Chapter Thirteen:
It was only on the first day of the holidays that I realised how quiet my Christmas was really going to be this year. Leanne and Mara were going back to their parents tomorrow. Lily and Albus were heading off to Albania with their parents and James - although they were coming over to ours for Christmas Dinner. Willa, Harriet and Sheila were all going off together to Paris. I was left at Hogwarts with my little brother. The odd thing was, I was really and honestly happy about this.
Not many people stayed at Hogwarts - just the handful of us that either had busy parents or wanted more time at the castle. Or in Hugo's case, simply can't stand his parents and wants to have as little to do with them as possible. On the morning that she was leaving, Mara approached me. She was glowing.
"Rose, could you give this to James? It's a Christmas present from me," she whispered, passing the package into my surprised hands. It was wrapped in simple brown paper, but somehow I thought James would prefer to brown paper to any king of fancy tissue. I nodded at her, stowing the parcel away in my bag, deciding to give it to James when we met up for lunch on Christmas Day. Leanne, Mara and I had all exchanged presents last night.
We all received entirely different things. Mara and Leanne had to be quite generous to each other, as they were twins and were expected by their parents to give larger presents. They had decided, however, not to do these presents while I was there, and instead save them for Christmas Day. Instead, Mara gave Leanne a Chocolate Frog, only when she opened it, she found that there was a note folded up inside, just as there had been on the first train ride to Hogwarts. I had joined them on a whim, since I'd thought they looked friendly. Instead of buying our snacks off the trolley, we'd bought them of another first year, a group of boys, and when we had opened the frog we found a secret message to Leanne written inside from one of the boys, who thought she was - and I quote - 'fit and gorgeous'. Mara had written the exact same note inside the frog this time, and we all laughed at the recollection. Leanne gave Mara a bracelet just like they one we'd seen a fifth-year give his girlfriend one time after a Quidditch match when they'd thought they were alone. We'd all - and by all I mean every single second-year girl - been peering at them gleefully from behind the rows of seats in the stadium. He'd given her the bracelet, she'd gasped with pleasure, and then...and then we'd all gossiped about what we'd seen afterwards for weeks. Then it had been my turn.
I handed over my presents to them first. To Mara I gave a scrapbook of every single thing related to us and Hogwarts I could find, and I gave Leanne a song that I had been working on for a while, documenting the best times we'd had at Hogwarts - for instance, the time we'd realised that all of the girls in our year were suddenly styling their hair in the same way as us. Leanne gave me a quilt of all our old uniforms or fabric equipments; I could even see an old pair of dragons hide gloves that I'd made everyone sign in Everlasting Ink when I outgrew them. I'm not going to ask how she found them.
Mara's present really surprised me. It was a really long letter, with pictures stuck along the side like a timeline, aging right from out first year to the near-disastrous trip to Oxford Street only a couple of weeks ago! There was a lot of personal stuff in it, alongside an awful lot of inside jokes. There was something at the end that surprised me, however. Mara had written;
I know that things probably won't be the same next year, when we're both in different places. I won't see you so often, we won't talk as much. So there's something I'd like to say to you now, Rose. Right now, I can see you're making a really big mistake. And what's worse is I think I was the one who tried to talk you out of what I see clearly now was the right path for you. I want you to forget what I said, discouraging you, and go after what you actually want. I know you say you want what you have right now, but when two people have known each other as long as we have you can tell when they're lying, not only to you, but to themselves. Please be honest, Rose. For your sake. There's something out there that you need to fix right now, but I'm afraid that if I tell you what it is then that will be counter productive, or it won't be so fulfilling if - when - you get what you need. So instead I'm telling you this, in the hope that if you don't know already, you will know very soon what I'm talking about. And I hope that this will give you the courage to do what you have to do.
I didn't feel as if I could ask Mara what she'd meant by this - it was very cryptic and personal, almost as if it were in code. Leanne didn't know what was in the letter, and I didn't think I should really tell her, either, so really I couldn't ask anybody what it's true purpose was. To Mara, the contents of the letter were obviously meant to never be spoken of, only understood and acted upon. But I didn't understand. I didn't know what she meant by all of this - I felt I would be letting her down if told her I didn't understand.
I went back up to the dormitory and flopped down on my bed, face down. All my friends would be leaving soon, and I would be here. I wouldn't do any of the things I needed to do before they left of course, as that would take away things to do during the holidays. I began trying to work out what Mara had said to me in her letter, as I knew that would most likely take me all Christmas.
Even when all my friends had left, much of the time I was at a loose end. Sam had gone home for the holidays, but left me a present. I'd accepted it guiltily, later that night rummaging in my trunk to I find something - anything - I could fashion into a present. In the end I found an old, unused muggle object, a penknife that Granddad had given me. I had thousands of them - Granddad thought penknives were a very useful thing to have - but this one was particularly attractive. It had a crimson, ornate handle, with twist of painted gold twirling around on it. To make it seem more personal, I engraved it with Sam's initials at the bases of the blades with my wand and then placed it inside an old sock of Hugo's I transfigured into a penknife case - crimson to match the knife itself. Instead of giving him the next day, I waited until the day he left, so it would look as if I hadn't forgotten on the day he gave me my present, and had instead just been waiting for a good time. Sam seemed surprised when I handed over the present, yet pleasantly surprised as well. He kissed me goodbye, and again the instant I closed my eyes the toasty feeling was back, and there was this longing, this dream that I might be kissing someone else...
I swore in my head. Next time, I'm keeping my eyes open. The warm feeling in my stomach wasn't there when my eyes were open, but I couldn't allow myself to think like that whilst kissing my boyfriend!
The holidays passed in a dreamlike state for me. I spent most of my time in the Room of Requirement, clearing out the prom room. When I had gotten rid of the horrid smoke, there was this horrible, lingering stench of burn. I could only assume it had been Fiendfyre in the Room at some point - who knew how long ago? Presumably after my mother had left Hogwarts, as she hadn't warned me about all the fire's aftermath. And that would also explain the way the smoke I'd collected coiled into the form of snake in my phial - Fiendfyre often formed that kind of shape, so most likely the smoke had inherited some of its predecessor's appearance. It would also explain why it was now so hard to make the Room presentable! I always included multiple windows in the prom room now, as I would be working on both things at the same time. The windows would always be open whilst I worked on cleaning the interior. Cleaning the Room certainly kept me busy, and I knew it would definitely take me all holidays. I cleared away much of the surface muck, however even once all of that was gone, there was still so much gunk remaining. I got bored of this easily, so, in the knowledge that I had all holidays and longer to clean it, I often left the Room in favour of going over to the kitchen and asking the house-elves for some picnic food. I invited Hugo to come down with me on multiple occasions, however he was perfectly contented lying on his bed listening to Muggle music on something called an iPod. I had tried listening to what he liked once, and immediately removed the offending headphones from my ears - the music sounded like a hormonal Mandrake!
That is, if you could even call it music. So instead I often found myself heading down towards the Black Lake alone, carrying an entire basketful of what the house-elves deemed 'an appropriate amount for a growing girl'. I didn't bother pointing out to them that I wasn't growing anymore.
Occasionally I saw Merpeople lurking beneath the waves, however I'd learnt not to disturb them. I would never want one of them screaming at me in Mermish ever again - that was an experience I never wanted to relive. As it was December, I ended up having most of my picnics on icy grass, or in the rain even, yet strangely I didn't even mind. It felt good to have nothing to do, and besides, getting myself dried off later would kill time.
One day, I was sitting by the lake on a surprising dry riverbank, when I heard a rustling beside me. Maybe Hugo decided to come down from the dormitory and be sociable at last.
"Hey," I said, cheerily and quietly at the same time.
"Hey," the person beside me echoed. My head whipped around, my crimson hair presumably smacking my companion in the face. We considered each other in silence for a minute or two. I then turned back to face the lake.
"So, have you decided that we're friends now, or are you just here to spite?" I asked, with more than an edge of anger in my voice.
Scorpius was quiet for a moment. "Well, I don't particularly want to be friends, but right now I'm at a bit of a loose end for alternatives," he muttered, finally. I scowled into the lake.
"So you're here because you have nothing better to do?" I hissed, getting angrier with him by the moment. I thought he had infuriated me before! I spent so long hating him - I never knew what hatred even felt like! It took me a moment to register that he was speaking again.
"That's not what I said," he murmured, staring into his reflection on the rippling surface of the lake. I frowned, this time out of confusion.
"Then what did you say?" I asked, with quiet anger. Scorpius didn't reply. I looked at him, and instantly I felt as if there was a tiny bird in the centre of my chest, batting its wings ceaselessly against my ribcage, trying to break free. This is exactly how I was feeling at the beginning of the year. Hating his words, liking his face. We've come around full circle.
I changed the subject. "Why aren't you at home?" I asked, awkwardly, trying to keep the malice out of my voice. It came out all wrong, like I was accusing him of something.
Scorpius shrugged. "I never go home for Christmas, if I can avoid it. My parents don't exactly see eye to eye all the time, and I don't really feel like getting caught up in the middle of a shouting match over Christmas Dinner," he answered, airily. I was caught off guard by the amount of detachment he apparently felt to his parents.
"Why don't you like them, Scorp-ius?" I tripped at his name, adding on the 'ius' as I didn't feel like using his nickname at the current moment - things were too awkward between us right now to pretend as if the last few weeks hadn't even happened. I think he noticed that I nearly called him by his nickname.
When he answered my question, he spoke nonchalantly. "I don't think they're very nice people. I'd say I preferred my mother, if I had particularly strong feelings about either of them. I used to think they were good. I liked them until I was around fourteen. Then I noticed how strange my world was, compared to say Albus', who was my best friend at the time. I noticed how my father never spoke to my mother unless absolutely necessary, how my mother would often elect to leave the house for days at a time, to be with her friends rather than her family. I don't blame her, I mean, we don't exactly have a cheerful household, but I don't thank her for it. She chose my father, and now she wishes she hadn't, as anyone can see. My father wishes he'd chosen someone else, too. But he was too late," he murmured, not moving his gaze from the lake. This startled me - Scorpius was speaking so uncaringly of his parents! I couldn't imagine feeling that level of distain for mine! I was actually speechless for a moment - which, ask anyone, is a rarity.
"Why are you even telling me, of all people, this? Why don't you tell someone who you actually like?" I asked, at a loss for something else to say. Scorpius sighed.
"Well, there's no reason I shouldn't tell you, for starters, and who else would I tell?" he snorted. "I have no friends. Not really. Not anymore," he muttered darkly, glaring at his reflection now with something resembling hatred. I'd thought he and Albus were best friends!
"What about Al?" I asked, puzzled. Scorpius groaned, then his skin coloured somewhat.
"We, er, had a fallout," he mumbled, looking ashamed. More than ashamed. For the first time since I'd met him, he looked foolish.
"About what?" I inquired. I was aware I was asking a lot of questions, practically giving Scorpius the third degree, but I wanted to know the answers. I felt something cold land on my cheek, and then something else on my shoulder. Gazing upwards, I saw little flakes of white swirling down onto us. Snowflakes. First snow of the year.
Scorpius tilted his head in my direction, apparently fixating his gaze upon a snowflake that had landed on my eyelash. Self-consciously, I brushed it away, causing Scorpius to blink. He then shook his head, continuing where we had left off. "I don't want to think about it, and even if I did you are the last person I would tell," he muttered, now staring intently back into the depths of the river. I shot him a look of distaste. Within milliseconds Scorpius was looking right into my eyes, shaking his head like a wet dog. Several snowflakes had landed in his pale hair, like diamonds. They weren't melting, however. Probably because his heart is too cold.
"No! I don't mean it like that...Merlin, Rose! Do you know how hard it is to be around you sometimes?...You know what? Never mind. I should have never come here. Have a good Christmas, Rose," he spat, fury mingled with regret burning in his eyes. Now the snowflakes were melting, making his hair stick to his scalp. While I was thinking about this, Scorpius was storming off. No, not storming. Retreating.
My goodbye lingered on the tip of my tongue. "Have a good Christmas too, Scorpius," I whispered into the snowflakes, before lying down in the snow to gaze up at the intricate pattern the snowflakes formed as they danced their way down to us from the heavens above.