Rose Weasley filed out of the Transfiguration classroom, feeling every bit as subdued as the rest of the students. Professor Sixsmith was decidedly more…intense than Rose had expected. She couldn't help but be a little bit excited, though, at the same time. He seemed to really know what he was talking about.

Rose was elated at the idea of learning not just the art of magical transfiguration, but the base theory behind it, too. Now that was how magic was supposed to work: everything integrated and sensible and according to the rules of logic. She'd known that was how it had to be all along, no matter how haphazard it looked when her dad and Uncle Harry were bandying spells back and forth. She'd known that, underneath all the fun and games, magic had to make sense, had to follow the rules, just like everything else. And she'd been right!

Rose grinned.

Then her eyes lit up even more. There, trooping up the hallway, were several short, muddied, disheveled first years, all of them clad in green-and-silver. So, she thought to herself, they must have just been down at Herbology, with Uncle Neville. Rose waded through the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws that clogged the hall between them and hurried over to the pack of Slytherins.

She was trying to catch sight of Albus, whom she still hadn't gotten to speak to since they'd stupidly gotten separated on the train. Rose didn't understand why he'd had to go running off in the first place; it wasn't as if Victoire and her friends had spent the train ride talking about girly things, and Albus could very well have sat with them like he'd been supposed to.

Boys and their silly egos, she thought, rolling her eyes. She stepped around a dark-skinned girl with pigtails who was surreptitiously cradling a handful of leaves, and saw her cousin at last.

"Albus!" she shouted, "hey, Al!"

The dark-haired boy—he was easy to spot, next to that really short blond one—had his head down and his shoulders hunched, and he didn't seem to hear her. He darted a glance towards the Gryffindors, completely missed noticing Rose's wave, and started walking faster. The pale boy next to him had to trot to keep up.

Rose frowned and shoved ahead, pushing her way through the crowd. "Hey, Albus!" she called.

Albus peeked over his shoulder. This time Rose caught his eye and grinned. Albus tugged the sleeve of the boy next to him and they both stopped.

Rose hurried to catch up, noticing that Albus didn't look particularly happy to see her. Surely he couldn't be cross that they'd gotten separated before the Sorting; that had been his fault, not hers!

Probably it's just because he's all muddy, Rose told herself. Uncle Neville must have given them a really tough lesson.

"Hey, Al," she said. "How are classes going?"

"Fine," Albus mumbled.

"I think it's brilliant, have you met Professor Sixsmith yet? He's marvelous. Really clever. And what about Professor Binns? Can you even believe it, a ghost professor? Of course, he was a little dry, I guess, but I'm sure he can't be as bad as everyone says, right? Once we get the boring early history out of the way—not that history's boring, but you know preliminaries…anyway, you've just been down to Herbology, haven't you? I can tell. How's Uncle Neville? Is it brilliant being in class with him? I'll bet it was a lot of fun, I can't wait, I don't have Herbology at all until tomorrow. Have you been to the library yet? I haven't, I was just about to go try and find it, I'm done with classes for the day, how about you?"

Rose took a breath and only then realized that she'd been babbling. She grinned. "Sorry, I'm a little excited. Actually, I'm a lot excited—it's Hogwarts! Can you believe it? This is so excellent, being here at last!" Rose caught herself bouncing on her toes, and settled quickly.

"Yeah," said Albus unenthusiastically, "excellent. Sure."

Rose frowned. "Al," she asked, "is something wrong?"

"No," said Albus quickly, "of course not." He looked a bit sickly. The skinny boy next to him offered Al a sneering smile that he probably thought looked encouraging. An answering one flickered briefly across Albus's face. "This is Scorpius," he announced. "Scor, my cousin Rose."

The small, pale boy held out a hand politely. "A pleasure to meet you," he said.

"Right," said Rose, shaking his hand distractedly. "Al, are you sure there's—"

"Everything's fine," Albus said crossly.

Rose frowned. "Okay," she said. "Well, if you're getting sick or something, you should go and see the—"

"I'm not sick!" Albus insisted.

"Okay!" snapped Rose. "Sorry for caring! Merlin…" She crossed her arms with a huff. "Anyway, I just wanted to tell you, James got a letter from your parents, and—"

Albus went paler than his new friend.

"Goodness, Al, I really think you might be getting sick," Rose interrupted herself. "You're down in the dungeons, aren't you? Maybe the damp is getting to you, or—"

"It's not damp!" Scorpius protested.

Rose glared at him for interjecting. "Anyway," she said pointedly, turning back to Albus, "I really think you should go up to the hospital wing and see if you can't take something. You don't want to get sick your first week of classes, you might never catch up if you miss the very first days!"

"I'm not sick," Albus mumbled. "I have to go."

"Well—don't you at least want to see what your parents wrote?" she asked. "I've got it here in my bag somewhere, I took it from James because he was being a prat, they want to hear from you, and…" Rose looked down to rummage in her things; where had she put the letter? Was it still in her Transfiguration book?

"And, um, and they said…something about settling in…" There it was, tucked in chapter seven of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, just like she'd thought. Rose pulled the parchment out and tried to smooth it flat before she handed it over. "And if you had any…questions…to…" She trailed off, staring down the hallway. Albus was hurrying away from her, the shorter boy scuttling at his heels. Rose frowned.

Surely he couldn't be in that much of a hurry to get to his next class. Granted, he had to wash up from Herbology still, but he could have at least managed a good-bye…

Rose sniffed in annoyance and shoved the already-crumpled letter back into her bag. Well, she thought crossly, so much for manners…

Rose tugged her school bag more securely over her shoulder and set off down the hallway in the opposite direction from the one that her cousin had taken. So what if Albus didn't want to come along? She, at least, was going to go and find that library.