with a wink and I could hear Hugo sniggered softly beside me.
"I don't have a soulmate," I said.
I moved my attentions to the passing trees and other carriages, pretending to be extremely interested in them even though I've seen the same scene every year. Maybe if I stare off into space long enough, my relatives will realize that it was time to shut up. Just as I had hoped, the three of them began a new conversation about Quidditch.
Albus was made Quidditch captain of the Gryffindor team and he played seeker just like my uncle did before him. All of us played on the Quidditch team last year and Albus made it abundantly clear that just because we were his family, that doesn't mean we have a spot reserved for us on the team. He said something about it looking suspiciously political having a team made up of Potters and Weasleys, but hey, there were a lot of us.
"When's tryouts?" I asked, curious. I personally played the keeper position like my dad and I heard a few rumors floating around that a new keeper was going to try and take my spot.
"Finished daydreaming about your soulmate, Rose?" Lily asked, smirking. I threw her a glare and glanced back to Albus.
"I don't know, sometime during the second week of school, like always. I have to check who has the pitch reserved when," Albus answered, biting back a laugh from Lily's previous comment.
"I don't think Malfoy is that bad," Hugo said.
"Oh, my God! Enough!" I crossed my arms and went back to staring intently at the other trees and carriages, feeling sorry that I even bothered to open my mouth.
The remaining carriage ride felt like it took forever for me but Hugo pointed out it had only been a ten minute ride. Leaving our trunks behind to be carried up to the Gryffindor common room, Albus, Lily, Hugo, and I shuttled into the Great Hall along with the rest of the students. We took our seats at the Gryffindor table and I eagerly awaited the sorting to begin, mostly because I was starving.
The first years were led into the Hall and they always looked smaller and more frightened with each passing year. One by one they were sorted to their new houses and I cheered loudly along with the rest of the Gryffindor house whenever we obtained a new member. Hardly any of the first years got sorted into Slytherin, but that's how it's been for years. Slytherin had the least amount of students.
Food finally appeared before me and I grabbed a pair of utensils, grabbed as much food as I could fit on my plate and dug in. I was so hungry due to missing lunch on the train because of Malfoy.
"Hungry, Rose?" Albus asked, laughing.
"Uh, yeah," I replied, my mouth full of food.
I couldn't shake the feeling I was being watched and eating while having someone watch you is not a comfortable thing. My eyes scanned the rest of Gryffindor table but everyone else seemed to involved with their food to even notice me. I braved a look at the Slytherin table and then quikly looked back down at my plate, suddenly feeling very self-conscious.
Malfoy kept glancing over at me from his table. The unfortunate part about being aware that someone is watching you is that you can't help but to glance back and then that person thinks you're staring so they glance back and it's a never ending cycle. I tried my very hardest to keep my eyes trained on my plate, as though eating required a great deal of energy.
"You've been acting awfully strange, Rose," my brother whispered to me, noticing my staring contest with the treacle tart on my plate.
"I'm fine," I assured him.
As fine as I'll ever be.
The dishes vanished from all the tables, signaling the end of the feast. Albus and I rose from the table, along with the other four Gryffindor prefects and we began to lead the first years out of the Hall and up towards our common room.
I hung in the back of the pack to make sure we didn't have any stragglers and while I was approaching the door, I felt someone roughly run into my right shoulder. It actually was a little too rough and kind of hurt and I raised my hand to rub the shoulder to try and ease the pain. I looked around to see who the perpetrator was and the only potential culprit I found was Scorpius Malfoy.
"Really?" I mouthed to him and he merely shrugged, leading his own Slytherin first years out of the Hall and towards the dungeon.
I was so irritated that it felt like I was never going to not be irritated. All the irritation I was feeling was making it difficult to fall asleep which I desperately needed to do because I had N.E.W.T level potions first thing in the morning. I wanted to be well rested so I could fully focus in class and begin studying for the exams I'll have to take at the end of the year.
I closed my eyes and tried to calm down and stop thinking and maybe it would trick my brain into shutting off. Just think about nothing and soon I'll be asleep. Nothing.
Scorpius Malfoy is in taking N.E.W.T level potions and he'll be in my class tomorrow.
I cursed myself for letting that damned boy invade my thoughts again. The night continued on with me trying so desperately to think of nothing and then an unnecessary thought would pop in my head. What if he tried to sit next to me? What if I don't have the right potion's materials? What if I can't make the potion correctly? What if he laughs at me?
Eventually, between the thought of what if Malfoy announces to the class that we're soulmates and trying to remember word for word what Golpalott's Third Law was, I finally had drifted off to sleep.
My eyes fluttered open in the morning and I felt a painful tightness in my neck and lower back. I had slept horribly last night. My eyes still felt heavy and it took all the energy I had to just keep them open. The dormitory was quiet and when I brought myself to sit up, ignoring my aching back pains, I realized I was alone.
I glanced over to my watch that was resting on my bedside table and felt a rising panic rush through my stomach. It was nine thirty-two.
I threw off all my covers and they landed somewhere on the floor at the end of my bed. I hurried to my trunk and whipped out my robes and tried to put them on as fast as I could but I stumbled over while trying to pull my sock up. My hair was wild and I knew running the brush hastily through it the few times I did didn't help tame it.
Nine thirty-five. My watch seemed to jeer at me and each tick of the second hand was a mocking laugh.
I tossed my book and all the potions materials I had into my bag. Hearing the glass clink together, I prayed that nothing broke but I was too frazzled to bother to check. I threw the bag over my shoulder and rushed out of the door, through the common room, and out through the portrait hall. My calves burned as I forced them to carry me faster down the stairwell. I stopped on the last step of the set of stairs, hopping up and down as if that would urge the staircase to move to the lower level faster.
"Come on, damn staircase," I muttered impatiently under my breath, cursing the magical, moving stairs.
They came to a jerky stop at the sixth floor and I didn't even wait for the stairs to touch the landing before jumping off and rushing down the next flight of stairs. The patterned continued for all seven floors, except for one set of stairs between the fourth and the fifth floors. I had to wait for that one to come get me, climb on, and then wait for it to descend again.
My feet echoed off the stone walls of the dungeon as I cursed Gyrffindor for having our common room on the seventh floor. I finally reached the potions classroom, my hand grasping around the brass handle and I swung the door open, catching a glimpse of the time from my watch that always rested on that particular wrist.
Nine forty-eight.
"Nice of you to join us, Miss Weasley," said the sharp voice of Professor Avis from the front of the classroom.
My classmates turned away from their open textbooks to stare at me with curiosity. Albus was seated at one of the tables in the back with another fellow Gryffindor. He raised an eyebrow at me when he took in my rumpled appearance. I shook my head and ignored him, scanning the rest of the classroom for a seat. It was then I noticed that nearly everyone had a partner except for two students, each sitting at a table with an empty chair next to them. One was a Hufflepuff girl who was infamous for her lack of hygiene and her nasty habit of wiping her nose on the back of her hand and robes constantly. Her name escaped me because everyone just referred to her as 'Snotty'. The other was, of course, Scorpius Malfoy.
"Sorry, professor," I said, winded from running through the entire castle.
Professor Avis was a short, rather unpleasant woman. Her grey hair was always pulled back into a sleek bun on the top of her head. She had very pointed facial features, particularly her nose, which resembled a bird's beak. Her voice was obnoxiously sharp and high, matching her bird-like appearance.
"Ten points from Gyrffindor! My class began eighteen minutes ago, Miss Weasley, this is unacceptable," she replied. "Sit down and open your book to page fifty-six to get caught up with the rest of the class."
It was the decision of my life. Do I sit next to the unhygienic girl and be disgusted and ridiculed for it later? Or do I sit next to Malfoy and deal with him trying to "court" me?
I dropped my bag next to the Hufflepuff girl. Maybe she was a nice girl and no one ever taught her that you can't wipe your snot on everything. She looked up at me in shock, surprised that anyone would ever willingly sit by her. I found myself wondering if she had found her soulmate yet and if she had better luck than me.
"Hi, I'm Rose," I whispered, smiling.
"Fiona," she whispered back, her voice was extremely nasally.
I guess a positive side of this decision would be the very strong immune system I surly would acquire from sitting next to this girl.
"What? Too good to sit next to your soulmate?"
My nightmares from last night were slowly coming true because there he was. Scorpius Malfoy sitting across the row from me, with that stupid smirk on his face, informing the room of our everlasting bond. I didn't even look at him and I cracked open my textbook to page fifty-six and began reading. Ah, memory potions. Classic and useful. I could use these while studying for my N.E.W.T exams.
"Mr. Malfoy, I know you're not finished with the reading and I highly suggest you get back to work. I don't need any more disruptions today," Professor Avis said.
I rolled my eyes. Professor Avis always favored her own house and God forbid she punishes the great Head Boy.
After everyone in the class finished the reading and looked up at the professor, she instructed us to concoct our own memory potion. I quickly grabbed all the materials I needed out of my bag. Thankfully none of my ingredients were crushed too badly from my earlier rush. Cauldron, scales, ladle, and I absolutely made sure the Jobberknoll feathers were there.
I got busy right away with the potion, determined to redeem myself and make the best memory potion out of the entire class. Then I would be rewarded the points I lost and everyone will forget about today's incident. Just I was stirring counter-clockwise for the sixth rotation, I noticed my table partner, who was working at a considerably slower pace, was slicing her roots at an angle.
"Oh, you're supposed to cut those in a straight line," I said.
"I want to cut them this way," Fiona said.
"But the book—"
"I don't care what the book says," she said before I could finish and continued to slice the roots at an angle.
I shrugged her off and went back to my potion. If she wanted to ruin her potion then that was not my business, I decided. I added my properly sliced roots to the potion and the liquid bubbled and turned a pale purple. The potion should've been a light turquoise at this point, not pale purple.
Frowning, I flipped through my textbook and sure enough I did exactly what the book said. I went on the safe side and added a slightly smaller amount of roots, so I added a pinch more. The potion turned a dull brown inside of the turquoise I was hoping for. It started to smell rancid, which was odd because normally memory potions don't have a smell.
I discreetly snuck a peek at Fiona's potion and sure enough it was the light turquoise the book described. She wiped her sleeve under her nose as she finished stirring, making a disgusting noise to go with it.
"How…?" I gestured to her cauldron.
"If you cut the roots at an angle they mix better with the feathers," she responded, capping a flask of memory potion she had taken from her cauldron and leaving her seat to place it on the professor's desks with the others.
"Miss Weasley, this won't do." Professor Avis swooped by my table and eyed my potion with disappointed. With a flick of her wand, my cauldron was empty and she strode away.
Sighing, I began to pack up my materials back into my bag. I counted the amount of successful flasks sitting on Professor Avis' desk. There were twelve beautiful turquoise potions. There were fifteen students in this class so I guess on the bright side, I wasn't the only one who failed.
"Is Malfoy really your soulmate?" Fiona suddenly asked while packing up her own things. I assumed she was just trying to make conversation and with his earlier outburst I wasn't surprised that she was curious.
"No," I scoffed. No one had to know, I just had to make it look like Malfoy was obsessed with me and that he was mental.
She raised an eyebrow at me and for a moment I thought she was going to call me out on my lie. She didn't and I was relieved that she didn't. However, she wasn't quite done interrogating me and I was growing annoyed because Malfoy was the last topic I wanted to discuss with this girl who wasn't even my friend. Though if she wanted to know when was the proper time to use a tissue, I would be happy to have that discussion with her.
"Why do you not like him?" she inquired.
"You know, Fiona. I think I'll save that for another day," I said with a polite smile and I slung my bag over my shoulder.
I followed the rest of my classmates out the door, successfully managing to get myself behind Malfoy so he couldn't harass me on the way out. I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned to see Albus smiling brightly.
"I managed to get the pitch the second Saturday of school!" he exclaimed and pulled out a piece of parchment. "And good thing too. Look how many people are signed up for tryouts!"
There were a lot of names on the parchment and I felt my stomach tighten at the sight of not just one additional name under the keeper title, but two. Two people were going to try and claim my spot on the team and I suddenly wished I had practiced more over this summer. I hardly paid attention to Albus' excited babbling about the upcoming tryouts. Once we climbed up the stairs and made it to the ground floor, he ran off to go to his next class and I was left alone.
I was just about to climb the main staircase to go to the library and get started on the massive essay Professor Avis assigned on our way out the door, when I felt a pair of strong hands grip my shoulder. The owner of the hands breath was warm against my ear and I felt my body uncomfortably stiffen.
"You know, I would've been happy to help you with the memory potion if you had chosen to sit with me," Malfoy said in my ear. "I mean, you are my—"
"Don't," I said sharply and he sniggered.
His hands slid off my arms and he let me go. He must have hung back and waited for me and Albus to walk past so he could come up behind me like that. I saw his figure begin to retreat out of the corner of my eye but then he paused and turned around.
"Before I forget, Weasley. As much as I enjoy lip biting, how about being a little gentler next time?" He smirked and strode back towards the dungeons.
"There won't be a next time!" I shouted after him but he ignored me and soon was out of sight.
Next time, my ass.