Chapter four

"There you are, Rose. I was just beginning to look for you." Paul came up to her and laid a hand on her left shoulder. "How about that thing I mentioned before, up for it?"

She thought fast, she hadn't expected him to catch up with her this quickly, and now she had to come up with something, fast.

"I would love to, but you know… Albus is waiting for me, probably really worried sick if I know him right."

"Ah, I see. Don't want to upset the family, people close to you, like you and I can be." Now he had his whole arm around her, pressing her side against his side, and then he began to lead her towards the compartment which Albus and the others were currently occupying.

"Sure, you don't want that…" She wasn't sure what she was answering with that as she unwillingly walked there beside him. Painfully aware about the fact that everyone who looked out of there compartments could see her with Paul McLaggen, and they would assume things, things she didn't want anyone to assume. Thinking about Malfoy's comment before, what if the students thought so, that Paul was her boyfriend, but she had made it perfectly clear that so wasn't the case, or at least she thought she'd done it. The nagging feeling followed after them as they walked, and she couldn't fully get rid of it.

"There they all are, let's get in and say hi!" Paul's voice almost made her jump, she had been deeply occupied by the disturbing thoughts about them as an item, but when he slid the door open she was met with various coulered flashes and angry shouts from her brother and cousins.

"How come you can have a girlfriend, but me and Rose can't have boyfriends!" A furious Lily bellowed as she glared at Albus, who had noticed Rose, and was now looking at her with pleading eyes. She took this as another, even better, excuse to get away from McLaggen, or rather get him away from her.

"Paul, I think it's for the best if you leave us alone, this will most probably get really messy. You don't want your new robes to be dirty before we've even reached Hogwarts, do you?"

"Rose, you are the perfect girl, thinking about stuff like that, you are right. I'll see you soon." And with this and a last terrified glance at Lily, who had her wand out, pointing it somewhere in between Hugo and Albus, he left.

"Oh, he will be such a great head boy this year!" Rose muttered sarcastically under her breath, before she slowly turned to her angry relatives, mustering up some of her authority as one of the older, and in this case, wiser. "Listen, guys, we don't want this to be one of those embarrassing train rides, like that time James got his tongue stuck to his nose because he asked Tracy Gellar out, after she had said no to him ever since like third year." This made the others chuckle slightly, they hadn't let the eldest Potter live down this event, and the memory of it was just as good. "So let's put the wand back down, we all know that Lily would beat you anyway."

"Hey!" Both Hugo and Albus turned to her, irritated that she pushed that button.

"Well it is true…" Albus girlfriend Jenny spoke up, she had been reading her magazine for young witches calmly, being used to this kind of behaviour from all the Potters and Weasleys.

Albus who couldn't be mad at her just slumped down next to her, glaring at Rose though the whole time, and Hugo finally got Lily to sit down on the opposite side.

"So how was the meeting, sis?" He then proceeded ask, knowing that someone had to ask the question sooner or later, but already looking uninterested as he played with the owl he had beside him.

"It was ok." Rose sat down and took out one of her books, holding it up extra high, hoping that they wouldn't ask anymore, but of course they wouldn't let it drop.

"Just ok…?" Albus looked at her, his anger replaced with concern for the lack of excitement it should be when Rose told them things like this. She would usually be talking non stop, sometimes forcing Hugo to drastic measures to get her to shut up.

"Well, I had to patrol with McLaggen, sorry if I don't want to bore you to death."

"Why is it so bad to patrol with him?" Jenny looked confused at Rose, who shrugged. "At least he's not from Slytherin."

"Maybe Rose would rather walk with Avery, Goyle or Malfoy." Albus laughed at his own joke, but both Hugo and Rose glared at him.

"Rose would never want to do anything with them, right Rose?"

"Of course not!" She didn't mention that she actually had gone with Malfoy, even if it was just to get away from McLaggen for a while when he was too insufferable. Her relatives wouldn't understand, since they all thought that most pure-blooded wizards was indeed the source of all evil in the world, which it almost had been, but that was a long time ago. She reasoned that what ever they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, or rather infuriate them.

Their conversation ever so slowly drifted off to more comfortable subjects, like what they thought that the new year would be like, and soon they realised that it was getting darker outside, and they could see mountains and woods. The others got dressed, Rose, who already wore her robes, went out to check the hall ways. Before she left she told them that they didn't need to wait for her, and she got some muffled responses from Albus and Hugo who now had their clothes over their heads. Shrugging she asked them to get her things off the train to and smiled when Hugo, she still couldn't see his face, held up his hand and waved her away dismissingly.

She found it quite hard to shout out directions to the first years, who seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, bumping into each other as they looked around nervously.

"If all the first years could come over here, please." She tried to get their attention but in the ocean of students it was impossible. While complementing if she would do something drastic, like shout at the top of her voice and jump up and down while franticly waving her arms in the air, she didn't notice someone coming up behind her.

"Need some help there, Weasley?"

She got so surprised at this that she swiftly turned around, and in the process smacked Scorpius Malfoy hard in the face with the back of her hand.

"Oh, sorry, you scared me! Are you ok?"

"Ouch Weasley, do you always greet people like this." He rubbed his aching jaw, and she could feel her cheeks burn with embarrassment. "It really hurts, I know you did it on purpose." He looked down at her and she wanted so badly to look away, but then she found herself and with that the annoyance over the situation. It wasn't her fault that he snuck up on her.

"No, of course not. Stop whining like a baby, I'm sure you didn't do that when you got hit by that bludger last year."

"I'm not a baby, and that bludger was nothing compared..." They glowered at each other as he spoke, but it came quickly to an end when someone forcefully bumped right into Rose, which in turned hurled her forcefully into Malfoy. He was close to losing his own balance, but regained it by holding on to her tightly against him. They stood like that a second, completely still, but then realised what it might look like, and they both quickly stepped away, more like jumped, as if they'd got burned by the other.

"Don't do that again." Scorpius said in a low, suddenly cold voice, and for a moment she was stunned, she hadn't done anything, except by an accident been thrown at him. He was there, he saw what happened.

"I didn't do anything!" However he had already disappeared among the crowd of first year, lead by the head boy, who winked at Rose when he past by.