Rose
Scorpius Malfoy.
He was the bane of my existence.
I had managed to follow Dad's wishes. He had never beaten me in anything. Well, maybe except for flying. But we only had Mum to blame for that.
Sure we were had the same friends. But that doesn't mean I have to like him.
"You look angry." Milla said to me as she looked over the table at me. "Thinking about Scorpius again?"
We were in the library finishing our homework. Neither of us wanted it to be left over so we tried to finish it as early as possible. The boys didn't agree with us. They preferred to put off their homework then come crawling to us for help. Well, Albus and Carter anyway. Scorpius always managed to do his last minute and still have it near perfect.
"How'd you know?" I asked her jokingly.
"Nothing makes you are irritated or angry as Scorpius does." She pointed out.
We both laughed. She was right.
"I think you're just awed by his ability it finish his homework last minute without any assistance." Milla said.
"I am not." I told her.
Then the boys decided to join us. I watched them walk into the library, spot my hair and walk over to our table.
"What work haven't you done this time?" Milla asked them as they sat down with us.
"Can't we just want to spend time with our friends?" Carter asked her.
"You two can't, if we're in the library." I said indicating between Albus and Carter. "You have this annoying habit of not doing your work then asking to copy ours. You're just like what Mum tells me Dad and Uncle Harry were like."
"Great, compared to my dad again." Albus muttered. "Another thing to add to the list."
"You know I didn't mean it like that Al." I told him.
I'd forgotten, momentarily, how much he hated being compared to Uncle Harry.
"Good one Rose, send Al into another depression." Milla said jokingly.
Albus had a habit, even worse than his refusal to study, where he would shut himself off from everyone every time he was compared to his dad. And that was often. So at least once a week there was a day where he refused to speak to anyone because someone had made some comment. It was a little annoying.
"You really know how to say the right things, don't you Weasley?" Scorpius said to me.
That was more annoying. Scorpius liked to call my by my last name. But only half my last name. The half he said was because, as he always told me, he associated it with me more because of my hair. The thing is the colour is Dad's but everything else about it is Mum's.
"It's Granger-Weasley, Malfoy." I told him.
"Oh, I don't think my name should just be stuck on the end like that." He said. "I'd like to think I'm worth more than that."
I stared in shock. He was right. The way I'd said it made it sound like I was adding Malfoy to my already long last name.
"Are you saying you want her to be Rose Malfoy?" Cater asked Scorpius.
Scorpius just shrugged before starting to work on his homework. I could feel my face heating up. I looked down at my book in front of me. I didn't want them to see me blushing. At Carter's words Albus snapped out of his depressive state and glared between Carter and Scorpius.
"What did you just say?" Albus asked slowly.
"Congratulations Carter, you've found a way to snap Albus out of his depression." Milla said applauding him.
"The way Scorpius phrased his retort to Rose made him sound like he was saying he wanted her to have his last name." Carter explained to Albus.
"What did Scorp say?" Albus asked.
"Something about me not sticking his name on the end of mine because he's worth more than that." I said rolling my eyes. "His words, not mine. Now can we please move on I really don't want to be thinking about Malfoy being part of name. Honestly, I couldn't think of anything worse."
"Is Malfoy really the worst last name you could have though Rose?" Albus asked. "I could think of plenty worse names. What if your last name was, say, Riddle?"
"Albus Severus Potter I'm going to kill you." I yelled jumping up from my seat and leaning over the table to strangle my cousin.
I had nearly got my hands on his when I noticed a shadow appear over me. I turned my head to look and saw Madam Pince, the librarian, standing over us.
"Miss Granger-Weasley, I'm going to have to ask you to leave as you are disturbing the other students." She told me.
I let out a sigh and rolled my eyes before packing up my stuff and getting up from my seat, glaring at Albus the entire time, and heading out of the library.
I was nearly half way back to the dorms when I heard Milla calling after me. It was nice to see that at least one of my friends had come after me.
"Sorry I took so long." She told me through her deep breaths. "I had to lecture each of the boys."
She must have run to try to catch up to me. It was so nice that she had run just to catch me.
"What about?" I asked.
"Well I was telling Albus off for saying something that got you so mad you yelled." She started. "So telling him off for getting you kicked out. You will have to explain to me what he said and why it made you so mad as I really don't understand. Then again I don't think the others understood what he had said either. They both looked as confused as I felt."
"Milla, focus." I said. "I'll tell you about that once we get to the dorms."
"Right." She said blushing when she realised she'd been rambling. "I had to tell Scorpius off for embarrassing you. Honestly if someone didn't know any better they might have thought that what he said meant he was in love with you. Implying that he wanted you to have his last name. If that doesn't scream love I don't know what does."
I just rolled my eyes at her ramblings. It was kind of funny sometimes. And it got me thinking. Did Scorpius actually mean what he said or was he just trying to mess with me? He was probably just trying to mess with me. He loves making me look bad. Almost as much as I love beating him.
"I'm getting off track again." Milla realising her ramblings on her own this time. "Well, I had to tell Carter off for dragging the whole thing out longer than it needed to be. Honestly that whole thing could have been avoided if he just stopped talking. He does that a lot thought doesn't he? Drag things out longer than they need to go on for I mean. I've noticed that."
I laughed at Milla. Sometimes her ramblings could be amusing.
"It's fine really." I told her. "You didn't need to lecture them. You also didn't need to come running after me. You could have just stayed with them. I would have gone and found Frank."
"Ah, but you see then I would never find out what Albus said." Milla told me.
"I'm sure he would have told you." I replied.
"Scorp asked." She said. "He wouldn't say."
"Milla there's a difference between you asking as Malfoy asking." I explained. "For starters you're his relative. And secondly you're a girl. With Al all you have to do is make that girly pouty face and he can't say no."
Milla just stared at me. I don't think she realised that trick.
"Don't tell anyone I told you that though." I said quickly. "Lily might just kill me if she found our I'd shared that."
We reached the entrance to the common room. Milla quickly said the password and we entered. We headed straight up to the dorm as Milla was still eager to find out why I had been so offended by Albus' comment.
Once we were in the dorm we sat down on our beds facing one another. Thankfully our dorm mates, Emily McLaggen and Jessie Moore, weren't here. I don't think I would have explained it Milla if they were. It was kind of a a family thing. And Milla was kind of family.
"So I'm sure you know about the wizarding war and everything." I said to her.
Milla just nodded. I knew she knew about it all. We were both avid readers. There was no way she couldn't have found out about it. I just said it to preface what I was about to say.
"Well the wizard who called himself Voldemort, his real name was Tom Riddle." I explained. "Professor Dumbledore, the one Albus is named after, he told Uncle Harry about who Voldemort really was and Uncle Harry told Mum and Dad."
"Is that it?" Milla asked. "I was expecting some great story. But all it is is the last name of the evil wizard who killed a whole lot of people."
"I wouldn't say that in front of my family." I told her. "That evil wizard killed my Uncle Fred, well one of his followers did. They also caused the death of Uncle Harry's parents and godfather. For that reason as well I wouldn't go mentioning it in front of your grandmother."
Milla looked shocked. I was remaining as calm as I could while talking about this. It was hard. These people I spoke about were family. They had all suffered.
"He also caused the death of Teddy Lupin's parents when he wasn't even a month old." I continued. "He's Uncle Harry's godson, pretty much a brother to Albus, so don't mention that in front of him. Really, I don't think you should mention that in front of anyone. Voldemort caused a lot of damage. Don't speak lightly of him."
"I never realised how bad it was." Milla said. "Sure I've read about it and it seemed rather awful but I didn't realise the effects it still had on people."
I just gave her a weak smile. I didn't like talking about the war. It was so long ago and I didn't truly understand the effect it had had on the people involved. I guess I never really would considering I wasn't there.
Neither Milla or I said anything else. We both just lay down in our beds with a book each and started reading. It helped me get out of my head.
We had joined the boys for dinner at the Slytherin table again. It was becoming more of a regular occurrence at this point for us to eat with them. Although both Carter and Albus had a sibling in Gryffindor the people in our house weren't exactly the most friendly and tended to be quite rude towards them. The Slytherins just ignored us which was understandable.
"Sorry about getting you kicked out of the library." Albus said to me as Milla and I sat down next to him.
"The least you could have done was leave the library but you didn't think of that did you?" I snapped at him.
Okay, I was a little angry that he'd stayed in the library after I'd gotten kicked out. He was the one who caused it. Why did he get to stay while I had to leave?
If only the boys were as nice as Milla. Then again, they are boys.
"I'm a Slytherin, what can I do?" He responded.
"Maybe this time I'll actually succeed in strangling you." I said as I leaned over Milla to try and grab at his neck again.
Milla didn't even try to stop me. I think she found it rather amusing watching me try to kill Albus. I knew Carter and Scorpius did as I could hear their laughter across the table.
"Rose, I don't think my godfather would be very happy to watch me be killed right in front of him." Albus said calmly.
I froze and looked up at the teacher's table to see Professor Longbottom watching us. He looked amused but I could see the warning look in his gaze as our eyes met.
"Who's your godfather?" Carter asked confused.
"Professor Longbottom." I said as I settled back into my seat.
"He shared a dorm with our dads." Albus explained. "They were decent enough friends. From what I've heard Dad really help him come out of his shell."
"My father never liked him that much." Scorpius muttered. "Although, he didn't really like anyone."
"Did your dad even like your mum?" Carter asked.
"She's two years younger." Scorpius explained. "He didn't really know her. He's said he didn't dislike my aunt, Daphne, but found her a little irritating sometimes."
We all looked at Scorpius. As much as people compared him to Draco Malfoy the two seemed nothing alike. At least, not when Draco was younger.
"Your dad sounds like a spoilt whiny little rich kid." Milla commented.
"He was, for the most part." Scorpius said.
"Dad said he always use to say, 'my father will hear about this.'" I added.
We all laughed. It was nice to be able to forget about the division our separate houses caused. We could really all just sit together and talk. It was really nice.
As dinner drew to a close a few owls flew in to deliver letters to some people. One letter was dropped into Carter's lap. He looked at it for a moment confused as to why it was there.
"What's wrong?" I asked him.
"I haven't written to Mum and Dad recently." He said. "I don't know why they'd be sending me something."
"Just open it and see." Milla told him.
Carter tore open the letter and began to read it. We all sat silently as he read through the letter. We wanted to know what it was about as well. As he read through the letter his face remained solid. No emotion showed at all. Part of me wished he suffered the same thing as Gwen. That way I might actually know how he's feeling.
Scorpius continued eat glancing over at Carter every now and then. I could tell he was trying not to read the letter of Carter's shoulder. We would be told when he'd finished.
After reading through the letter Carter got up and left. We stared after his retreating figure. He'd taken the letter with him so there was no way for us to tell what it had said.
"Should we go after him?" Milla asked.
"Something's bothering him." Scorpius said. "Let him calm down and he'll tell us. If we try to talk to him now he'll just shut us out."
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." I said.
"Slytherin." Albus told me.
They were strange. The boys we were friends with. For some reason they thought being in Slytherin was a good excuse for a whole range of things.
"It's also a guy thing." Scorpius told us.
Okay, that made more sense than Albus' reason. Honestly Albus learn some originality.
"You'll tell us in the morning won't you?" Milla asked.
"Meet us at breakfast." Albus agreed.
Milla and I smiled and got up. We decided just to head back to the dorm. We were both pretty tired and wanted to get some sleep.