Scorpius awoke the next day to the sound of screams. Screams? Was someone hurt? He leapt out of bed, grabbing his wand from his bedside table and staring, wide-eyed, around the dormitory. There was nobody there- all the curtains were drawn around the beds, and the door was still closed. Then who had been screaming?

'Drat! Drat drat drat!' came a voice from the bed next to Scorpius's. He cautiously pulled back the curtains to reveal Earnest, sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed, soaking wet and dripping. Dripping?

'Umm, Earnest, what happened? Why are you so wet?'

'I bet it was you, you good for nothing rotter!' yelled Earnest, standing up and shaking himself about in an attempt to get dry. 'You're a strange boy, you are! Should have been in Slytherin!'

'How could it have been me? I was asleep and I heard screams!' replied Scorpius indignantly, throwing on his uniform and chucking a towel at Earnest while he was at it.

'Your hands are wet, look!' cried Earnest, grabbing Scorpius and turning his palms up. Sure enough, they were.

'I'm going to breakfast.' Said Scorpius, putting on his shoes and opening the door. 'And by the way, your breath stinks in the morning!'

He strode out of the room, pausing at the end of the passage to knock on the door to the first year girls' dormitory. The door opened to reveal Rose, already dressed and carrying, surprise surprise, a book.

'Coming to breakfast, Rose?' asked Scorpius, somewhat nervously. He'd only met Rose yesterday; what If she'd made friends with the other girls and didn't want to hang around with him anymore?

'Ok!' she replied, linking arms with him and walking into the common room. She smiled at him as if they were the best of friends, which was an experience Scorpius had never felt before. The only friends he had were the people in stories; Brave Katniss from the hunger games, the Pevensie family from the C.S Lewis books, Frodo from the Hobbit. These were friends who he could shut away if he wanted to, or skip to the next chapter of their life so he didn't have to read about bits like kissing or romantic stuff, which he found uncomfortable and icky.

Rose and Scorpius left Ravenclaw tower at almost exactly seven o'clock, and they soon discovered that the castle was almost deserted at this time of day.

It took them almost half an hour to find the great hall, and by that time, more students had got there too and had sat down at their respective house tables. They discovered Albus and Hazel sitting at the Gryffindor table, and so went over to join them.

'Hey, guys! yelled Albus, moving up along the bench so that Scorpius and Rose could sit down.

'How did your first night go?' asked Hazel, passing Scorpius some toast and jam and putting another sausage on her plate.

'Well, it was a bit wet. Earnest woke up dripping wet and screaming and then said that I did it!'

'Of course you didn't, mate!' Albus replied, clapping him on the back and passing him a goblet of pumpkin juice.

Could he have done it, though? He remembered the goblet from the feast last night, how it had filled with water the moment he felt thirsty. And this morning, when he had awoken to find Earnest soaking wet, and with his palms wet again...

He stared down at the cup in his hand and willed it to fill with pumpkin juice. It didn't. Perhaps it only worked with water. He closed his eyes. Water, he thought, hoping that the goblet would fill with water just as it had done the previous night, but it didn't. Scorpius sighed. There was nothing special about him at all- he was just a strange, slightly anti social bookworm with anger issues.

'You OK, Scorpius? They're handing the Ravenclaw timetables out now, I think we'd better go and sit over there.' Said Rose, indicating to the Ravenclaw table as she got to her feet and pulled Scorpius with her.

As they approached the table, professor Longbottom came over and handed them a piece of parchment each. 'Your timetables.' he said cheerfully, grinning down at them and rocking on the balls of his feet. 'Looks like you're in for a good day!'

Scorpius looked down at his timetable. He had five lessons in total that day. First, he had Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, then after break he had defence against the dark arts with Gryffindor and then History of Magic with the Slytherins. This, apparently, was counted as a good lesson because of the fact that you could do anything you wanted and the teacher wouldn't notice, but Scorpius had spent a great deal of time over the summer reading his textbooks, and found history quite interesting.

After lunch, the last two lessons were double charms, again with the Slytherins. Scorpius didn't really care, because they had no reason to bully him, but Rose was anxious about what the afternoon would bring.

'I'm telling you, Scorpius, they have it in for me already, just because I'm a Weasley!' said Rose as they trudged across the grounds towards the greenhouses. 'I bet you they're going to attack me the moment I get to History of magic!'

'Oh, come on Rosie!' replied Albus, rolling his eyes at his cousin and patting her on the shoulder. 'It'll be ok.'

'Um, Al, aren't you supposed to be in Potions with the Slytherins?' said Rose, turning to face Albus.

'Oh Merlin! Yes, I am. See you later guys!' and with that, he raced off back towards the castle, arms flailing in the air. Scorpius could've sworn that he saw another chocolate frog leap from Albus's pocket, making a bid for freedom.

'No wonder he's not in Ravenclaw.' Said Rose as they approached greenhouse one. 'He's as scatty as a five year old.'

Scorpius couldn't help but laugh. He was glad to be able to joke around with real people, rather than fictional characters. He felt alive, more alive than he'd ever felt in his whole life. He liked it.

'Welcome to Greenhouse one, first years! Said Professor Longbottom as the class entered the door. 'How are you all doing this morning?'

There was a murmured reply from the class of 'fine', but Scorpius guessed that his classmates, just like him, were too tired to speak. They hadn't got to bed until at least ten last night, and these eleven year olds were used to far earlier bedtimes. Scorpius, however, would be twelve in just a week, and was hoping that this year his birthday would be a good one.

'Does anyone know what daisy roots are used for?' asked Professor Longbottom. There was silence from the class, broken only by a quiet noise that Scorpius could only identify as snoring.

'Nobody?'

But then, Scorpius remembered. He'd read the answer mere days before in his herbology textbook.

'They're used in shrinking solutions, sir! Said Scorpius, almost shouting. He was rather pleased with himself.

'Excellent, Scorpius, ten points to Ravenclaw!'

Scorpius beamed. He'd never received praise from anyone before, and he certainly hadn't been rewarded for knowing something. He turned to Rose, expecting her to congratulate him, but her smile was somehow wrong, as if she wasn't really pleased for him. As he was bad at reading facial expressions, Scorpius came to the conclusion that he'd simply misinterpreted this one. He turned back to look at the teacher.

'I expect you're wondering why I asked that question.' Said professor Longbottom, looking around at the class again. 'It's because you're going to be collecting daisy roots for the third years to be used in potions!'

'Why can't they do it themselves, the layabouts?' whispered Earnest to John. 'We should be doing more advanced things; we are the cleverest house, after all.'

'Quiet please, Earnest.' Said professor Longbottom, shaking his head at the boy. 'I don't want to have to take away any points from your house!'

Professor Longbottom then proceeded to hand out several trays, each with around two dozen large daisies planted in rows.

'There won't be enough for everyone to go in pairs, so Earnest, I'd like you to go in a three with Rose and Scorpius, please.'

Earnest sighed and walked over to join Rose and Scorpius.

'Just so you know, Scorpius, I think you're a very sneaky fellow.' He said, pulling the tray of daisies away from Rose. 'I don't normally say this to people until I've given them a chance to prove themselves, but I find you to be absolutely horrible!'

'And I find you to be extremely, what's the word… wet!' replied Scorpius, picking up the watering can and beginning to sprinkle it over the daisies. He noticed with a strange smugness that Earnest's hair was still damp. And he had his jumper on inside out.

The rest of the lesson passed amicably, with Earnest remaining blissfully silent as they tended to the flowers. Rose and Scorpius had a great time discussing books, and Scorpius soon discovered that Rose, just like him, found the Chronicles of Narnia to be her favourite series. Five minutes before the end of the lesson, Professor Longbottom asked the class to pack away, and so Scorpius set to work sweeping up the compost which had gathered on the floor underneath the wooden workbench, whilst Rose and a rather disgruntled Earnest carried the tray back over to the front table.

'Drat! My hands are filthy! Someone get me a handkerchief!' he shouted, staring at his hands as if they were about to explode. One of the Hufflepuff girls kindly obliged, as Hufflepuffs do, leaving Scorpius and Rose to giggle at his feeble attempts to remove the earth from his fingernails.

The bell for break time rang at ten thirty on the dot, and Rose and Scorpius ran as fast as they could back to the castle so that they could meet Albus and Hazel as they came out of potions. They reached the dungeons just as the Slytherins and Gryffindors were filing out, and they ran up to their two friends.

'Hey Rose! Scorpius!' shouted Hazel as she saw them approaching. Scorpius noticed with alarm that she only had one shoe on, and her left pigtail was half the length it had been when he'd last seen her.

'Hazel, what happened?' asked Scorpius.

'Well, our potion went a bit wrong, and my hair sort of trailed in it. And then Albus screamed and knocked the cauldron over.'

'And then it burned holes in people's shoes!' yelled Albus excitedly. 'And Hazel's was so badly damaged she had to take it off!'

Sure enough, Hazel held up the remains of her right school shoe. It now resembled a strip of smoking leather.

'Here, Hazel, let me try and fix it.' said Rose, gingerly taking the 'shoe' in her fingertips, pointing her wand at it and saying 'reparo!'

Nothing happened. 'Um, can I have a go?' asked Scorpius, taking the shoe and directing his own wand at it. He focused his mind on the shoe, every thought, every idea was thinking repair. 'Reparo!'

To everyone's astonishment, the shoe fixed itself in an instant. Scorpius was pleased with himself.

'Wow! Even the scuffs are gone! Thanks, Scorpius! Look Rose, it's as good as new!'

'Yeah, it's perfect.' Replied Rose, becoming interested in the floor. 'Amazing.'

Again, Scorpius wondered if she really thought it was amazing. Her face showed something else. Was it sadness? Anger? Fear? Resentment? Scorpius didn't know. Was Rose annoyed with him for fixing the shoe? He didn't see why she should be, after all, everyone else was happy that Hazel's shoe was as good as new again.

He followed the others up the stairs and into the entrance hall, thinking. He decided that there were two things he needed to figure out: Why did water keep appearing around him? And what was wrong with Rose?