Chapter 35: Potions & Plans

"So how did it feel, your last match?" Sarah asked me tentatively the next morning. I sighed and rubbed my big belly. I'd just finished taking out my last robes to accommodate the massive fatty I had become.

"Awful. I hate being off the team," I moaned. "But I didn't feel too good being so high up and so heavy. It's hard to sit on a broom for that long in one position. In a way, it's a good thing," I admitted. I was trying to look on the bright side of things, and nothing had got me down since yesterday, when dad gave me a huge bear hug before he left, promising he would see me soon.

"Good for you, Rose," Becky said from the other corner of the room. She had slinked off to read a book Albus had recommended to her and was getting snippy with us when we tried to talk to her as she read, so we had given up on including her in the conversation. I smiled at her and she dog-eared the page of her book and came over to sit with us.

"You won't be left out of Quidditch anyway; Hugo is doing really well and I have a lot of fun watching in the stadium," she shrugged. "When Slytherin aren't playing the boys come and sit with me too," she added with an encouraging smile at me. I grinned between my friends.

"I don't know what I would do without my mates," I said to the two of them, but including the others in my statement. Sarah patted my shoulder.

"What's the point in having friends if they don't have your back?" She said, elbowing me with a cheeky grin.

I snuggled into a blanket that lay on the back of the armchair and Sarah read out her essay on the pros and cons of using Unicorn tail hair in potions for us to make suggestions. I must have drifted off, because when I awoke I found Sarah sat on the floor beside a huge, black wolf-like dog, who was making a deep rumbling noise as she combed the fleas out of his fur.

"Is he growling at you?" I asked, blinking to see that the room was empty; my wristwatch said the time was half past midnight. James's doggy eyes were closed in apparent pleasure.

"No. He seems to think he can purr. He's trying to start a new craze," she said, flicking a dead flea into the fireplace. "It won't catch on you know," she added to James, scratching behind one of his ears and standing up.

James 'purred' louder, looking rebellious as he stood up and followed her as she tiptoed past me, tucking me back into the blanket and dropping a kiss on my head as she went up to bed.

The next morning I awoke to find myself less tired than I expected to be, but my belly was rumbling for attention in the form of a bagel and my back ached a little.

"Ready for potions?" Becky asked, looking at me from the sofa.

"Why did I sleep down here?" I asked. Sarah looked over at me from trying to stuff her books in her already full bag.

"We didn't want to disturb you," she shrugged as Danny put his arm around her.

Sarah visibly cringed and I grimaced at her as I reached my hand out to her for a hand up from the squishy armchair. She broke Danny's grip and smiled in thanks as she helped me up with a grunt.

Soon, we found ourselves down in the dungeons, where Albus, Scorpius, Freddie, Chelsea and Amy were waiting outside the classroom. Freddie managed a genuine albeit tired smile at me but soon went back to chatting to Rich, who was looking worn and tired. Albus immediately monopolised Becky to ask her what she thought of the book he had lent her, a move which didn't go unnoticed by her watchful ex boyfriend. Scorpius shot me a small smile, one that warmed up his eyes, and I went to stand over by him while Amy fussed over James and tried not to look over at Danny, who had finally cornered Sarah for a kiss. Chelsea stood alone; without Caitlin Denoir and Carla Zabini she had nobody to bitch with when Amy wasn't there.

"She's not as popular as she thinks she is, is she?" Scorpius said, nodding over at Chelsea, who was pretending to file her nails but looking wary of the scowls my friends were shooting her way.

Even Becky, who had too much of a baby-face to look truly menacing, had perfected her death-stare and was shooting it over at Chelsea, partly to avoid the unwavering stare of Rich, who was stood with Freddie.

Scorpius hadn't troubled to keep his voice down and Chelsea flushed puce furiously, clicking her heels on the flagstone floor and refusing to look up. I had to say it was good to see her vulnerable, it seemed that without her posse of bitches around her, she was about as threatening as a puppy in a Christmas hat.

"Sorry class, thanks for waiting. My first-years just smashed a huge jar of pickled pumpkins and the clean up operation was simply astronomical," Professor Middleton shook her head, looking ditzy as ever as she ushered us all in.

Sarah and Dom flanked me as we made a beeline for our usual table at the back. Becky grabbed the end chair, with Albus next to her. James, who hadn't managed to escape Amy as easily as Sarah had avoided Danny, had to bring her to the table too, to our dismay. Danny, Freddie and Rich grabbed the table over from ours, and shared it reluctantly with Chelsea. Scorpius, who had come in last, looked at the table with Chelsea and Freddie on it and baulked, grabbing a chair and squeezing himself in next to James, who grinned at him, shaking his head.

"Don't get too comfortable, class. I am putting you into groups today and, as you can tell, on every desk lies a different, mystery potions ingredient. All of them have one very important thing in common and anyone who recognises any of the animal-related items and their connection has been doing their research!" Professor Middleton said gleefully. We all looked at Becky and Albus, who rolled their eyes while still managing to contain a smile.

"Everyone to the back of the room!" She added and once we were there, she looked down at her desk and back up again. "I will call the first six names and those people will pick a desk and then will be allowed to pick their four teammates for this exercise." She explained before clearing her throat.

"Rebecca!" She called and Becky, after looking momentarily shocked, walked over to the desk at the front of the class, where she obviously recognised the ingredient we were supposed to decipher.

"Albus!" the professor called. Al picked the desk next to Becky and smiled at her shyly.

"Margaret!" Was the next name. A plump, dark-haired Slytherin girl took the desk nearest us.

"Cliff!"

Some people give their children really unfortunate names. I mean, come on! My brain took a little wander along this vein for a while, until I realised my own name was being called by Becky. Surprised, I took a seat next to her and immediately recognised the feather in front of us on the desk. A hippogriff feather. Hugo's hippogriff feather. I looked up, panicked at Becky, who looked calmly at me before she called Sarah's name. Albus called Scorpius' name, followed by Freddie's and Richard's and then, in a surprise move, called Amy's name. He shrugged at us as if to say 'she's a bitch, but she's good at potions.' Becky added James, Danny and Dom to our group in no surprise move.

Eventually, Chelsea was the only person who wasn't picked by anyone.

And boy did it feel good to see her being the victim for once.

"So, Rebecca and gang, can any of you tell me the reason this otherwise perfectly good hippogriff feather can't be used in potions?" The professor asked halfway through the second hour of the lesson. For almost an hour and a half we had been testing the feather in various ways for safe usage and it had failed every single test.

"This feather belongs to a human. An animagus." Becky replied coolly. At this, Scorpius and Albus looked up quickly from their own table and down again to their own, single, red fox hair.

MY fox hair. We all looked between each other for what felt like minutes. I instantly remembered the night we had all caught Lily and Albus shifting by the lake, and the scrap that had followed. It would have been entirely possible that Hugo would have lost a feather, and I some fur. This information begged the question; what else had they found? How much of our incriminating fur was in this room?

"Well done, Rebecca! That's right class; every single ingredient sat upon your tables appears to be a perfect specimen of its kind, however each and every one would be totally unsuitable for use in potions as they belong to an animagus. The DNA involved is 100% human and therefore would probably backfire spectacularly if used in any potion which called for a pure animal ingredient," the professor explained.

As she was explaining in her dreamy voice, I watched Sarah carefully and deliberately setting fire to the feather Becky had conveniently put on the desk in front of her. Albus, following her lead, pocketed the fox hair he held in his hand and looked around the room with us. Dom nudged me to become aware of Margaret's group, who were studying a distinct black tuft of dog hair I recognised to be James'. The man himself scratched his head as he eyed up the fur. That's when he, deftly and deliberately, pointed his wand over at Margaret's table and, before anything could be said or done, it shot across the room towards him in a silent Accio charm. Thankfully, the items we needed to retrieve were so small that they were easy to drop or lose. Plus, our professor was so boring that everyone had zoned out and perfected the art of staring at her with a cocked head to look interested. The rest of the class didn't bat an eyelid as their subject matter conveniently disappeared. All in all, we covertly retrieved a tuft of deer tail (Lily's,) a thick, pale whisker belonging to Albus and a piece of matted grey fur clinging to some mud which Dom smiled lopsidedly at.

As the lesson drew to a close, we all grinned at each other and filed out of the room to the sight of our Professor literally scratching her head, pondering where 6 different specimens of animagus samples could possibly have disappeared to…

"Where she even found them is anybody's guess. What kind of teacher goes skulking around the forest looking for animal products?" Dom asked later that night, stabbing at her chicken and shaking her head.

"Err… Hagrid?" I offered with a chuckle. My good mood had lasted all day for once, and as the others laughed with me in agreement, mum's owl Sprite arrived with the rest of the evening post, clutching a letter in his beak. The dessert appeared on our table as I opened the letter he was carrying and Sarah ladled me up some sticky toffee pudding as I read the letter written in my mother's careful hand:

Dear Rosie,

It was lovely to see you yesterday, babs. As the Easter Holidays are in two weeks, your father and I decided that you and Scorpius should spend some time together. We just want to ensure the two of you understand the responsibility you share together now, and we want the two of you to spend some extra time together before the baby comes to find out how raising the child is going to work. Draco and Astoria Malfoy have agreed to this plan, and with that in mind, they have kindly offered to let the two of you live together in one of their cottages in Hogsmeade for the two weeks of the holiday. Of course, you will be able to come and go as you please, but we feel this time should be spent together so you and Scorpius can arrange everything for the baby together and that Scorpius should be entitled to a bit more input.

Over the course of the fortnight, you should treat it as you would treat your own home – you will have to look after yourselves, but you can also have your friends over to stay.

Anyway, love. We'll have time to talk about it when we come to pick you up two weeks Friday.

Lots of love,

Mum and Dad

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

I knew I was being set up with yet another cupid attempt, and yet I didn't actually mind. In fact, I was strangely happy by the news and I smiled over at Scorpius on the far table. He, in turn, held up a letter too and I knew it must be a similar one to mine.

At least Mum and Astoria's meddling couldn't possibly be as dangerous as Lily's.

A/N: Just started writing chapter 40 and there's so much ScoRose fluff flying around that it's hard to see my computer screen :P Hope you liked this chapter, the two of them living together temporarily sure promises a lot, doesn't it? ;) review please :)

-Sarita x