SORRY EVERYONE! Here's chapter 3 I'm so sorry for the wait but I hope you like it! I swear, I've actually written more already so it won't be long for chapter 4, probably around Monday. Thanks so much for reading! -Kelly

CHAPTER 3

THE NEW SCORPIUS MALFOY

"So it's at the back of the whole train, yeah?" Al asked James after they had said goodbye to their parents. James rolled his eyes.

"Yes. For the fourth time. Relax, Al, I'm Head Boy. You won't get in trouble if you can't find it, but I can't imagine you won't—it's got a plaque on the door and everything."

"Okay, but— what about Lily? Where will she sit without us?"

"I have friends, you know," the youngest Potter said indignantly, "I don't need you to sit with me." Rose laughed at Al's offended face and pulled him along.

"Come on, we've got to find the carriage." The last week of summer had been uneventful in comparison to the attack, and all they had heard was that it was thought to be Nott's doing but there was no confirmation. Despite their efforts to get more information out of Uncle Harry and Rose's mum, they still didn't even know which of Nott's followers had been there that day. Rose was annoyed, but she knew that they would find out eventually, since it was most likely them that the attackers had been after. As she walked with Al down the hallway of the Hogwarts Express, she saw Rosier through one of the compartment windows and he stared back. Rose kept walking, a little shaken, and she could have sworn she had seen a smug smirk on his face. Eventually, they reached a blocked-off part of the train with a door labeled PREFECTS CARRIAGE, and they walked inside to find that it was much bigger than a compartment. In fact, it looked as if they had taken most of a car and opened it up so that it was a room with several benches and tables arranged in clumps throughout.

"Hey, guys!" Ava said from a bench in the back of the room. "If you could sit with your house for now that'd be brilliant, we'll get started once the train leaves the station."

Alice waved them over to the back right corner of the room and they sat down across from where she was sitting with a boy Rose had seen before, but never talked to. "Hey, guys, this is Hector Prince." Rose couldn't help but show a bit of surprise at the name and he smiled.

"Er, yeah, he's a pretty distant cousin. Sorry."

"Oh, no, it's fine," she said quickly, and Hector nodded.

"I'm sure; you're friends with the Malfoy kid, right?"

"Er, yeah, I suppose."

"I'm the only Gryffindor in the family, too," he said, and then James walked through the doors and sat down next to Al and Rose.

"Hey, everyone," he said, and Alice looked down at the floor. Rose knew that they had broken up, but she'd never been directly confronted with it and this was… awkward. After a while, a girl joined them that introduced herself as Gemma, the other seventh year Gryffindor prefect, and when the train began to move Ava called James over to the middle and they walked to the front of the carriage.

"All right, welcome everyone," Ava said. "If you don't already know me, my name's Ava Matthews, and this is James Potter, we're Head Boy and Girl. So if we could get started, I'll just make some announcements and then the sixth and seventh years can go out to the corridors and James and I will talk to the fifth years. First thing is McGonagall wants me to tell you that Prince has declared that participation in any… unofficial student groups is strictly prohibited and we're to give detentions and report anyone that does." She rolled her eyes and most of the people in the room laughed, and Rose realized that a good percentage of them were already in the Army. In fact, that seemed to have been the criteria for choosing the fifth-year prefects, she thought, with the exception of Lexa sitting in the corner glaring out at them. Ava laughed a little and said, "So, uh, I apparently have to completely ignore my girlfriend all year, so take that one with a grain of salt… No one's to use the Quidditch pitch without teacher supervision, it's a heightened security measure. Also, we're not supposed to go outside past 9:00, but the common room curfew's been moved back up to 10:30. The fifth years are leading the first years up tonight, like always, password's 'amortentia' and… that's about it for all of us. If you're dismissed, you know who you are." The sixth and seventh year Prefects stood up and Ava added, "That doesn't mean go sit in a compartment, actually patrol, please!"

"See you guys later," Alice said, and she, Hector and Gemma left the carriage with the other older Prefects.

"You guys can move closer," James said, and Rose stood up with Al and moved to the group of seats in the middle of the carriage. Devon waved at them quietly from his seat next to Lexa, and Rose noticed Amanda Finnigan-Thomas as well. She didn't recognize the Ravenclaw prefects or the Hufflepuff boy, but she thought she might have seen them at Modernist meetings years ago. "Okay, so I'm sure you guys know a lot of what a Prefect does. Mostly it's babysitting, honestly." A few laughed and Ava rolled her eyes.

"Well, yeah, and a bunch of other stuff," she said. "You do watch the first years when necessary, but you'll also be asked to supervise study halls and the holiday decorations and stuff like that. If you're not on a Quidditch team, you'll probably be asked to supervise the stands too."

"Oh, and you might do stuff like tutoring," James said, "I did sometimes my fifth year, but McGonagall thinks I was influencing them too much."

"Right," Ava said. "So anyway, if you guys want to go patrol—just make sure no one's duelling, honestly, they can use magic but not anything ridiculous and if anyone is using bloody fireworks on a moving train for Merlin's sake please confiscate it. Got it?" Everyone nodded and she said, "Great, be back by 5:30 and we'll get ready for the feast." "Come on, Rose," Al said, and pulled her down the hallway out of the prefect's carriage.

"Where are you going?" Rose protested, wrenching her arm away from him.

"Scorpius is sitting a few compartments down," Al said, and Rose stopped dead. Despite her curiosity all summer, when she was finally confronted with actually seeing him, she wanted to just hide in the back of the train for the rest of the ride.

"No, you go, I'll patrol," she said, and Al rolled his eyes.

"Please don't do this again," Al said. "He said he was sorry, okay? Come on."

"It's not that, I just—" Rose didn't get to finish because Al knocked on a compartment door and seconds later, Scorpius stepped out.

"Hey, Al!" he exclaimed, and Rose stared as they greeted each other. He was taller than her by quite a bit now; she wouldn't be surprised if he'd grown six inches since December. His hair was cut differently, shaved at the sides and long on the top for some reason. He was still wearing just as much black, but it was a lot less… Rose didn't know how to describe it. She didn't like it, that was for sure. He seemed to notice her after a few seconds and they both stood silently for a while.

"Er, hey, Weasley," he said. "How've you been?"

Oh, that was it.

"You sound American," she blurted out. Al looked confused.

"Er, no, not really—" Al tried to say, but Rose shook her head.

"No, he does."

Scorpius looked uncomfortable. "Uh, maybe a bit, I guess. I've been in London all summer, though."

"Yeah, I know," she said, then quickly added, "Teddy told me you moved in."

"Right," he said, and smiled tentatively. "Well, it's good to see you."

"Okay," Rose mumbled, and Scorpius glanced at Al.

"Uh, you guys are Prefects? That's brilliant, I would've wanted to—but I guess since I was gone—"

"Yeah, you were," Rose muttered, and Scorpius stopped and looked frustrated.

"Look, Rose, I'm sorry, okay? I just didn't want to upset you."

"So you thought just disappearing would upset me less?" she exclaimed, and Al snuck into the compartment, where he and Grace Zabini quickly shut the door.

Scorpius shook his head and said, "Listen, I just had to get away, okay? With the trial, and…"

"And I would have understood, if you'd told me! Like Al! Why could you tell him and not me?"

"Whatever," he muttered, looking at the floor. "Can we just forget it?"

"…No, I—"

"Come on, Weasley—"

"Don't call me that," she muttered. "If you'll excuse me, I have to patrol the corridor."

Scorpius seemed to change his mind suddenly and said quietly, "Last year, all that stuff with the Prophet and Lucy—are you okay?"

"Excuse me," Rose said firmly, and Scorpius reluctantly stepped to the edge of the corridor. Rose shook her head, walking past him and down to the front of the train. Once they reached the castle, the feast went by fairly quickly, though to Rose it felt like years sitting two spaces down from Scorpius, who was telling everyone all about his wonderful semester in America. She didn't speak at all for the whole dinner, and was grateful when McGonagall dismissed everyone and she was able to shout, "First years, follow us!" and have an excuse to avoid him at least, if not Al. This was the first year that she didn't know any of the new first years, and it was odd that they were all looking at her. She started up the stairs with Al next to her and all the first years behind her, and he said, "This is just weird."

"I know," Rose whispered. "But I suppose that's how they always feel."

"Molly didn't," Al snorted. "She'd been aiming for prefect since first year."

"That's probably true," Rose laughed, and they kept climbing the stairs until they reached the portrait on the seventh floor. She turned around to face the first years along with Al and said, "Hi, everyone! Welcome to Gryffindor! This is the entrance to the House, you'll be able to get in with the password that changes periodically, it'll be posted on the memo board in the common room. Just tell the Fat Lady and she'll let you in."

"Who's the Fat Lady?" one of the first years asked, a small blond boy that looked like he was swimming in his robes.

Al gestured behind them and the Fat Lady sat up proudly as some of the students, probably Muggleborns, gasped. "Password?"

"Amortentia," Rose replied, and the portrait hole swung open. She led the way inside, the younger students following her excitedly.

"This is the common room," Al said, and Rose couldn't help but be distracted by the group sitting by the fireplace—Roxanne, Emma, Declan, and Scorpius—and tried to pay attention to the first years while Al expained curfew and the staircases. "If anyone has any questions about anything, you can come ask us any time, or anyone with these badges no matter what House, they should help you. So if you need to find us, her name's Rose Weasley and I'm Al Potter, we're fifth years—"

"Like Harry Potter?" a small girl in the front asked. Al looked uncomfortable, like he always did when someone asked him about his family.

"Er, yeah, he's my dad. So if anyone has questions—"

"Did he really fight Voldemort as a baby?"

"Questions about the House," Al interrupted. The first years were silent and he forced a smile. "Okay, brilliant. Good night." The first years dispersed and Rose laughed a little when Al grimaced at her.

"They're only curious," she said, and he rolled his eyes.

"Whatever, come on," Al replied, and went to sit with the group near the fireplace. Rose felt apprehension in the pit of her stomach and shook her head.

"Er, I'm going to go up to bed, actually, I'm pretty tired," she said. Al looked at her, confused.

"It's 9:30," he said, and she nodded.

"Yeah, I know, I just— I'll see you in the morning." With that, she hurried up the staircase and out of sight, catching a glimpse of Scorpius looking at her from across the room just as she turned the corner to the dormitories.