Nata:Happy Belated Birthday Shi-shi! I finally got around to finishing this chapter, and thought I should include it with your birthday present. Now everybody, say thanks to Shi-shi getting me to update!

Everybody: *LOUD RAWR* Shi-shi! Shi-shi! Shi-shi! Sh-

Nata: So not fair...

Chapter 10: Broomsticks, Portraits, and Trolls

The next day, Blaise, Draco, and Rose were all sitting together at the Slytherin table at breakfast -Audrey was sitting next to Sara Carman (Ravenclaw), Bethany Murphy (Gryffindor), and Joshua Murphy (Hufflepuff) at the Ravenclaw table- when Hermione Granger entered the Great Hall.

Hermione scanned the room when she entered, with a large book in her arms, she seemed to be looking for something. When her eyes landed on the Slytherin table, her eyes lit up and started to jog towards them. Rose, being the happy, friendly person that she is, waved her over when she saw her coming.

Draco's former happy expression turned into a frown. He did not look happy that Hermione was heading his way.

"What's that know-it-all mud-erm muggleborn doing coming this way." he said. Rose elbowed him in the ribs. "Hey! What was that for!"

"You're acting like a meany, Draggy."

Draco only rolled his eyes.

As Hermione continued to walk to the green and silver table, more and more Slytherins were starting to glare at her, daring her to join them. By the time she sat down next to Blaise, across from Rose and Draco, -thank goodness they were sitting at the end- the entire Slytherin table (not including Rose and Blaise) were glaring holes into her. Hermione ignored the glares, however, and started talking to Rose.

"It's completely unfair, Rose! You and I have detention with the Gamekeeper because we left in the middle of class yesterday!" said Hermione to Rose.

Rose's eyes widened. "But that's completely not our fault! Harry Potter should be the one getting detention!"

Draco elbowed Rose and pointed to the Gryffindor table. "It doesn't look like Potter's in trouble at all. Look there! It's so obvious by its shape it's pitiful. Potter got himself a broomstick." Draco said. He was frowning, but then that frown turned into a smirk. "But first years aren't allowed broomsticks." He stood up, and started walking towards the Gryffindor table. Blaise and Rose simply looked to each other, then stood up, following Draco. Hermione, not wanting to be left alone with the Slytherins, got up and started following as well, frowning the entire way.

As soon as they reached the Gryffindor table, Draco snatched the package right out of Potter's hands; feeling it.

"That's a broomstick," he confirmed "You'll be in for it now, Potter. First years aren't allowed broomsticks."

"Not just any broomstick, Malfoy. A Nimbus Two Thousand. What did you say you've got at home? A Comet Two Sixty? They may look flashy, but they're not even in the same league as the Nimbus." Rose could see that Draco was getting angry, so she was about to interrupt him before he said something mean, but Professor Flitwick appeared. He started to say something, but Rose was no longer paying any attention to their conversation.

For the first time in her memory, Rose Potter's scar was hurting. She started clutching her forehead in pain. It hurt so much! Eventually, Professor Flitwick, Potter, and Weasley left, so Draco's full attention was on her again. Now that the annoyances were out of the way, Draco noticed her pain immediately. His eyes widened.

"Hey Rose! Are you all right?" He asked her, his attitude taking a complete one-eighty from jealousy to concern.

"My scar hurts really badly." she said. Hermione looked worried.

"Maybe we should just skip out on breakfast and take you to the Hospital Wing." she said. Draco nodded. He must have really been out of it, because he didn't even notice that he was agreeing with a muggle born.

As they were leaving the Great Hall, Audrey noticed them, said goodbye to her new friends, and left her table to follow. "What up?" she asked, coming up from behind Hermione.

Blaise frowned. "Rose's scar is hurting." he said. This time, Audrey frowned.

"Huh? I thought only dark curse scars did that." she said. They had now left the Great Hall, and were passing a portrait of Wilgilda the Wise on there way to the Hospital Wing.

"I- I don't know, it just really hurts." said Rose, she was crying now. They picked up their pace. When they suddenly stopped walking, Rose looked up to see why. Headmaster Dumbledore was standing right in front of them.

Headmaster Dumbledore was a rather aged man, around five foot, seven, with a silver bead that reached down to his knees. His twinkling blue eyes were hidden behind crescent moon glasses, and over all, he had a very friendly and kind appearance.

"Ahh, now what would four Slytherins such as yourselves, be doing with a Gryffindor outside the Great Hall when it is time for breakfast, might I ask?" he said. His eye twinkled like a star.

"Rose isn't feeling too well, Professor. We're taking her to Madam Pomphrey." said Hermione.

"And what might the problem be?" asked Dumbledore.

"Her scar is hurting."

The twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes disappeared, if possible, his face turned into a thoughtful look, while frowning.

"I see." He said in a low voice. "Very well then, you may be on you way." As they walked away, only Draco and Hermione noticed the calculating look he gave Rose.

XxxXXXxxx

Rose ended up spending the rest of the day in the Hospital Wing, for even though Madam Pomphrey couldn't find anything physically wrong with her, it was quite obvious that there was something wrong. The Madam just could not figure out what. At the end of the day, Madam Pomphrey simply let Rose leave, as she did not hold the power to keep students there for too long when there was nothing physically wrong with them.

Rose was anxious to get out of that white room, but made a mental note to visit Madam Pomphrey sometime, as the madam looked awfully lonely in the Hospital Wing (the lollipop that the school nurse gave her may have slightly influenced that decision.) But alas, Madam Pomphrey did not think to write a note to excuse Rose from being out after curfew, as another student came running in with horsepox(the magical version of chicken pox, where the victim grows a horse tail along with the ichy spots). As Rose was walking down the hallway, she turned at the corner that led to the lower parts of the castle.

Now, we cannot fully blame Rose for what happened next, as her mind was on the sweetness of her strawberry flavored lolli, and not entirely on the path ahead of her. Because of those sweet innocent green eyes, we can only assume the entire incident is the lollipop's fault. For when Rose Potter turned the corner, she walked strait into a portrait that had ,for some reason, been swung open.

"STUDENT OUT OF BED!" rang through the empty corridor. Shivering from the feeling of something around her leg, Rose looked down to see Mrs. Norris smiling evilly at her (if cats could smile evilly that is). While Rose had never met the caretaker of Hogwarts, Draco made sure to drill it into her head that she did not want to do so. After all, according to Draco -and Draco is nearly never wrong(unless Lockhart was being discussed)- the caretaker liked "to suck the blood of poor innocent little bunnies, steel candy from young children, and liked call little girls mean names." That is why Rose did the same thing any and all Hogwarts students would do in that same situation-although for different reasons- she ran for it.

Rose ran for several long minutes, her heart pounding hard in her chest, and after she believed she had finally lost the dreaded cat, she collapsed onto the wooden floors of the castle, gasping and heaving. When Rose finally regained her bearings, she was hopelessly lost. Instead of panicking like most would do in her situation, Rose did something that only she would do. Take this opportunity to go exploring.

Rose walked around for about an hour, watched a tapestry where some man had tried to teach trolls ballet, waved to random suits of armor (who being ever polite suits of armor, waved back), and then sometime around midnight, bumped into a tired Hermione Granger, Potter, Weasley, and Neville Longbottom. Having no time to chat, Hermione grabbed Rose's wrist and pulled her along with her little group. They found a locked door, of which Weasley and Potter were trying to break off it's hinges.

"Move out of the way!" furiously whispered Hermione, she shoved the two boys away, waved her wand, and said, "Alohomora." The door unlocked; the group hurried inside.

Once upon a time, Rose adored dogs, they were her favorite animal, however, ferrets moved up on the list, and dogs went down... way down. Most would ask why that happened, after all dogs are adorable. While that may be true for most dogs, giant, three-headed dogs are probably a different story.

xxxXXXxxx

The next morning, on the way to the Great Hall for breakfast, Hermione Granger caught up to Rose, and pulled her aside, seeing Rose pulled away, Draco went along with his first instinct, he followed them and decided to eavesdrop outside the door of the classroom Granger had chosen to gossip with Rose.

"Did you see it?!" came the voice of that filthy little- oh no, stupid Rose, she must be getting to him, because he swore he just heard her voice shouting at him not to use such petty names.

"See what?"

"The trap door!"

"What trap door?"

"The one the Cerberus is guarding!"

"What's a cerebrum?"

"Cerberus! And it's a three headed dog. Cerebrum is Spanish for brain."

"That-that- scary thingy was guarding something?"

"No duh Sherlock, that's what I've been saying."

"Well why didn't you tell me!"

Draco could hear a loud slap echo throughout the room, and he could only smirk, finally, he's not the only one to suffer through the absent minded and oblivious Rose Potter!

"You know what, Rose? Never mind, never mind, just forget what we've been talking about..."

"Okie dokie!"

"Now what was I saying-"

"You were talking about a trap door and a cerebrum and-"

"Rose!"

xxxXXXxxx

Draco made sure to be out of their way when they came out of the classroom, but because he had been eavesdropping, he made sure he didn't catch up to them too soon. Draco was not prepared though, when shortly before he could enter the Great Hall, Granger ambushed him and pulled him into a nearby broom closet. He was mortified to see Blaise and Audrey were right behind him, and were now snickering to each other. He thought he say a flash of green coming from Audrey's pocket as well, but he must have been seeing things.

"Draco! You won't believe what happened last night-"

Safe to say, the rumors that followed for the next week or so about Malfoy and Granger snogging in the closet did not just appear out of thin air. And some of the pride filled looks a few of the older boys sent him made him highly uncomfortable.

xxxXXXxxx

On Halloween, Hermione was in a beautiful mood, and it did not bother her in the least when she had to sit next to Weasley in Charms, however, Weasley did not share her enthusiasm for the subject, and when she noticed Weasley was mispronouncing the spell, she tried to correct him so he would not end up like Jonsy the Foolish, a tutor who mispronounced the simple match turning into a needle spell when demonstrating for his charge, and he and they both were never heard from again.

Weasley was not in the mood for her help, and the fact that the twins had changed his underwear into a spider this morning did nothing to help the mood. Because of all this, her help was ill received. But Hermione was a strong girl, and kept her tears in till the end of the period; when Weasley made a rather nasty remark about her after class, the tears threated to spill over, so she ran to the nearest loo. Calls of "Crybaby!" here not left unheard on her journey. But she couldn't stop running. Even if they called her a crybaby, it didn't mean the words didn't hurt. She has friends! Like Rose! and Audrey and Blaise and Dra-okay, maybe not Draco, but still she had friends!

Friends that don't defend you when you are being picked on? said a nasty little voice in her head. But Hermione tried to push those thoughts aside. They weren't even in the same charms class! Of course they couldn't defend me. But real friends would be here right now. But they probably don't even know about-

"Hermione? Are you okay? It's me, Audrey, and Rose too, you pushed us aside when you were running. Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay!?"

"No need to bite our heads off..."

Hermione wiped the tears away from here eyes, seeing Rose and Audrey in front of her. Audrey has a frown on her face, but she went up to Hermione and started rubbing her back. Rose asked her who made her cry, puffed up her chest, started flexing her muscles and started talking about how she was going to get Draco to beat up whoever picked on her friend. Hermione sniffed and smiled. Oh Rose, only you...

"Hermione, do you want to go back to class? We can if you want..." Audrey helped Hermione stand up, but Hermione only shook her head and sat back down.

"I don't think I can go back to class right now, and see Ron Weasley again so soon."

"Then we'll just stay here, with you."

"But you'll miss class!"

"You're our friend, Hermione. You're way more important."

"Ya!" Rose was nodding her head to everything that Audrey said. Hermione and Audrey looked on in amusement when they noticed that that Rose was still nodding even though nothing was being said. They laughed together, and Rose stopped nodding, asking them what was so funny.

"You are!" giggled Hermione. Both she and Audrey laughed even more when Rose simply cocked her head to the side, not getting the joke.

Audrey stopped laughing, and asked Hermione and Rose to take her hands, they did so, and she squeezed tightly while she explained. "Whenever we squeeze hands with each other, it's a reminder that we're friends, and that we always will be friends -even if one of us is not the brightest crayon in the box- and that nothing will tear us away."

"What about Draggy?"

"What about Draco, Rose?"

"He's our friend too!"

"Then you can squeeze his hand, I for one, am not touching it. Who knows where that has been? And besides, he's a boy."

"Agreed. Boys are nasty."

"Draggy's not nasty!"

"He's still a boy, Rose."

xxxXXXxxx

By the time the Halloween feast came around, Draco was starting to get nervous. He hadn't seen Rose, Audrey, or even that clingy mudblood, Hermione, since third period. Rose hasn't left him alone this long in a long time. Even when she's trying -and failing- to ignore him, she still sticks around. Warning bells were ringing in his head, and he wasn't the only one.

"Hey Draco? What do you think ever happened to the girls?"

"I don't know, Blaise. I haven't seen them since third period, you?"

"Same."

Draco stood up out of his chair, and left the great hall, Blaise a step behind him. Harry Potter and Ronald Wesley, noticing the two Slytherins leaving the great hall during the Halloween feast, left moments later, and started following behind them. Neither party aware that in a few short minutes, Professor Quirrell's going to be interrupting the feast with frightening news.

Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley were suspicious, and very confused. They had followed the two Slytherins because, well, they're Slytherins that had left the feast early, wasn't that suspicious enough already? But they were very confused, because the two Slytherins were ducking their heads into every classroom, and as they neared the girls loo, it became apparent that they were going to peek in there too! Were the Slytherins closet perverts or something? Or something... Ha! They couldn't fool this Gryffindor duo! It was rather ingenious really, all the looking into the other classrooms was to fool people into thinking they were really looking for something, when in reality they had been heading to the girl's loo the entire time! And inside the girl's loo, that traitor, Hermione Granger, and the two Slytherins Bressler and Potter were up to no good, and that was why they had disappeared all day!

Harry started sniffing the air, and gagged. "What is that awful smell!"

"It smells horrible!" said Ron, holding his nose between his fingers.

"Quick! Let's get into the girl's loo! We'll confront the Slytherins, the traitor, and get away from this stench!" said Harry. Ron nodded, and followed Harry into the girls loo. But they did not find some sort of cauldron or experiment, but instead the group of Slytherins were laughing! But the laughing stopped when the door to the loo closed. Some glares were sent in the direction of the two intruders.

"We've caught you now!"

"Ya! Just you wait! One of us is going to get a professor and you're going to be in real trouble!"

Draco (and everyone else for that matter) had been laughing at Rose about one of her more ridiculous moments, when Potter and Weasley entered the loo, and started to accuse them about doing something or another. Safe to say, he was a bit confused.

"What the he-"

"Cursing is mean, Draggy!"

"-are you taking about?"

Potter and Weasley didn't have time to respond, because the door to the loo opened again, and a highly undesirable stench entered the room, bring a troll in with it. The group of first years freezed.

Audrey was the first to break out of the shock, just as the troll raised it's club up high. "Move you imbeciles!"

They all scattered, well, all but Rose, who was still in shock, but Draco grabbed her arm and forced her out of the way, shielding his best and first friend as broken tile from the floor when flying everywhere, with the head of the troll's club landing Rose had been standing seconds before. His back hurt! But he guessed that was to be expected, and he turned to take in his surrounds again so he could decide the next appropriate action. It was not good.

While Rose was unharmed, the mudblood was clenching her arm, with blood dripping down her fingers. Potter was clenching his leg, Weasley, his stomach, and Audrey was the worst off, with a heavily bleeding head wound with her head on the floor, to dazed to move- and by the look of her mangled leg, she wouldn't be able to get off the floor even if she wanted to. A puddle of red was growing underneath her.

All this passed through his head in a second, the troll raised it's club again, and took aim at the mudblood, who just barely got out of the way in time when the club came swinging across, taking out the bathroom stalls. Water was squirting everywhere from broken pipes. Rose grabbed his arm, and clenched as tight as she could, shaking next to Draco's frame.

This time the troll aimed at Potter, Blaise, and Weasley, who had all ended up in the same corner, they were able to get out of the way easily enough, but the sinks were now toast.

But it wasn't until the club was heading towards a still out-of-it Audrey, did Draco realize something very humbling. Audrey can't move, and there are no professors here to save her. She is going to die unless somebody does something about it, and if she dies, she's never coming back. So Draco did the first thing that he could think of, the spell that he learned not that long ago, and currently fresh in his head.

"WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!"

Audrey couldn't think about anything right now, all that she could focus on was that the world was spinning, and the pain, the horrible, horrible pain. As her vision started bleeding red in one eye, she had no idea how close to death she came when she heard somebody shout some sort of spell( she couldn't make it out, she couldn't make out anything). But for some reason, two other feelings entered into her system, coldness and tiredness. She was just so sleepy all of a sudden, so very, very sleepy. Maybe a quick nap would be nice, and the pain should lessen when she woke up. Just a quick little nap...

Hermione watched as the troll's club hit it on the head, conking it out cold. She was in pain, yes, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the sight of the troll falling, slowly, ever so slowly on to the shattered tiled floor. But she was the first to notice the door to the hallway flying open, and Professors McGonagall and Snape enter.

She also noticed the Professors pale deeply, like all the blood in their body was being drained from the sight before them. But the troll was in no gruesome sight, neither were the othe- oh no, Audrey.

She reached Audrey the same time everyone else did -yes, even Potter and Weasley- and grabbed her hand tightly, squeezing it, just like they had done so only hours earlier.

"It's cold-so sleepy.." she herd Audrey mumble, her eyes were slowly shutting. Looks of alarm crossed the Professor's faces.

"Don't you dare close your eyes, Miss Bressler! Don't you dare close your eyes!"