Rose huffed in irritation, sending a dark scowl down the table at her cousin. James Potter ignored her, too caught up in some no-doubt-obnoxious joke with his fellow second years to pay any attention to her disapproval, no matter how obvious she made it.
She couldn't believe him.
Ordinarily Rose quite liked James. He wasn't her favorite cousin—that was Albus—but he was brilliant, and witty, and irrepressible, and a lot of fun to hang around with. And while she didn't hero-worship him to the extent that Albus did, she admitted that she did look up to James Potter quite a lot. When he wasn't being exasperating, and sometimes even when he was. But right now he was taking exasperation to a whole new level.
Rose had known the Potters all her life, and she would have known, even without seeing the letter, that everything James was pretending it had said was nonsense. Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry would never have written things like that! They had, in actuality, asked James to look out for his little brother, and to be nice to him, and to tell Albus that they were proud of him, and hoped he was settling in well, and they were looking forward to hearing from him as soon as he had time to write.
(They had also told James not to break too many school rules this year, or take any advice from Uncle George, but Rose knew as well as the Potters must have that James would certainly ignore that bit of the letter.)
They most certainly had not told James to make all sorts of really horrible jokes about snakes, and shaming the family, and how Albus must have been switched in St. Mungo's at birth for a baby python or something, and all sorts of nonsense that had had James's friends laughing uproariously but that Rose was sure Albus would have been really upset to overhear. She'd told James as much, and told him not to be a prat, and he'd told her not to be such an Uncle Percy so Rose had taken his letter and stormed off.
Now she was looking for Albus to tell him what the letter had really said, and ask him why on earth he hadn't written to his parents yet, but he seemed to be nowhere to be found. She had already walked up and down the whole Slytherin table, and he didn't seem to be there.
Finally in frustration she scanned the table and selected a girl whom she thought had to be a first year, like she and Al. "Excuse me," said Rose.
The girl turned around and her dimpled smirk faded when she saw Rose. "What?" she asked curtly.
"Do you know Albus Potter?" Rose asked politely. "He's in your House."
The smirk was back. "Oh yeah," the girl said, "did you know he's lost five points already?" She giggled.
"No, well, that's a shame," Rose said, resisting the urge to turn and check the hourglasses across the hall. "Anyway, I was just wondering if you knew where he was?"
"Already left," the girl replied. "Hiding behind his stupid little friend."
"Right," said Rose. "Okay. Well, thanks anyway."
The girl shrugged and turned back to her meal.
"If you see him, can you tell him that Rose is looking for him?"
The girl shrugged again, not bothering to look back at Rose or acknowledge her further.
"Thanks…"
Rose backed away from the green-and-silver table. How had she missed Al leaving?
Then she shook her head ruefully. She'd been skimming her Transfiguration textbook, preparing for class, and—predictably—gotten carried away and sucked in. She wouldn't have noticed Albus even if he'd sat down right next to her.
Rose sighed. Well, she'd find him eventually.
The castle wasn't that big, after all.
