Alright guys, I've decided to make a contest! If I reach 100 reviews, I will start up Something About You again. It's an Albus/Alice fic, and it has been on hiatus for quite a while. It's a companion story to this one, so you'll see POV's that you've never seen before! I'd rather no spam reviews, but reviews on chapters on where I could touch up and parts you'd like. This story is just as much for you as it is for me. Good luck!
Chapter Seven: Rose Weasley
YEAR ONE
My name is Rose Weasley and while Scorpius Malfoy is quite the charmer, but that doesn't mean I love him.
"Happy Halloween!"
"What?" I asked groggily, sitting up. Alice was standing at my bed, grinning. "It's Halloween! And guess what? They've cancelled classes today!"
Now she had my attention. "They've never done that before." I said, somewhat excitedly.
"I know!" She did a little happy dance. "We can continue our snowball war. Today it's Gryffindor vs. Slytherin."
I laughed. "You are doing houses against each other? You're treating it as if it's Quidditch!"
Alice shrugged. "It's the most fun thing right now besides Quidditch, and even first years can't do Quidditch. You should join us today!"
"Oh, alright," I said, getting out of bed. I pulled on my robes and combed by hair. Jogging down the stairs, I was almost frightened to death.
"BOO!" I screamed and jumped away from the noise, right into someone's arms. I looked up and saw Scorpius with a brilliant smile on his face, laughing.
"Hey!" I punched him in the arm. Albus came out from behind the door to our dorm, doubled over in laughter. Alice came down almost seconds later. "What did I miss?"
"Rose nearly peed herself," Albus informed her. "Scorpius saved her, though."
"Yeah, right," I pushed myself away from him but I was smiling.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
After breakfast, Alice and Albus showed Scorpius and I where the snowball war was. It turns out it was in the Quidditch Pitch.
They called it The Great Snowball War, of which I praised its creativity and originality.
When I saw it though, I was in shock. There had to be some magic in play because there were cannons made of snow. There were two sides separated by a very distinct black line, as though the snow had turned black. That wasn't the best thing, though. On either side, Gryffindors and Slytherins were making their defenses. Castles, made of snow, and small mounds where people could take cover. It was incredible.
"There is a limit on how much magic you can use. For example, you can't charm yourself to be snowball-repellent. But you can make defenses."
When more students arrived we all formed a big crowd, and one girl, an older one from Gryffindor, got on one of the big mounds to speak.
"Alright!" She said. "We all had great fun yesterday, but some of you wanted to take it further. Today we are recruiting armies for The Great Snowball War. If you are to be recruited, you are to fight in every battle unless granted otherwise by your captain. You are to play with your house, unless given special permission by captains. You are to not use magic in the battles! The cannons are charmed to shoot when aimed and fired, no extra ammo needed. You are NOT to maim anybody too seriously. The object of the game is to get the three flags on your opponent's side, and cross into your boundary with the flag. The snowballs are charmed, mind you, to hit you quite hard. So look for the smart way to get to the flags, and try not to get hit!"
I looked where the flags were, and I was shocked to see flags at the very top of the snow castles. Fantastic.
"Defenses!" she called again. "Your purpose is to stop people from reaching your flags. To do that, you are given a castle for your base, five cannons, and an unlimited amount of snowballs. Offense! Your objective is to get the opponent's flag back to your boundary! To do that you are given snow shields, mounds for defense, and an unlimited amount of snowballs. There will be an older student who is not associated with either house playing to play referee. Additionally, any students complained about their robes getting soaked during the game. We spoke to the house elves and they made us uniforms!"
I didn't necessarily agree with that, but the elves loved to help the students, so I brushed it aside. She had uniforms for each house. They looked a lot like the Quidditch uniforms, but specifically made for colder weather. We each got long pants lined with fur on the inside, a sweater, a cloak, gloves, and a pair of knee-high boots. I thought it would be hard to move around in it but when I went to change in it, it was surprisingly easy to move around. It seemed really lightweight and waterproof, too. It was after that I had realized that she gave none of us a specific size, but our uniforms seemed to fit us all perfectly. Magic.
"Are you ready?" Scorpius asked from beside me as we walked back to the field.
"As ready as I'll ever be," I said, pulling on my gloves.
"I'll cover you if you cover me."
I smiled. "Of course."
Our captain was a seventh year. She had long, brown hair that was braided into two braids. All of the Gryffindors stood behind our castle. I looked to see Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws all in the bleachers.
"Alright then," the girl said. "You heard the introduction from Stacee. We're no Ravenclaws, but we need a way to strategize. I know we have great minds in here, so let's use them."
Someone raised their hand. "I'm no good on my feet, and most of the older students are used to using a broom. I'd say send the little firsties out on offense, since they're probably faster."
"Good idea," someone else said, "But we will need some older ones out there too. Keep the defense to the older ones, though."
"The inside of the castle is enchanted," The girl named Stacee said. "Nobody knows what the other inside of the castle looks like. How can we trust firsties to find the flags?"
"I guess we'll find out," our captain said. "Alright, all of the firsties are going to be offense. At the least it'll slow them down. I need students with good aim up in the castle. Beaters, you can handle the cannons." I pair of boys pumped their fists.
I wrapped my arm around Scorpius's. At least we'll be in the same position. After a few more words of encouragement, she gave us each a small chunk of ice, and we were sent out into the field just as the Slytherins were. Scorpius and I ran to the nearest mound and sat down.
"Alright," he said. "We need a plan."
"Didn't she give us a plan?"
"We aren't going to be mere distractions. There are plenty of others for that. I'm thinking of ways to get into the castle.
"Slytherins can be quite malicious, you know," I said.
"That's why they won't see us," he winked. Suddenly we heard a very loud horn. From the sound of everything around us, the battle has begun. People who didn't take cover right away are now being pelted by snowballs. I peek around the mound and see Slytherins making their way to the boundary line.
"Whatever we're doing, we'd better do it quick," I said to him.
"There is a mound about twenty feet in front of us, straight ahead. If we're fast enough, we can make it over there without getting hit. Unfortunately, there's a chance that a Slytherin may already be passed it and we'd give them easy access to us."
"We should go one at a time." I said. "I'll check to see if anyone's on you. If someone is, I'll pelt them with a snowball."
"I don't like that idea—"
I quickly peeked to see if anyone was coming, and shoved him away from the mound. "Go NOW!" He took off sprinting. I scoop a snowball and stand, checking all around him. In a few moments he makes it and dives, laughing. My turn. He nods at me and scoops snowballs of his own, and got ready.
I took a deep breath and ran for it.
While I was exposed, I took a look around. Everyone was having a blast, but you could tell it was super competitive. A snowball came my way, but I dived just in time to dodge it. However, I dived straight into Scorpius.
He groaned. "Ouch."
"Sorry!" I grin, and he smiles back. "Wait, why does everyone have a shield but us?"
He looked confused for a moment. "Wait, the ice!"
I had just remembered the small chunk of ice pressed into my glove. It had not yet melted, which was weird. "How do you activate it?"
"I don't know, try talking to it."
Really? I looked at the ice in my covered pond. "Shield?" It sounded more like a question, but suddenly the chunk of ice grew into a mimic of the badges on our robe, an ice shield with the Gryffindor emblem etched into the center.
"Magic is flexible," I said. "Chunk?" Sure enough, the shield shrank.
"Cool," Scorpius whispered.
"What are you two doing?!" I hear a shout from my left. It was Alice and Albus, their shields held in front of them, chucking snowballs. "We are supposed to be distracting!"
"We're getting to the castle! Scorpius yelled back. "I have a plan!"
"This had better not be another dumb plan, Scorpius!"
"Trust me, it's not," Scorpius laughed. We just have to get to the castle."
"Then we'll help." Alice spoke and ran to our mound. Albus followed. "What's your plan?"
"Well, Rosie is worried about them seeing us. The only problem separating us and the flags are Slytherins."
"And the castle itself," I reminded him. "We don't know what their castle is like inside."
"Actually, I do," Scorpius said proudly. When we were splitting up, I peeked in our castle. You know what it looked like? One of the corridors of the dungeon. Different ways you can go but only one leads to where you want to go. How much do you want to bet that the Slytherins mimicked their common room corridors?"
"A lot," Albus offered.
"And who here," Scorpius continued. "Happens to have a family full of Slytherins, along with a pretty good summarization of the Slytherin common room corridors?"
"You?" I asked, excited.
"There are lots of different ways, but my father mentioned a way that he took a lot so he wouldn't be caught by their prefect. It was enchanted. I wonder, with a magic castle, the likelihood that that one is enchanted too."
"Bloody brilliant, Scorpius! We'll cover you so that you and Rose can get in there, but I don't know how far we can get."
I could already see Slytherins passing our mounds, but they didn't seem to pay us much mind. We had to get across the boundary.
"What happens if we get the flags?"
"Look up there," he pointed at the Slytherin castle. "They only have two guards up there. There are three flags. If both of us take one and we hand one off to Albus or Alice, then they can't get us all. Plus, all of the others are trying to get to our castle."
"Sounds like a plan," Alice said, "But we have to go now."
And that was it. Mound by mound, we advanced into their boundary. I was surprised at how little mind the Slytherins paid us. They must have figured out the distraction plan. The tough thing was avoiding the cannons. "Unlimited ammo' must have gotten to the Slytherins' heads because there was constant fire. However, they were closer to the castle than any other Gryffindor. The entrance was only about thirty feet away.
"I think we should all run for it," I whispered. "They can't get us all at the same time. Whoever is left will have to take cover."
They all took position and counted to three.
One…
Two…
Three!
They all sprinted and the cannons went crazy. Scorpius made it first, and I was right behind him. Without hesitating, we ran right into the entrance.
I breathed hard. It was a castle of ice, and it felt like it too. My cheeks were probably pink and the floor was really slippery. This was the true challenge.
"There were different entrances to the common room," Scorpius whispered to me. "Unless they know about the secret one, they'll be expecting us to come in through the main one." I looked around. There were at three different paths. Scorpius grabbed my hand, aused a moment, and went through the one on the left.
We walked brisky, but it was hard. Soon it was too slippery to make it a few feet without falling. We sat down to catch our breath. "It's too bad we don't have our wands," I huffed. "We could be skating through it right now."
"Even so, we stink at transfiguration."
I shrugged. "Magic is flexible."
Silence. "What did you just say?" Scorpius asked.
"What? Magic is flexible?"
"Rose! You're a bloody genius!"
I was confused. "What do you mean?"
"The shield! We could use it as a sled, but that would take a lot of energy. Magic is flexible, though."
I caught on. I took my chunk of ice (I had changed it back into a chunk of ice after we got into the castle) and held it in my palm. "Let's hope this works." I said, glancing at him. Then, with all the concentration I could muster:
"Ice skates."
And as it turns out, magic is really, really flexible.
"They made it so that it would be impossible to get down the corridors without this!" I said, so excited that I was yelling. "Scorpius, you did it!" I threw myself at him, tackling him to the ground. It was a hard fall, but we were both laughing. The warmth was nice. We stayed there a couple of moments, but realized that we had to move.
I pulled on my skates as Scorpius did the same with his ice. The skates felt… real. The shoe part was soft and moldable. An experienced witch or wizard must have done this.
Only moments later we were gliding down the corridor hand in hand. Scorpius had never skated before, so he was wobbly, but he told me the directions and I guided him.
"Don't let my father hear about this, but he had a song when he was younger," Scorpius laughed. "He would sing the directions so he wouldn't forget them. It was quite funny."
I couldn't help but burst out laughing at the thought of Draco Malfoy singing down the corridors of a mysterious dungeon.
There were never any stairs, or slope, so I'm not sure how it worked out. The height of the castle must have been purely for the guards, because soon enough, there was a small ladder that led to a small opening, the ladder only being about six feet high. Thankfully, the ladder was not ice, but in fact wood. We took off our skates and very carefully, I climbed up the ladder. When I peeked over the edge, I saw three boys: two standing at the cannons, and one near another opening, presumeably where they thought the offense would come in. And two feet in front of me, three tall poles with green and silver flags on each.
We should have had a plan for now, because if we had a big distraction, that would be great.
And yet, I spoke too soon. I looked behind me and found that we were indeed at the very back of the castle, and there was fresh snow with no fights. Back there, however, were two students taking cover.
"Bloody hell," I whispered under my breath. I motioned for Scorpius to hold on and whispered over the edge as loud as I dared.
"Alice! Albus!"
Two heads snapped up and their eyes widened. I held my finger to my mouth, telling them to stay silent.
"We could use another distraction," I whispered to them, and smiles appeared upon their face. Before I knew it, they ran around to the other side of the castle. I heard booms, and someone was yelling for the kid to take the other cannon. Perfect.
Faster than I've ever been before, I climbed over the edge and jumped for the flags. It was quite easy, and they looked much shorter than I thought they were. I threw them in the hole at Scorpius.
"Oh god, let's go!" I whispered loudly. I quickly tied on my skates. We had to get out of there before they realized they were missing. Hand in hand and with the flags, we skated back to the entrance. We fell a couple of times, but luckily we got to the front. It was only then that I saw the very Slytherin that looked back at their castle, and screamed, "Where are the flags?!"
Crap.
Tearing off our skates and yelling "Shield!" we ran as fast as we could to the boundary line. Luckily we had the element of surprise, and the cannons didn't know where to shoot. I whooped as I ran, and while the snow slowed us down, I felt like I was soaring.
The Gryffindors noticed, too, and they all cheered and yelled and screamed as we neared the boundary line. I got hit quite a few times and once we were quite near it, I fell face first when I got hit with a canon of snow. It felt like I was buried.
"Rosie!" I heard yelling and a hand grabbed mine. Scorpius. He was getting pelted and had to leap to dodge a snow cannon. He dragged me out of the snow and kept running, me stumbling behind him. I saw a Slytherin come in from the left, ready to tackle Scorpius. The border line was right in front of us.
Before the Slytherin tackled him, I did.
I leaped and hit Scorpius with all I had, and pushed us both straight over the border line.
It was quiet.
Then, the loudest cheering I have ever heard, even from the Quidditch match when Hufflepuff beat Slytherin by a landslide, came from my house. Our house.
"You won, you won!" The captain, the girl with the braids, ran up to us. "You figured out the skates! You got passed them! How?! It doesn't matter! Oh, I love you, I love you!"
Everyone was screaming at once. A lot of Slytherins looked confused.
Then we were being lifted in the air, and I guess people noticed Alice and Albus's involvement because they were being lifted on shoulders, too. We were all laughing and screaming as we joined hands and threw them up.
"Scorpius!" I screamed. He looked over to me and grinned. "You're a genius, mate!"
Suddenly everyone started chanting: "Gryffindor! Gryffindor! Gryffindor!"
That lasted for about five minutes, and then they finally let us down. I tackled Scorpius in a hugged and kissed him soundly on the cheek. "You were bloody brilliant!"
"You were bloody brilliant!" He yelled back, his cheeks red from the cold, or so it seems.
Suddenly the captain came up behind us. One of her braids were out now, evidently from the crowd. She grinned impossibly wide. "You two! I had doubts about a Malfoy being in Gryffindor house, but you completely obliterated them! If I don't see you at Quidditch tryouts next year, I'll be sorely disappointed. That was amazing!" She left and ran off to her friend Stacee.
I grinned at Malfoy and hugged him again. This was the best day I've had at Hogwarts so far.
Maybe I was wrong, about nothing interesting happening at Hogwarts. Nothing could beat my best friend, though.
I'd bet on him any day.
Sorry for the predicted Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, but it had to be that way because of the dungeon thing. I hope you liked this chapter as much as I did! It was a lot of fun, even if it wasn't very productive. It also took forever to write so I'd appreciate reviews!
As for last time's poll, my own heart (and Pottermore) says that I am a Gryffindor. Though honestly, sometimes I wonder if I am a Slytherin. I guess I could fit in all of the houses, but my most dominant traits show Gryffindor.
Poll:
The Hunger Games
OR
Divergent
