"Up!"

Rose Weasley had barely pronounced the last letter of the word when the broomstick that had been lying on the floor jumped up into her outstretched hand.

As her hand clenched tightly around the broom, she felt her lips curl into a triumphant grin. She may have inherited her mother's brains, but she had definitely inherited her father's love of flying.

She was glad that it was Oliver Wood who was teaching their first flying lesson, especially when he beamed proudly at her as he walked down the middle of the two lines of Ravenclaw and Slytherin students.

Oliver occasionally made appearances at Hogwarts to help teach flying lessons or to act as referee in some of the school Quidditch matches, and whenever he was there, he usually found the time to speak to Albus and Rose in the Great Hall.

As soon as Oliver turned his attention to some of the other students who were still struggling to get their broomsticks to move off the ground and into their hands, Rose looked over at the line of Slytherin students, wondering whether she would get the opportunity to jokingly throw a smug smirk over at Albus and Scorpius.

However, as she caught sight of a flash of black and blond hair towards the end of the line, her hopes were quickly dashed. The two of them were also standing with their brooms in hand, looking slightly surprised but also eager to get them into the air and start flying.

Rose felt herself sighing heavily, realising that she had done it again. She knew that she could be competitive, even with her friends. Sometimes, it was so automatic that she forgot that she was even doing it.

She was exactly the same in class as well; all it took was the promise of winning points for her house and her quill would suddenly be moving across the parchment at lightning speed, desperately trying to get the best results.

Before she had started at Hogwarts, she had spent most of the summer worrying not only about disappointing her family if she wasn't sorted into Gryffindor, but also whether the other students would like her or not. Her brother and her cousins knew exactly what she like as they had all grown up together, and they were all close friends, despite their different personalities. But she had worried that the other students wouldn't be so accepting.

However, from the moment the Sorting Hat was placed on her head and it shouted, "Ravenclaw!" without even pausing to think, Rose had found herself surrounded by students who not only shared her appreciation of books and exams, but also actively encouraged her competitiveness, especially if it helped them to win house points.

Her dad hadn't even minded too much when she wrote her first letter home to tell him about the results of the Sorting Ceremony. He had written back the next day with an opening line of: Better Ravenclaw than Slytherin.

But then he had sent another letter the next day telling her to ignore his previous comment and asking if she would mind not telling her Uncle Harry about what he had said.

She had laughed about it when she had realised that either he had only just found out that day that Al had been sorted into Slytherin, or her mum had found out about what he had written and had urged him to write another letter.

Rose suddenly noticed that Scorpius was watching her uncertainly, and realising that she had probably been standing still and looking disappointed at how he and Albus were just as good as she was at this particular class, she quickly tried to smile and mouth a few words of encouragement.

Back in September, it had been the other way around-she was the one who had constantly looked at Scorpius with doubt and uncertainty.

She would never say anything to Albus, but she knew more of the exact details about his family history than he did. Her own father was a lot less careful about what he said than Albus's parents were, and he often slipped up and revealed his opinions about certain people, even if those opinions were negative Rose and Hugo happened to be in the room at the time.

It was easy for Rose to work out what he thought about them, because normally, her dad hardly ever got angry. Yet a few years ago, whenever a copy of the Daily Prophet or The Quibbler would arrive by owl post in the morning, revealing one of the articles about some sort of charity work that the Malfoy family had been involved in, he would always tear the page angrily out of the newspaper, his ears glowing bright red as he muttered something about it being too late now, with her mum glaring at him in exasperation the whole time.

The name 'Scorpius' had also been mentioned several times in her house, even before her first day on platform nine and three-quarters when her dad had given her strict instructions to beat him in every test.

Rose had had a whole image built up of what Scorpius was going to be like, but then she had woken up in the train compartment to find him sitting there opposite Albus, looking nervous and almost as though he couldn't quite believe that he was sitting with the two of them.

He had started to talk to her about spells and school books, asking questions as though he really cared about what she thought, and she had decided that maybe her previous image had been wrong.

If she hadn't already known for sure, she would even have started to doubt her dad's declarations that he was from a proud pure-blood family, because he had looked around the train compartment with such fascination, like he was new to the wizarding world.

However, she had barely had time to think about their encounter on the Hogwarts Express, because not long after, they had all walked into the Great Hall and both Albus and Scorpius had been sorted into Slytherin.

Even though there had been a slight feeling of disappointment when she had realised that her cousin wouldn't be in the same house as her, she hadn't really minded too much about the fact that he was the newest member of Slytherin house.

Despite Albus's constant protests, she had always had this strange feeling that he might end up there, especially every Christmas, when their grandmother always knitted a green jumper for him to match the colour of his eyes.

She had been more worried about the idea that after eleven years, Albus might suddenly prefer to spend time with Scorpius instead of her.

Rose loved all of her cousins equally, but Albus was the one who she usually spent the most time with, as they had so much in common, and they had always had a natural bond between them. Sometimes, when people asked Rose about brothers and sisters, she would forget and start to tell them that she had two brothers instead of one, and then she would have to correct herself.

She had always been the one to jump to his defence when he argued with their older cousins, and she was always the one who gave him a hug and told him that things were going to be all right whenever he was having one of his usual moments of panic.

She had been well aware of the fact that the two of them would meet other friends at school and spend time with different students, but she didn't want their friendship to come to an abrupt end, or worse, for somebody else to take her place.

Rose's worries had eased slightly when Albus had asked her to help him write his first letter home, because he had been worried about how his parents were going to react when he told them about being sorted into Slytherin, and she had felt happy knowing that he still needed her help and support.

She had also felt extremely happy for the first three days of classes at Hogwarts. She had quickly discovered that her hand was always the first to shoot up in the air when one of the professors asked a question, and by the first Wednesday of classes, she had already won twenty points for Ravenclaw.

It had all been going so well, until she had had her first Herbology class with the Slytherins on the first Thursday morning.

Five minutes into the class, Neville had asked the first question. Rose had looked around at the confused stares on the faces of the students sitting next to her, and her hand had just left her side so that she could push it up into the air and give the answer, when she had looked at the students sitting in front of her and noticed that a hand had shot up seconds before hers.

Of course, the hand just had to belong to Scorpius Malfoy.

Then their professor had asked another question, and the same thing had happened again, and again.

In the end, she had resorted to trying to anticipate the questions in advance so that she could put her hand up before Neville had even started to ask anything, just so she could get an answer in before Scorpius did.

She had felt silly later that evening when she had thought about it, but whenever she was actually in a situation like that, something took over and she just couldn't stop herself.

As the days went on, she had felt even more guilty about her competiveness when she knew that she didn't even have a particular reason to dislike Scorpius Malfoy. He never smirked smugly at her when he answered a question correctly before she did, and he never looked exasperated when she invited herself to sit at the Slytherin table at breakfast when he was attempting to teach Albus how to play wizard chess, not even when she constantly asked, "Why are you helping him to beat you at this game?" in a tone of disbelief, unable to stop herself yet again.

But still, she hadn't liked the way Albus had shifted uncomfortably when she had first asked that question, or the way that Scorpius had started to say, "Don't worry, Albus, everything will be fine," when Albus got stressed about something, using what had originally been Rose and Lily's favourite line, and she had worried yet again that he might prefer Scorpius's company to hers.

"Mount your brooms!"

Rose was on her broom and up in the air in a matter of seconds. She had been flying since she was about three years old, despite her grandmother's constant protests, so the whole thing was really easy for her.

As Oliver corrected a few students' grips on their broomsticks, Rose noticed that Albus was looking at her.

As she looked back at him, he mouthed the question, "Race?"and she found herself nodding to accept the challenge before she had even considered the possible consequences if Oliver realised what they doing.

Stronger than her need to compete was her wish to not get into trouble with the teachers or to do or say anything that might anger or upset someone.

She decided that she would have to be discreet about it, and maybe not fly as fast or as high as she would in her own garden.

Scorpius was watching the two of them with amusement as they discreetly tried to fly higher than one other.

Rose paused to watch him for a few seconds, and she was impressed by how fast he could fly. He sped past Albus easily, even though his broom wobbled a little, and Rose noticed that he didn't have the same level of control that Albus did. She shuddered as she thought about how dangerous it could be if he got in somebody's way when he was flying too fast. Yet despite this uneasy thought, she still hovered in mid-air, wondering if she would be able to fly faster than Scorpius could if she made an effort.

She sped up slightly, heading towards him. She was glad that they were friends now, as it meant that he would be less likely to get annoyed about her obvious attempt to fly past him.

It had been during a Charms class in the third week of September that everything had finally worked itself out. Rose had already taken her seat when the two boys had walked into the classroom five minutes late, bickering about something that had happened during their History of Magic class. Albus had ended up going to sit next to his friend Stephen, while Scorpius had taken the seat next to Rose.

Even though Albus and Scorpius were friends, they didn't spend every moment of the day together, and they seemed to like working with other students when they had classes with the Ravenclaws.

They had been learning about levitation that day, and they were supposed to use the Hover Charm to raise a feather up into the air. However, despite their best efforts, the feather on the desk in front of Rose and Scorpius had refused to move. They had both looked over at Albus, who had managed to raise his own feather all the way up to the ceiling in a matter of minutes, sitting back in his seat like it was really easy.

Rose knew that she was good at memorising information, and she had a particular talent for subjects like Potions and History of Magic, which were based on theory, facts and precision, but Albus already seemed to have some sort of natural instinct when it came to casting spells, especially in Charms class or Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Rose had looked from Albus to Scorpius and she had instantly recognised the look of competitiveness on his face. In one swift movement, the two of them had pointed their wands at their own feather, frantically shouting, "Wigardium Leviosa!" at exactly the same time in their haste to get their feather in the air and higher than Albus's.

This had resulted in the feather jumping up into the air and exploding spectacularly above their heads, showering them with sparks, while Albus had doubled over in silent laughter on the other side of the classroom.

It had been really embarrassing at the time, and of course their professor hadn't been very impressed, and it had taken at least a day to get all of the scorched pieces of the feather out of their hair, but in the end it had been worth it.

Maybe it was because she had started to realise that perhaps Scorpius was also trying to prove himself, just like her and Albus, or maybe it was simply because you couldn't go through the shared experience of being covered by the shattered remains of an exploding feather without developing some sort of bond, but since that class, Scorpius had always chosen to sit next to Rose in Charms and Herbology, and Rose's usual phrase of, "Albus and I are going to visit Hagrid this Friday afternoon," had suddenly turned into, "Albus and I-and Scorpius-are going to visit Hagrid this Friday afternoon."

Rose urged her broom further forward, even though she knew that it probably wasn't the best idea she had ever had.

She was distracted when Oliver started to shout something to Scorpius about flying too fast, and with the lesson being almost over, she started to think that maybe she should give up and head back down to the ground with a couple of the other students.

Rose dropped down slightly, but then stopped a few feet away from the ground, just in case she had to go back up and get Scorpius out of trouble.

This was another new thing that she had started to do, stepping forward to defend both Albus and Scorpius rather than just Albus, especially when they had almost got into serious trouble over one of their ridiculous fake duels that they insisted on staging almost every week.

"Rose!"

This time Oliver was shouting warningly at her rather than at Scorpius.

Rose looked around startled for a few seconds, trying to work out what she had done.

After a minute, she came to the conclusion that from the angle Oliver was flying at, it might have looked like she was getting her broom ready to fly quickly up towards Scorpius to try to block him or crash into him.

Oliver pointed urgently from Rose to the ground. Most of the girls in her year were jealous of the fact that so many of the Hogwarts teachers were friends with her parents, but in reality it often worked against her, as it meant that the teachers were particularly strict with her and her cousins, trying to prove the point that there was no favouritism going on.

Rose shouted a quick apology and with a heavy sigh, she moved even further down towards the ground until she felt the grass under her feet.

The second she dismounted her broom, the competitive thoughts were back in her head, suggesting that she ask Teddy to teach her how to fly faster when she went back home for Christmas.

She tried to distract herself by thinking about the test that they were going to have in two days' time in Defence Against the Dark Arts class, but that didn't work as she then started to wonder whether Albus was going to get better marks than her, which really wouldn't be fair when Scorpius had already beaten her in the first Transfiguration test.

"This is all Dad's fault," Rose muttered sulkily as she dismounted her broom, desperately trying to find somebody else to blame.