Chapter Fourteen: Emergency

March 16

Rose faced a lot of questions when she was released from the Infirmary. No one had been allowed in, any existing patients sent back to their dorms, the whole room had been quarantined. The official story was that Rose had the swine flu- a muggle disease that was highly contagious and a magical cure was still being created. The real story was much grimmer and only a few people knew it.

She told James and the others what had happened. She told them that they all had to keep an eye out since Malfoy might try to come after them and get them on their side. She left out the part about Scorpius coming to see her. Somehow, she didn't think that would go over too well. She remembered Victoire telling her that Scorpius had strong feelings for her, she just didn't know what kind. The other night, Rose didn't know what Scorpius had been feeling, but she knew that it felt like the world was falling apart and reforming at the same time.

But of course Victoire knew. She pulled Rose aside later and together they walked out towards the Black Lake. "Come, sit." Victoire said, taking a seat on the grass. Her nose crinkled at the muddy earth beneath them, it had rained that morning, and she took out her wand, muttering a spell to dry the patch they were sitting on.

Rose smiled, but it was short lived once she realized why Victoire had pulled her away from everyone.

"He came to see you, didn't he? He was like a madman when you finally got back to the castle. When they wouldn't let him in, he disappeared- probably to the Manor to get some answers. When he got back, he didn't make anymore scenes. He tried to act like he didn't care, but he'd walk passed the Infirmary twenty times a day, waiting for any bit of news. He had to have come to see you. Tell me he did, Rose." Victoire looked at her, her eyes sparkling.

Rose sighed. "We aren't some star-crossed lovers like your favorite romance novels, Vic. This is real life."

"He came to see you," Victoire grinned, "What did he say?"

Rose sighed. She didn't want to crush her friend's hopes, but there was no use in prolonging it. "We said goodbye."

Victoire's face clouded over. She nodded, "Strong feelings."

"No..." Rose started, "It isn't that... it's like... the war and our priorities have finally lined up. I'm all in now, Vic. No more playing around and trying to be someone I'm not with someone I can never be with. This is who I am now. I need to accept that."

"And Scorpius? Has he chosen his side?" Victoire asked her.

"I guess so."

Rose stopped spending time in the common room. She kept her dorm- refusing to run into Scorpius. They used to see each other all the time in the common room and Rose couldn't risk facing him. She wasn't ready. She feared he'd see right through her and know where her allegiances laid. Her only advantage was that he didn't know.

The gossip had made it around the school that Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley were over before they had even began. The students said it happened at the dinner, that Scorpius had been flirting with Jamie Parkinson and Rose had flown into a jealous rage. But Scorpius was telling everyone had dumped her because she was too clingy and a know-it-all. With the Quidditch game today, everyone was especially hanging onto every word he said. Rose really hated how Quidditch was turned into the most important thing in the world.

Daphne stayed with Rose on her bed, jabbering on and on about this new Ravenclaw boy with golden blonde hair and a cute mole on his upper lip that spilled pumpkin juice on her at lunch the day. Rose wished she would leave her alone. The truth was that Daphne hadn't left her side since she was released from the hospital and it was really annoying. Oberon hadn't been around as much and he had stopped trying to ask her out, so there was a silver lining.

She wanted to tell Daphne to sod off, but didn't fancy the argument she'd end up getting herself into. She tried her best to ignore her, but Daphne had this high pitched voice- like a tiny chihuahua that shook when it barked. It was impossible to ignore and Rose could easily hear her from across the room. She wondered what would happen if she put a silencing charm on her...

Daphne wasn't that bright... it would probably work.

She didn't have time to think about it anymore because there was a sudden pounding on the door to the girls' dormitory. "Cover yourselves!" The voice of the Head of their House said before Kreyjoy came bounding in with his arm over his eyes.

There were several shrieks and Kreyjoy waited a few moments before opening is eyes. Rose watched him, her face skewed up in a glare since nothing ever good came from Kreyjoy in the girls' room. Like Professor Kreyjoy knew Rose was watching him, he turned to her and quickly flicked his head towards the door.

"Weasley; with me." With that, he turned and stalked back down the stairs out of sight.

Rose didn't like how that sounded. In the past few weeks, every time a teacher had pulled her out of whatever she had been doing, it never had good results. She didn't spare a glance at Daphne whose eyes were probably popping out of her skull to find out what was going on. She followed him, ignoring the very obvious murmurings about her and what was going on.

She didn't ask him where they were going. She was content to wait for whatever dreadful answer she would get. He probably wouldn't tell her anyway. Kreyjoy liked torturing them anyway he could and since McGonagall didn't allow transfiguration of corporal punishment, Kreyjoy settled for mind raping them and Rose didn't know what was worst.

He was leading her towards McGonagall's office. There was no way this was going to be good. Was the who Order here? She hoped her parents weren't. Since whatever had happened at Malfoy Manor- the whole missing her memory thing- her mom had been staring at her like she was about to break any moment, like a glass figurine.

It's a good thing James was around to physically abuse her whenever he felt like it, or she would have gone crazy from everyone tiptoeing around her.

"Truffle Clusters," Kreyjoy muttered, standing in front of the gargoyle statue. The staircase began to twine upwards. Rose followed Kreyjoy.

It was obvious a silencing charm had been placed on the room. Once Rose reached the top of the stairs a mountain of sound hit her full on and she had to take a moment to take it all in. She stumbled, walking into the room. The whole Order was there, all right. They had all shown up at the school so much in the past few days, Rose figured they should have just given up and made Hogwarts their new headquarters.

She spotted her parents standing next to Uncle Harry. As she got closer, she caught her dad's voice saying, "Lets just go get the bloody prats, Harry. We know where they are."

"Yeah!" A voice chimed in, but Rose couldn't tell who it was. The room was so crowded and loud and she was only in one corner. "The Death Eaters are probably already planning an attack on us. Lets beat those lousy wankers to it."

Rose turned her head as a chorus of 'yeahs' joined the noise. She looked over at Uncle Harry who looked pale. She knew engaging in a battle was going to be his last resort. She wished she was at her grandparents' house- the Burrow- with Uncle Harry telling stories about his time at Hogwarts with her parents. She would take that any day over this.

McGonagall's voice was magnified over the noise, authoritative, as she said, "We all saw what the Second War did to everyone. None of us want that again. The longer we can avoid a war and trust Ms. Weasley to find the mirror, the better we will be."

Bullocks. Find the mirror. That stupid, bloody mirror. Why hadn't she been able to find anything about it? She had scoured the library, Neville hadn't found anything in Diagon Alley back in February when he had gone and promised to bring something back. And why did she have to be the one to find it? She was stuck in bloody Hogwarts!

At once, pairs of eyes turned towards her, waiting for news. Rose felt self-conscious but quickly tried to push it aside. She looked at the Sorting Hat perched easily on the shelf above the portrait of a dancing ballerina. It brought her back to her first year when the hat had committed a mortal sin- she had hated that hat. She tried to channel herself from that night of the sorting. She had been impulsive and unafraid the moment the hat hadn't be straight with her.

She faced everyone head on and took a deep breath before spinning a story of total bullshit. "I found this book in the restricted section-" She paused and looked at the Headmistress before muttering an apology, "-and it said that the mirror is somewhere... in the castle."

The crowd began to talk amongst themselves at her revelation and Rose had to grit her teeth to stop herself from coming clean. The mirror was in the castle? The mystical, nowhere to be found, mirror was right under their roof. She didn't know how she was getting out of this one. Either way, it seemed to pacify them and Uncle Harry looked visibly relieved to hear some good news. She would just have to hope very hard that the mirror was in fact in the castle. Maybe she should try Accio Mirror.

They stopped calling for an offensive attack, but Rose knew if she couldn't produce the mirror, they would start up again. She held her ground and tried to listen to the rest of what was being said. She clenched her fists, making sure she remained as strong as she could. It wouldn't be wise to remind all the adults that she was just a kid- technically. She knew they were overlooking it because she was in Slytherin and they were salivating at the idea of having someone inside the Slytherin common room to watch Scorpius at all times. But she was a sixth year, where James was a seventh year and about to be seventeen in two weeks- but James was in Gryffindor with no perks. If she couldn't deliver, she could literally see Uncle Harry in her mind kicking her out.

When the meeting ended, she slipped out of the office as quick as she could. She didn't want to have to deal with her parents' worrying gazes and tight hugs and smothering kisses. There was a draft in the halls and Rose found herself subconsciously reached to her neck for her scarf. She would go back to her room and get it before heading down to the Quidditch Pitch to watch the game.

The castle was pretty empty at this point. She glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that she had missed nearly the whole first half of the game. No wonder the whole castle looked like it had had a mass migration recently. She expected an easy walk to the common room, but of course stuff like that never happened to Rose.

Avery was there. It was like he knew there had been an Order meeting and Rose would be coming back to the common room. She should have just gone down to the Pitch without her scarf. Who needed a scarf anyway? Why did she need a wooly, green piece of fabric of keep her neck warm. She should have just Accioed the damned scarf to her. Why did she always forget she had magic and didn't need to do something as mundane as walking to get stuff done. James was always making fun of her for that. As soon as he turned seventeen, she knew he'd be prancing around with his wand magicking his way through life.

She couldn't remember what had happened the other night, but it was like her body did. Suddenly all the pain she felt in the Infirmary bed came back and her body ached. Avery's lip curled like he knew what she was remembering- or lack thereof. She wanted to run away as Avery stood to his full height, towering over her.

Instead, she glared and wrapped her hand over her wand, hidden in her robes. Avery smirked and took a step forward. She unsheathed her wand, pointing straight at his chest, "Don't move."

He stopped, the glint in his eyes shining brighter. He held his hands up in mock surrender and she could practically hear his silent laughter. He twirled his wand in the air lazily, like this was all just a big game to him and he was anticipating an easy win.

Her mind had gone blank. She frantically searched for a spell, but nothing made sense anymore. She wished the Order has already clued her in on their super secret alert system in case something went wrong. She was totally alone now. In fact, it wasn't fair. Why did they keep coming after her? There was no way she was going to lose her memory this time. The sudden thought seemed to solidify her resolve as she looked at Avery.

"Easy there, Weaslette ," Avery chuckled. His smirk made her skin crawl. "I'm not here for you."

"W-what?" She stuttered, mentally cursing herself for allowing the weakness to show through. He wasn't here for her? Then who was he here for? Why was he telling her that? It couldn't be for Scorpius- he was out on the stupid Pitch playing that stupid sport and slandering her reputation.

"Ministry business," He grinned at her, "So get whatever it is you need and get out."

"This is my common room, you can't kick me out," She shot back lamely. It had sounded better in her head.

Avery seemed unfazed and looked at her as if she was a tiny little rat on the tube. One of the little fuzzy ones you didn't know if you wanted to pet or squash. She kept her wand pointed at him. She didn't want to let him out of her sight. She didn't trust anything about the slimy git. And there was no way she was going to her room now. It might have been enchanted to keep boys out, but it let professors like Kreyjoy in and she didn't know if it would protect her from a Death Eater.

What would happen if she Avada-ed him right now?

Avery's eyes flashed dangerously like he had read her mind. She vaguely remembered her dad saying something about Death Eaters being skilled at Legilimency. She watched his hand easily twirling his wand like he wasn't the least bit frightened of at all. It put her off and she wanted to prove him wrong, but she had to look at the bigger picture. She knew Kreyjoy would be proud.

Slowly, she tiptoed out, never taking her eyes off him. When the coast was clear, she made a run for it, hoping she'd be able to find someone from the Order. It easy- she ran straight into her dad. His hands were big and rough as they closed in on her shoulders. She hadn't realized she was crying until her dad asked her why she was and was wiping her eyes.

Seeing Avery had had a bigger impact on her than she thought. And she couldn't even remember what he had done. She felt violated and for a moment just wanted to curl up in a corner. But then she felt her dad's frantic emotions, almost like they were being transferred onto her and she finally spit it out, "Avery- in the common room."

She didn't know what he was going to do. Her dad couldn't get into the common room she knew, but she expected him to have a plan. Parents were supposed to be there for everything. They had all the answers, right? By the pained look on his face, it hit her quite hard that he didn't have one. Her brain was cloudy, and she was trying to remember what Uncle Harry had said about remaining nonviolent for as long as they could. If they went charging into the common room and attacked Avery, holding him hostage for answers, the Death Eaters would retaliate.

Her father spun on his heels and yelled, "KREYJOY!"

She followed him up the stairs, stumbling through her tear soaked vision as he raced up the moving stairs two at a time. "Kreyjoy!" He bellowed again, as everyone in the room turned to face him. "Avery is in the Slytherin common room- we need to warn him that we mean business. He comes near our kids and we will start a war."

Rose sniffled, hastily wiping her tears away. So much for not showing her weakness and reminding everyone she was just sixteen. Her mom wrapped her up into a tight hug, and while it was supposed to comforting, Rose felt like she was drowning again. She struggled and breathed in once she was free again.

The words were taken out of her as she saw Uncle Harry, her dad, Kreyjoy, and Uncle Neville stalking out of the room, their lips all drawn in a tight line. Rose chased after them, unsure of what to say. She lagged behind them as Kreyjoy led them into the common room. Cautiously, she followed them and found the four of them lined up in front of Avery, who was lounging on the couch. He looked so unsurprised at seeing them that Rose wondered if he had expected her to go get them. She wondered if she had played straight into his hands. By the stomach churning smile he sent her way, she knew she had and hated herself for it. It was like they were playing their own game of cat and mouse, and Rose couldn't win no matter how hard she tried. There would always be a mousetrap waiting around the corner for her, and Avery would be the tabby chasing her into it.

If you thought I'd leave then you were wrong
'Cause I won't stop holding on
Emergency, Paramore

A/N Hello! Sadly, my author's note for the last chapter got deleted and I didn't notice until I put it up. Oops. Anyway, I really meant it when I said I update faster when I get reviews and since this story is totally written, there's nothing to stop me from posting every few days. But I really want to get feedback, so please drop me a line. Or else I might let it go for over a week like this again. Thank you to the 2 wonderful lovelies that left me a review :)