Albus
"Is it just me or is your sister terrifying when she's angry?" Scorpius asked Carter.
We had escaped Gwen's wrath although something told me she wasn't actually going to come after us. We were now sitting in our dorm. We were all certain that Fletched Pike, the other boy in our dorm, was down eating breakfast in the Great Hall.
"That wasn't angry." Carter told us.
"That wasn't angry?" I asked.
Carter shook his head.
"There's a reason she's so mad at her hair being messed with." Carter explained. "But at least like that it can easy be fixed. It's only a potion so there's got to be an antidote for it. What I did to her was so much worse than that."
I looked at him.
"You know that muggle product bleach?" Carter asked.
I nodded and Scorpius just stared blankly at him.
"It's a product that lightens the colour of your hair." I explained having heard Aunt Hermione and Mum talk about it before.
Scorpius just nodded in response. I knew that he was always a little awkward whenever we talking about muggle things. Sure his family was a lot more accepting now than they had been in the past. But that didn't mean they had started bringing them all into their life.
"Well a few years ago, before she started at Hogwarts, I added it to the conditioning mask she was using on her hair." Carter continued to explain. "Yes, ten-year-old Gwen was obsessed with her hair. Her eleventh birthday presents were a whole bunch of hair products."
I snorted at this. My little sister, Lily, was going through a similar phase at the moment. Her hair was the most important thing in her life.
"I don't know why she was using a conditioning mask." Carter continued. "Her hair was already so shiny but she was fixated on it being soft, smooth and shiny. She put it in her hair and left it in for the time the packaging said. When she washed it out her hair was almost as blonde as Scorp's is. A whole lot of it also fell out."
Both Scorpius and I started laughing. We couldn't imagine Gwen with blonde hair.
"She cried for weeks." Carter continued reaching the end of the story. "Her her was so damaged that trying to put brown dye on it didn't really work. So she had fairly patchy, thin, bleach blonde hair until it grew out enough for her to cut the blonde off. Her hair only just reached her shoulders again by the time she started at Hogwarts."
Geeze, Carter could be quite cruel. I don't want to get on his bad side. Ever.
"Carter, could you have been a worse child?" Scorpius asked him.
Carter just shrugged not having any words.
I just laughed again as Carter went on to tell us another story about pranks he pulled on his sisters. Each one worse than the one before.
It had been a couple of weeks since the mood ring hair incident. We had avoided Gwen ever since not wanting her to kill us for making comments about her hair.
I'd noticed that Gwen had been extra angry recently. She was screaming at James more often, even opting to skip meals to avoid him sometimes.
Once when stormed past me to get away from my idiotic brother I thought I saw her eyes flash red but I'm sure I was just seeing things. Although when I asked the guys about it they said they saw the same thing.
We hadn't had a chance to speak to the girls about it though. They would probably know what was going on, them being in the same house and all.
It was breakfast time and we were eating our breakfast.
"Mind if we join you?" I heard Rose ask.
It was strange. The girl's never joined us at the Slytherin table.
"Sure." I told them.
They sat down either side of me as the Scorpius and Carter were sitting on the other side of the table.
"Do you know what's going on with Gwen?" Carter asked.
I could tell he was worried about his sister. She had been avoiding him so he hadn't had a chance to talk to her. It was stressing him out cause he thought something might be wrong and she wouldn't talk about it.
"Well, you know how she was given that potion that turned her hair into a mood ring?" Milla asked us.
We all just nodded remembering that day very clearly. It had been explained to us later that it had been a potion so we knew how it had happened.
"The girls who made it are really bad at potions and they messed it up." Rose explained. "When Slughorn cured her, there was a side effect. It transferred the ability to her eyes rather than her hair. Slughorn told her if the ability hadn't disappeared twenty-four hours after the original potion had been given to her it was most likely to be permanent."
We all stared in shock. So we hadn't been seeing things. Her eyes actually flashed red.
"Molly's been keeping notes on what every colour means." Rose told us. "We all know that there's probably some colours that haven't appeared yet because she hasn't been those emotions everyone is going to tell her if they see a new one."
She pulled out a list from her pocket. Rose being Rose had probably copied down Molly's list to show us.
"I thought it might be useful for you to have this when you go home Carter." She said as she handed Carter the list.
Carter took it and began to read it out loud to us.
"Red, angry." He read. "Black, she's probably plotting something, be warned. White, scared. Maroon, annoyed, most likely at James."
"Did you really need to copy that part?" I asked Rose.
She just shrugged. She had obviously wanted to be thorough.
"Normal, calm or relaxed." Carter continued. "Yellow, happy. Navy blue, shameful. Aqua, teal or something in between, ashamed or embarrassed."
"What happened for them to work that one out?" Scorpius asked.
"You probably won't be at all surprised to know that James is the reason most of these were discovered." Milla said. "James 'accidently' tripped her and she fell right onto that Hufflepuff fourth year, Noah Rivera."
"What was James doing?" I asked.
Rose just gave me a look. Ah, James was being James. Probably asking her out or trying to do something he perceived as romantic.
"The only other colour is purple, curious." Carter finished.
"How'd they work out that one?" I asked.
"Fred started talking about some girl." Rose said. "Clearly Gwen wants to know about that."
We all laughed. I'd seen how Fred was becoming with girls. It was kind of amusing sometimes. Other times it was kind of gross.
Once we'd stopped laughing we all went back to eating. After a short while I looked up to asked Scorpius something but burst out into laughter. His hair was as bright orange as Rose's. Scorpius had Weasley red hair.
The others all looked over at me and then they all started laughing too. I didn't know why. Scorpius was the one that looked ridiculous.
"Al, I think leave Lily as the only red haired Potter." Rose told me.
I stared at her for a moment before picking up my spoon and looking at my reflection. I had Weasley red hair.
"I don't think Malfoy's should have red hair." Milla added as I stared in shock at my reflection.
Scorpius did the same as me, picking up his spoon and inspecting himself. We both looked at one another. We were horrified. We both got up and ran out of the Great Hall.
When we reached the dorm we closed the door and locked it. Carter was not getting in. And neither was Fletcher for that matter.
"Why didn't it affect Carter or the girls?" I asked after catching my breath.
"Maybe they did it?" Scorpius suggested.
"Rose isn't like that." I told him.
"She can be pretty nasty." He said.
"Only to you though." I said. "She wouldn't do this to me. As much as I don't want to be my dad's double I don't want red hair."
"Same here." He agreed.
"It was probably Carter." I said after a moment of silence. "I don't think Milla would do something like this and he told us about those pranks he pulled on his sisters."
Scorpius agreed with me. We both decided to grab hats and head to the hospital wing to see if there wasn't some way she could fix this.
For all intents and purposes Carter Smythe was missing. No one had seen him for the past few days. Well, no one had told us if they had. He hadn't been to any our classes for nearly half a week and all the teachers were starting to question what had happened to him.
We couldn't tell them. Neither Scorpius or I had any idea where our friend was. As much as we wanted to kill him for giving us red hair we really just wanted our friend back at this point. We wanted him to be okay.
It had taken a while but eventually I'd suggested we go speak to James. I knew he most likely had something that could help us find Carter. I just hoped he was willing to help us.
We went over to the Gryffindor common room knowing it was the best place to find him. We stood at the portrait waiting for someone to come out or want to go in. It didn't take too long before the portrait opened to reveal a maroon-eyed Gwen.
"What are you doing here?" She snapped at us.
"We need to speak to James." I told her.
"I'm not getting him." She said. "He'll think I'm pleading to let him take me to Hogsmeade."
"Please Gwen, it's about Carter." I pleaded with her.
Her eyes changed colour the moment I mentioned Carter's name. They flashed white. She was scared for her little brother.
"What's wrong with him?" She asked.
"He's missing." Scorpius told her. "We haven't seen him in days. He hasn't been coming to class, meals or even to the dorm at night."
Gwen stood frozen. Her eyes flashed white now. She was scared.
"I'll get Fred and James." She told us quickly before heading back into her common room.
She appeared a few moments later with Fred and James.
"Find my brother." She snapped at all four of us before disappearing back into the common room.
"What's wrong?" James asked as we walked away from their common room.
"Carter's missing and no one knows where he is." I told my brother.
"Ah, but you see, we can find him." Fred said as James pulled out an old piece of parchment.
I rolled my eyes at them. We were hurried along to an empty corridor.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." James said as he pointed his wand at the parchment.
Faint lines began to appear across the parchment. Then words began to form. Once they were complete I was able to read, 'Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers, are proud to present, The Marauder's Map.'
"Did you take this from Dad's study?" I asked James.
Both James and Fred just laughed.
"Who are those people?" Scorpius asked after reading the names on the front.
"Prongs was our grandfather." I said indicating between myself and James.
"Padfoot was our Dad's godfather." James continued.
"Moony was Teddy Lupin's dad." Fred said.
"Wormtail was the rat who betrayed our grandparents to Voldemort." I explained.
Scorpius just nodded at our explanations. He knew who Teddy was as Teddy and his grandmother Andromeda occasionally spent time with the Malfoys. Andromeda and Scorpius' grandmother, Narcissa, were sisters after all.
We all knew that Andromeda had been cast out for marrying a muggleborn but after the war Narcissa had contacted her wanting to see her again. Having lost almost everyone else in her life Andromeda agreed. The two of them had weekly lunches from what I'd heard. Teddy went every now and then so Scorpius and Teddy knew each other rather well.
"This map shows the entire school and where everyone is at any moment." James explained.
He opened the map. It was amazing. All across it were little dots with names next to them. I found the corridor we were in and saw all our names huddled together. I began to search the map for Carter's name. I had no idea where he could be.
"I found him." Scorpius said excitedly.
There was Carter, sitting alone, in the kitchens. It made sense now how he was able to skip meals and not die.
"Thanks James." I said to my brother as he folded up the map.
"Mischief managed." James said pointing his want at the map again. "No problem Al."
I watched as my brother and cousin headed off, probably back to their common room. I turned to Scorpius and smiled.
"Ready to go kill a friend?" I asked him.
He smirked back at me and we raced off towards the kitchens.
Scorpius and I burst into the kitchen. The moment he realised it was us Carter jumped up and drew his wand. He looked terrified. Both Scorpius and I had our wands drawn and well. We had this planned.
"Rictusempra." I cast.
Carter fell to the ground laughing. The tickling charm. The only real revenge we wanted on him. Having our best friend terrified of what we were going to do to him was enough punishment. But we knew he wasn't going to see it that way until we did something. The tickling charm was harmless enough.
"Is that really the best you've got?" Carter asked through his laughter.
"You want more?" Scorpius asked holding up his wand.
"No, no more." Carter was still rolling around on the floor of the kitchen.
Both Scorpius and I laughed at him. I released the charm. Scorpius and I smiled at one another.
"You're really not angry?" Carter asked us.
"It wasn't so bad." Scorpius said.
"Easily reversible." I admitted.
All three of us started laughing again as we walked over to help him up.
"I thought it would be funny." Carter explained. "I mean it was, until I realised who I'd done it to and what you might do to me because of it."
"I need someone in the dorm who actually understands muggle things." I told him.
"I need someone to help when Albus here starts talking about how great of a hero his dad is." Scorpius joked.
"I don't do that." I defended. "You know I hate all the attention I end up getting because I'm the son of the boy-who-lived."
"As much as I hate all the attention I get for being the son of a traitorous death eater." Scorpius agreed.
I saw Carter roll his eyes at us as we led him out of the kitchens and back to the dorms. That boy really needed a shower.