Max woke the week after the Quidditch match to the sound of metal clinking together and opened his eyes to see one of his roommates, Micah Merlia, knitting fingerless gloves in bed. Calvert was sketching his comic book characters, Daniel was already downstairs, and Benjamin was still asleep, waiting until class starts to get up probably. Maddox stretched and swung the covers off the get dressed in his school uniform. He turned to the bathroom mirror and chose to go with navy blue hair today, not like it was much different from the indigo before. He made sure his wavy hair hung symmetrically in his face but not in his eyes, brushed his teeth, and made for the common room with his book bag slung over his shoulder.
Two at a time he skipped down the stairs and stopped to peer around the room. A few sixth years were playing wizard chess on his sofa, Hugo, and his posse was in their corner with their muggle stuff; today it looked like they were discussing flipflops. A few more scattered students resided in the room, but none showed the person he was looking for. He wasn't surprised nor did he know why he was looking, that mane of curly red hair didn't show up until thirty minutes after he got up. Instead, he took to the only pass time he knew and began playing exploding snap with Oliver, Owen, and Oscar as he normally did in the morning. They were much better at the game than he was, but Max highly suspected that the reasoning was because they could cheat and lie about it later.
He had been bamboozled by the game, and his cards had blown up four times already, puffing thick smoke into his face as usual. Suddenly, a wave of a familiar sweet smell swept by him and the even more familiar gentle touch on his shoulder was his best friend letting him know that she was there and ready to eat. He dropped his cards, more gently this time or they'd explode, and made to the exit with her, hoping that she wasn't going to be angry with him today.
He sometimes wished that she had color-changing eyes telling him when she was upset, but he supposed it wouldn't matter, he usually could tell. Today, though, based on her smile at him, she wasn't angry for reasons he could do nothing about without betraying friends, but mystery and eagerness, mischief, and suspicion still lingered behind her chocolate brown eyes and her tone clearly told him that her mind was full of worry. He sometimes thought he had a future as a seer or was perhaps a physic. He could detect things in people and emotions that very few could pick up on.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked as was usual for their morning routine.
"Yep," she replied, and he blessed the morning that she didn't go into a rant about Cromwell, the irksome owl. "You?"
"Just as well as always," he replied. There was a silence where Rose didn't say anything, which was a bad sign but which had been going on for over a week. "Did you discover anything else about James and Tyler's talking strike or sign language deal?" he asked to break the silence. She had mentioned this new mystery about her cousin and his friend last week, and he had blessed that she did. Anything to take her mind from Scorbus's deal.
"No," she replied shortly but with a pleasant tone in her voice.
Max thought for a moment. He reckons that he had put her off their secret by his overly enthusiastic attitude toward the news; he should have played it cool, played hard to get, that would have made her take the bait. He thought about Scorbus and their secret, something that was apparently so significant that he had been cut from. He remembered over a week ago when the boys had taken him aside in the garden after Rose had fallen asleep in the grass. To put it simply the two boys had told him that they would no longer be able to keep him in touch with the mystery. He had made them divulge that they had found out what the beast was but they had refused to tell him for reasons 'bigger than themselves'. He had become angry and had regretted lashing out at them. That's one of the reasons he suspected they hadn't been coming around as often. He hadn't been angry that they wouldn't tell him, he had tried to make them tell Rose because he knew how much this meant to her and how much it would hurt her to find out that they knew and she didn't; she took everything so personally. It didn't help either that he had spotted her peeking from the grass at their conversation. Ever since that day, that tiny little peek, it was clear that Rose was furious with him, him more than the other two even. He had broken what was most important to her, not her heart, but her trust. And it was easy to figure out after a bit of hard labor and upper body strength to make it to the girl's dormitory that she had fallen asleep angry at him. Now he had to live with the fact that he was keeping a dead-end secret, he broke her trust and hurt his friend, and had actually caused her physical pain.
He had hated filling in for Watson in Quidditch and never intended to do it again, but it had brought more than one benefit. Besides the fact that he got to eat and party all night, he had been able to play the victim of forced consent, and Rose had sympathized with him, making her forget that she was angry, at least for a little while.
He reached over and pulled a long brown feather from her hair. The owl often left them. She smiled sweetly and took the feather that he was presenting her. He had complained about how much she talked, how he couldn't get her to shut up, how she went on and on, but now, he would ender the pain of lying if it meant things would go back to normal and she would start gabbing again.
"How much do you want to bet Al and Scor will be at breakfast today?" she asked as they skipped over a trick step that often tried to launch its occupants into the air.
"I don't bet on things I don't think I can win," he replied emerging onto the first landing.
"It's as if they don't get hungry anymore," she said.
"Well," Max started now throwing open the doors to the great hall. "Not to sound house-ist, but Slytherin probably has plenty of stolen food in their dormitory."
They joined the Gryffindor table with Dominique who was listening to her blind friend, Malcom Dinally, someone who Dominique had apparently taken a liking to and the only boy allowed in the group of beautiful, popular girls. Probably because Malcom had no idea that they were the most beautiful girls in school, nor did he care. Max turned to peer at the Slytherin table for Scorpius or Al. He greatly missed his friends and was becoming bitter toward them for putting other priorities before friendship. They were absent as he expected them to be. So much for a package deal. Scorpius, Rose, and Al were the three Musketeers, and he was D'artagnan. Now it's just D'artagnan and one Musketeer? That was sort of wrong. He glared back around and thought hard.
It was the usual loud screeching that announced the morning post as hundreds of owls swooped in to drop letters and packages amongst the students. Rose caught a letter from home as she received at least twice a week. Max peered up anticipant. He had developed a plan over the past week that he hoped would fix their split friendship, at least or a night. If the letter arrived today, he would still have just enough time to fix any kinks and give his friends an experience to be remembered for years to come. Max clenched his fists around his plate of bacon as he watched the feather infested air. A brown envelope fell above him, and he was so excited that he forgot to catch it and watched it land in Tyler's cereal. Tyler scowled when handing it back, and Max knew that the action would have no doubt been followed by one of the sarcastic comments he was famous for if it weren't for the mysterious bit of something under his tongue.
"Who's that from?" Rose asked while retrieving the newspaper from James's waffles that he had also forgotten to catch.
"Who do you think?" he decided to say, wanting to keep his plan a surprise.
Rose assumed that the letter was from his dad considering he didn't have any friends back home and she didn't press further. Max ripped open the envelope and grinned broadly when finding just what he wanted inside. He had requested information from an old neighbor back home, and this letter contained everything he needed.
"We need to head to Transfiguration," Rose said glancing at her watch.
Max blinked and tucked the letter into his pocket before swinging his book bag over his shoulder and following Rose from the great hall. He noticed his friend glance suspiciously over at his pocket. He had forgotten that he normally threw his father's letter away when he was finished, and he hoped that she wasn't going to start asking questions. She shook herself slightly and continued without a word, and he was grateful.
Transfiguration wasn't as bad as usual because he hadn't been listening at all. He had been pouring over his letter and working things out in his head, therefore, not having any idea what the object of the lesson was about and having no clue what Professor Donima wanted them to accomplish. He ended up just waving his wand and copying Rose as he normally. Lucky for him, though, nothing happened to the hat he was given, lucky because when something did happen, it usually came with pain or burns. Rose was trying to explain how she had made her hat turn into a hand soap dispenser to Max which the Professor allowed her to do, knowing that Max could use all the help he could get. He did exactly as she had instructed, quoted the words the exact same way in a close to same voice that made Rose roll her eyes, and he even made the same swishing motion with his wand, but nothing happened.
Defense Against the Dark Arts was better. He loved this subject because he got to play with magical beasts and blast things, which was all a twelve-year-old-boy could ask for. Professor Dalbert looked more and more tired every time they saw him, but that didn't stop this man from teaching with everything he had in him. Though Max did wish that they focused more on wand work, they had learned how to treat animal bites, venoms, scratches, and how to ward off certain beasts.
Max was most looking forward to Herbology, not because he liked the subject, he was mediocre, and he highly disliked the substitute for Professor Longbottom, but because Gryffindor studied with Slytherin, and Max had something to tell Scorbus.
The class filed through the door and gathered around the dirty old table containing spotted tongues of a devil blossom apparently. They had to dissect the tongues and identify the components. It was revolting. Scorpius who had chosen a spot next to Max and Rose with Al was constantly gagging through the lesson. Al handed him a flower pot just in case he needed it. At the end of class, the pot was filled with three separate people's sick. The class was coming to an end when they were instructed to put the tongues back together. Max was trying to work out what he was going to say to Scor and Al about his plan. He decided that the way it needed to be told had to be done in a way Rose mustn't hear. Max tried to work out a way to get rid of her for two minutes. He decided and pulled her Herbology book from the table while she was distracted applying sealant sap with her finger to the tongues slice. He discreetly placed it on the ground and kicked it across the room where it hit the base of a plant in the corner. Maybe it was lucky, maybe not, but the plant seemed angry that it's resting place had been disturbed and gobbled up the book with a lot of sab and slime because of it. Max turned away with wide eyes at Rose who hadn't seen a thing.
Al and Scor smiled as they left. "See you guys later!" Al called to his friends behind him.
Max and Rose followed. "Do you have all your books?" Max asked.
"Of course I do," Rose replied. "I have-" she stopped to peer confusedly into her book bag. "Excuse me," she said before hurrying into the greenhouse that the Professor had just left open.
Max waited until she was out of sight before grabbing the two Slytherin boys by their robes. They both choked and turned angrily.
"Max?" said Al. "We thought you were, Rose. Don't grab us like that!"
"I need to talk to you!" he whispered with a look at Rose's silhouette that was peering under tables and plants.
"Right now?" asked Al. "We have to get to-"
"Yes, now," Max interrupted. "I want you to meet me by the statue of the one-eyed witch's tomorrow at four-thirty."
The boys looked confused. "Halloween?" asked Scorpius.
"Unless there's another tomorrow night I don't know about," Max said sarcastically.
"Uh…" the two boys looked at each other, contemplating the idea.
Max looked back around at Rose's silhouette which was now wrestling violently with the plant for her book. "We're going you know where" Max said.
"Hogsmeade?" Al clarified with a smile.
"Yes, but you have to be very discreet," Max whispered.
"Oh," Al said less enthusiastically with another look at Scorpius. "I don't think we can."
Max scowled. "You have completely cut yourself out of our lives ever since that thing showed up!" he said angrily. "You are putting this thing you just met before friends," he jabbed is finger at Scorpius' chest. "And family," he said to Al. "You have no idea what you're doing to her!" he pointed at her silhouette that was now halfway inside the plant itself. "She is miserable, and it's the fault of your secret. Now I'm sure that this beast is pretty important for you to be putting it on such I high pedestal before so many important things like relationships and studies, but you owe it to Rose to take one night off. That's all I'm asking, one night. Do it for her, all she wants is her team back."
Scorpius and Al looked at each other again, but with this time, it was with confliction. Al smiled and nodded solemnly.
"Good, come in your uniform," said Max. "I don't want any whispering or secrets code about your secret, pretend as though it never happened. Now if you'll excuse me, I think Rose is being eaten." Max turned and ran back into the greenhouse where he grabbed her around the waist and heaved her from the throat of the plant.
Rose skipped back up to the castle, covered in slime and sap, her hair standing on end and her clothes soaked, but looking rather pleased with her Herbology book pressed to her chest. She hadn't been eaten. She had jumped into the plant's throat to retrieve her book. The thing kept trying to spit her up, but she had refused to come out until she had extracted its last meal.