When she ran to the Forbidden Forest the next morning, barely making it on time to her 9:00 AM Care of Magical Creatures class, she knew she did not look her best. Her brown hair was in a thick braid that had not been done properly and stuck out at odd angles, she carried her robes on her arm because she had not had time to put it on in the morning, and she doubted whether she was wearing the same socks on her feet but was too tired to check. She arrived at the edge of the Forest where the Gryffindor and Slytherin seventh-years had gathered, seeked out her usual crowd and dropped her backpack next to Albus. With a sigh, she fell into place.
"Wow, Rose--"
"Don't," Rose warned Albus, pushing her bangs out of her face and pinning them in place. "I woke up ten minutes ago in the library after only two hours of an awful sleep--"
"We can tell!"
"Hey, don't make me punch you!" It was her usual empty threat, but it made her feel better most of the time. "I'm perfectly capable of putting a bruise around your eye--"
"I think half the girls in the school--including the teachers--will come after you in the dead of the night with axes if you do that," Jamie laughed, stretching her legs out and leaning against her backpack.
Albus turned to her with a pensive look on his face. "Would you be one of those girls, Jamie?"
She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Keep dreaming."
Albus served her come-back justice by looking put-out by her lack of feelings for him. At that precise moment, Professor Rolf Scamander walked into sight, looking more of a mess than Rose felt, but that was normal. His robes were not pulled on right and were sticking into his pants at the back, he had a large pile of books in his arm that were perilously close to tumbling to the ground and his glasses were skewed on his face. He muttered to himself inchoherently, searching for a place to put his books, then just let them drop to the ground. With a satisfied smile, he finally looked up to see his class staring at him expectantly.
"Oh, my," he laughed nervously, "You can teach for well over ten years and still not get used to all the attention--ha ha."
Some people laughed sympathetically along with him. Others just gave him pity smiles. "The misses loves teaching a lot more than I do--everyone should take her class if at all possible--oh, I guess it's too late now, huh? You're all graduating! At the end of this year! Mm hmm... q-quite exciting, I know. Well..." He patted at the pockets of his robes absent-mindedly, then realized that they were not pulled on right and fixed them rather awkwardly in front of his students. "Now... where did those glasses go--Ah!" He patted the glasses into place on the bridge of his crooked nose and cleared his throat.
Professor Scamander, son of Newt Scamander who had written several books on Magical Creatures, and his wife, Luna, were walking, talking jokes among most students at Hogwarts. Rolf had been subject to prank after prank by the younger students since he had began teaching here and took it all with very good humor. His wife, Luna, was no less. Fewer people pranked her, however, because if they were caught, she would pull them into her office to praise their efforts and discuss some odd creature or spell that would have been an excellent addition to the prank--'far more effective' in her words. Most students began thinking she was too odd and strange in the head to be a Headmistress. By the end of their second year at the latest, however, they would appreciate her incredible sense of humor and creativity and begin to think more like her--not always appreciated by the parents, but very helpful in the classrooms.
It was no doubt, however, that either of them shirked their responsibilites when it came down to it. Rolf might be reminiscent of an absent-minded professor most of the time, but when he began speaking of his specialization in the Magical Creatures of the world, it was obvious that his knowledge expanded far beyond any other living beings'. After all, he had studied them 'since he was in his mother's womb' according to him. That was why, Rose prayed, he would be the one person to know about the existence of Pixies if there was anyone.
Rose barely paid attention as he introduced the topic of the class that day—Unicorns! Yes, very interesting creatures, very fascinating too and she had been so looking forward for today's lecture, but after last night, all her interest and attention seemed to be focused on Pixies. Halfway through his lecture, a Ministry official arrived with one of the beautiful white horses. A general buzz of excitement sang through the crowd that was gathered around the animal now. Rose found herself staring at the Unicorn with a soft smile on her face despite the worry on her mind.
"Okay, so each of you—in pairs—will get to come up and examine the animal for exactly ten minutes. The assignment is described in your workbooks, please pay special attention to the note on page 338. Grown unicorns prefer female presence more than males. So each of you will be paired with a member of the opposite gender. There is no physical danger to you from the unicorn—they are incredibly tame creatures. However, note that if the creature happens to appear nervous, let the female subdue it—guys, back off."
There was a general grumbling through the males in the crowd. Everyone wanted to observe the fascinating, sparkling creature before them. Its head was thrust proudly into the air, but there was a certain kindness and warmth in its eyes that was mesmerizing. Its single white horn sparkled, catching the non-existent sunlight as though it were glowing of its own accord. It neighed softly and bent down to pick at the grass at its feet.
Rose was never paired with Albus. Teachers often looked at the cousins—both incredibly smart, both more than comfortable with each other, and yet so uncomfortable for the outside eye when paired together because Albus was the over-the-top extravert and Rose was the calm and content introvert—and decided they must be split apart to be fair to the rest of the students. Today, she was paired with Bradley Moors who was what Rose liked to call an old-fashioned Slytherin. In other words, he still held on firmly to the typical Slytherin characteristics of believing that pure-blood witches and wizards were inherently better than all else. Most of them were that way still, but at least managed to put up a façade to respect the encouragement—not rules—that the faculty at the school provided them with. There were always some, of course, who didn't give a damn about the rules. Bradley did not speak with anyone but his own pure-blood Slytherin friends. She guessed she should be happy that he wasn't openly offensive about his view-points, though. If he'd rather eat his own foot than talk to her—she was a fourth Muggle—then that was perfectly fine with her. She liked her solitude.
She opened her workbook as they awaited their turn and pulled out her quill. She looked up to see that Professor Scamander was working with the first pair of students with the animal. The girl squealed in surprise as the Unicorn leaned into her outstretched hand. Rose smiled, shaking her head slightly. She would have to wait until Professor Scamander was free to approach him.
"Hey, watchu get for number three?"
Rose jumped slightly hearing Bradley's voice. He looked at her with bored eyes as he lay stretched out against a rock, his workbook in his hand. She looked down at her own answers. "Umm… their tail hair can be used in wands, to make the strongest of ropes, sometimes really expensive shirts—but it's usually refined and combined with other material like silk—"
"Yeah, yeah." He was not even remotely interested. He scribbled down the answers and didn't look at her again.
She wanted to smile—wasn't quite sure exactly why she wanted to smile, but she turned away again and continued to work.
It was too often that she would look up and be captured by the gaze of the strangely fascinating creature standing only a few yards away from her. It wasn't young, but it wasn't quite an adult yet—she could tell by the way it seemed to shy away from the boys, leaning more towards the girls or sometimes the teacher. And then, every so often, it would turn to look directly at Rose almost as though it were begging her to come save it from the un-favored presences. She scoffed slightly. What a silly observation to make. She was more sleep-deprived than she thought she had been to imagine emotions on the gently sloped face of the unicorn… especially emotions directed towards her. Perhaps she was just a little too eager to go examine it herself…
"Rose, Bradly, you're up next," Professor Scamander nodded towards them nervously. It was apparently taking more effort on his part to keep the students from startling the creature too much. He was sweating profusely from having to maintain a firm grip on it. "I thought they said they'd give me a more mature animal," he was muttering to himself as Rose and Bradley walked towards the pen, waiting for the other pair to leave. Her nerves jumped into hyper-drive as she turned to the professor. She should speak to him now… but he was busy! And Bradley is standing way too close—he'll be able to hear everything and then what will he think of me? It's stupid enough that he hates me so much already, I don't need to give him any reason to think I'm insane… talking about Pixies and all.
"Its tail is so long!"
Rose always knew Gwen Tribolt was a little air-headed as she walked around the Hogwarts halls with perfectly tailored robes that were intentionally a little too tight-fitting for a school uniform and bouncy blonde curls that gleamed unnaturally around her round face. She wondered at how the girl could be surviving through Hogwarts—there were at least five guys hovering around her every second of the day, somehow fascinated by the lack of a single strand of knowledge beneath all that outward perfection. Even now, she proved her stupidity by walking around the unicorn, standing directly behind it—an act that was already sending the creature into nervous fits—and then yanking at its tail.
The Unicorn reared up on its hind-legs with a bellowed cry. Professor Scamander jumped forward as did Rose in her rising alarm. Her heart was hammering as fast as the Unicorn's must have been as she reached for the creature's silver neck but before either of them could get to the creature, another set of hands were already reaching up to it. Rose hadn't noticed that Scorpius was Gwen's partner. Go figure—pair the stupidest students in the class together, she thought rather unfairly. She quickly corrected her thinking. Scorpius was not unintelligent. He was anything but that. To be fair, all these seven years, he had given her a good run for her ranking in her classes. A fair competition that she grudgingly admitted she couldn't beat all the time.
So she assumed that must have been why he could calm the Unicorn down so quickly. His hands gently tugged at its mane as its hooves thudded into the ground with startling strength. Its eyes were wide and darted around cautiously, but Professor Scamander had already pulled Gwen away, placing her in clear view of the creature again, so the panic cooled in its eyes. Scorpius whispered into the unicorn's ear, his hands rubbing its neck down and as they all watched, the creature calmed down and neighed with only a hint of nerves rippling through its throat.
"There," Scorpius grinned as he looked into its eyes. "What were you so scared of?"
His hand trailed down the creature's nose, light and gentle. The unicorn closed its eyes appreciatively.
"Well! I think that accounts for at least twenty points towards Slytherin, Scorpius!" Professor Scamander sounded awed as he patted Scorpius on the shoulder, a quivering smile breaking onto his pale face.
Scorpius just nodded at him, his arrogant expression back in place to stay. Gwen gasped in delicate fear as they walked back to their spot among the rest of the students—several of whom were eagerly waiting to congratulate Scorpius. Rose could already hear the girl telling her friends about what exactly had happened—how she had just been examining the 'stupid thing's' tail for the workbook and then, with every intent to murder her, surely, it had reared up on its legs, screaming with fury. Scorpius didn't bother to correct her as he returned to his workbook again, looking bored. Rose looked at Bradley who wore a startlingly similar expression—only slightly more disgusting on his face. She shook her head and turned away. Two peas in a pod, she thought to herself.
"All right, I think we should give her some space," Professor Scamander said as he turned to them now, still looking rather nervous as was his usual expression. "If you two don't mind, perhaps you could discuss the assignment with your friends?"
Bradley shrugged. Rose looked longingly towards the creature, realizing how intently she had been looking forward to touching that shimmering skin and running her fingers through the silky mane. But he was right—already it looked nervous again, leaning away from the group. As Bradley turned to leave, Rose realized suddenly that she had another reason for speaking to Professor Scamander today. She shook her head slightly to clear it from the overwhelming disappointment she felt when she looked into the creature's dark eyes, and turned back to the Professor.
"I—erm—actually had a question… somewhat unrelated to the lesson."
She was glad Bradley had already left. Professor Scamander turned to her, always holding a smile for one of his star pupils, and said, "Yes, my dear, what is it?"
Here goes nothing. "Well," she took a deep breath, looking down at her workbook as though she were searching for the question, "I was just looking at some of the creatures we studied long ago for the NEWTs and I noticed that my notes on the Pixies were not very good, and I was wondering if you could give me some pointers."
She chanced a look at the Professor's face then, her heart hammering.
He laughed aloud. "Pixies?" he said not too quietly. "What an excellent joke, Rose!"
She stared at him blankly, her heart dropping out of her chest. Not him too… she gulped. Was she really going insane? Was the whole world playing some sort of sick joke on her? This couldn't be happening!
"Oh, Rose, you do crack me up sometimes. I'm sure no mythical creatures will be on the NEWTs, dear, don't worry about it."
Rose felt herself blush, but she couldn't blame him—it wasn't like she had asked him to not announce to the world that she was probably insane. She had desperately been hoping he would announce the opposite actually. What she wouldn't do to just bury herself into the ground right now. She nodded, managing to pull the weakest of smiles onto her face. "A-anytime, Professor," she whispered. He patted her on the back.
"Thank you, I really needed that." He shot a wary look towards the unicorn which had backed away several paces and was now shaking its head in a fidgeting manner. "I guess I will just have to call the Ministry official back and… have him take her away. Pity, I was really hoping you all would get to examine her personally—fascinating creatures, these unicorns. Did you know I spent four years studying their increase in population in the east coast of the United States? They actually manage to conceal somehow. They have incredible magical capabilities and all—"
Rose barely heard him. All she could think of were Pixies.
As she turned to return to her bag, she saw Albus looking towards her. She had been avoiding his gaze—along with everyone else's—in fear of what she would see there. It was almost as bad as she had thought it would be. There was a slight bit of guilt lurking in his eyes and he looked almost apologetic. At least he wasn't looking at her like she was insane. She shrugged towards him. Then her eyes wandered to Jamie's as she sat next to him and she frowned. Jamie was not looking at Rose, but was staring with absolute concentration at a random piece of grass at her feet, her eyebrows crinkled over her lowered eyes. She looked worried.
Rose sighed. She was going insane. There was no other option. Perhaps all that time in the library… not enough sleep, studying everything and anything that came across her mind in preparation for the NEWTs. Had she accidentally studied the Pixies in the Magical Myths book? Was that what triggered this string of insanity? She realized there were so many reasons for her to be losing her mind. With a hint of panic, she looked forward the Christmas break in a week and a half. It was exactly what she needed—a break from all this stress. Yes, she told herself with a deep breath. She would feel much better once she was home with her family and could relax properly. She had to feel better. Insanity was not her forte.