Thursday 1st December

- Seven-

In the morning, Rose resolved that she wouldn't talk to her friends about Malfoy anymore. The girls were right—her predictability around the blonde was embarrassing.

But, it didn't last long. Even if, in Rose's defence, she wasn't the one to bring it up.

She'd been in Transfiguration—it was her turn with Albus—and the two were practicing vera verto, writing a stage-by-stage observation of the spell. Rose was doing the practical—an area Albus struggled with greatly.

"Hugo didn't appreciate you teasing him about his book the other day." Albus said reproachfully, as Rose flicked her wand in the direction of the goblet before then. It squawked indignantly as it turned back into a cockatoo. Albus cringed.

"What book?"

"The one your Dad sent him—the Charming Witches one." Albus explained patiently.

Rose scoffed, her attention on their work, "That old piece of rubbish? As though there are twelve perfect ways to get into someone's pants. Ridiculous."

She transfigured the bird back again—jotting down a note, as Albus didn't seem to be paying attention.

"He just wanted some advice."

"That book is the last place he should be looking." Rose lifted her wand again—transfiguring, making a little note. Maybe the Sentience Transfiguration Theory was incorrect, as the cockatoo didn't look particularly pleased at its present treatment. Rose supposed she wouldn't be happy as a water goblet either.

"Rose."

She recognized the frustration in her cousin's tone, and she placed her quill down, giving him her full attention. He'd always been like this—a paragon of equality, always concerned for the wellbeing of those around him. The animal rights (and resulting vegetarianism) were only part of it—he played mediator for his human companions too. And he was so adept at it, acknowledging other's emotions and reaching a compromise for all parties. Maybe it was a middle child thing.

Rose herself was no good at mediation. People's whinging annoyed her, and her response was usually, 'it'll be fine, just get over it.'

"I will," she replied, with a sigh of surrender, "endeavour to apologise to Hugo for my behaviour. Though, I assure you, it's not as big of a deal as you think it is, Al."

"It's not just that," Albus went on, "I'm worried about him. All he does is listen to his music, and stay inside and play his instruments. Obviously he hangs out with Lily occasionally, but he doesn't seem to have any other friends. Have you seen him hanging around with the boys in his dorm? Or anyone?"

Rose shrugged, "He's a bit of an oddball—nothing wrong with that, is there? Boys his age are into Quidditch and playfighting, and he's never been into that. He was practically born a fifty-year-old man."

Albus' cheek twitched, which meant he was gnawing at the inside of it, "I'm just worried he's lonely. I haven't seen him being friendly with any other boys—except for Scorpius—and—"

"Wait," Rose interrupted sharply, "Malfoy? He's been hanging out with Malfoy?"

"Yes," Albus replied quickly, "but that's not the point I was makin—"

"Malfoy is being buddy-buddy with my brother? And you didn't deign to tell me?"

Albus huffed, "Only because I knew you'd get like this about it."

"That dirty traitor! He—"

"Scorp is very good with him, and they—"

"I can't believe this." Rose snapped, crossing her arms. Albus rolled his eyes.

"They get along." Albus explained, "Scorpius gives him advice about the girl Hugo has a crush on, and they talk about music. Scorp's been playing the piano since he was five, so Hugo has plenty to ask of him. Hugo almost has a little hero-worship thing going on. There's nothing wrong with it—so don't be immature."

"I can't believe this." Rose repeated.

Albus' eyebrows lifted, "Rose?"

"Yes?"

"Get over it."

"Stop being friendly with my brother."

Malfoy looked up from the knotgrass he was cutting, blowing a strand of blonde hair from his eyes, "What?"

"I said, stop being friends with my brother!"

He straightened, arranging the thinly sliced knotgrass on his cutting board. It was one of the last ingredients they had to add for this detention, and then their hour was practically up. It had been largely quiet, the silent truce from the previous detention still hanging over their heads. The last thing Rose wanted was a repeat of that—his intimate proximity driving Rose to blurt her stupidest thoughts. No, this time the silence and personal space had remained largely intact.

But Rose had been brewing on the topic of her brother and Scorpius all day. Yes, she recognized it was immature, but this recognition did nothing to stem the emotion. Hugo was a traitor.

"Why on earth should I?" Malfoy replied, raising his eyebrow in a way that was perfectly patronizing.

"Because he's my brother, and I'm sick of you converting all my relatives to the dark side."

Malfoy snorted, "So you have claim to him simply because he's related to you?"

"Yes!"

Malfoy picked up the cutting board, walking it carefully to their cauldron, as not to spill the ingredients atop it, "Do you know how immature you sound right now?"

"Now you know what I hear whenever you open your mouth." She snapped in reply, feeling more defensive now that he'd pointed it out.

He snorted—again, before tilting the cutting board over the cauldron. She was momentarily distracted by his movement, still not trusting enough to pass responsibility over to him,

"Wait!" Rose cried, and he paused over the cauldron, "is that four and a half ounces precisely? Did you use a weighing charm?"

He was silent for a moment, but it was the kind of silence of someone deciding what lie to use.

"Yes." He replied, tilting the chopping board, threatening to tip the ingredients in,

"It doesn't look like it." She said quickly, resisting the urge to reach out and the grab board from him, away from its position hovering over the cauldron. That could create unnecessary physical contact between them, and Rose was rather happy with an obligatory two feet between them.

"What, you can weigh by eye?" But he caught her expression and sighed, "Fine, it's four and a quarter. But—"

"Seriously?!" the anger that was always simmering around Malfoy loved the excuse to explode, like he held the missing fuse, "You're seriously attempting to sabotage the potion, again?! What is wrong with you—"

"Oh, get off your high horse," he scoffed, "you really think I'd blow my own grade just to mess with yours?"

"I have no idea what depths your little depraved mind would sink to just for revenge, seeing as you went to such an effort the first time."

"Believe it or not Roza, my world doesn't revolve around yours—"

"Such a sad little—"

"No wonder all the boys in our year call you the—"

"—man!"

"—bitch!"

As their words rung in unison off the stone walls of the classroom, Rose's mouth snapped shut in shock.

"They call me what?" she reeled.

"I shouldn't have said anything." Malfoy said brusquely, busying himself with tipping the knotgrass into the cauldron.

Rose barely noticed for shock, as her doubts had received an unwanted confirmation of what she'd feared—she really wasn't liked. It wasn't just apathy she was received from boykind, it was active and conscious dislike and dismissal. Her anxiety practically cheered, 'I told you so!'

A faint—and reasonable—voice reminded Rose that it didn't matter what people thought, but her persistent and gnawing self-consciousness was too busy pointing out the current damage to her confidence.

Apparently the silence had stretched on for a while, as Malfoy cleared his throat, "All I wanted to say," did he sound apologetic?, "is that I believe a slight reduction in the knotgrass added at this stage will reduce the… dramaticism of the transformation. All the skin bubbling and pain, and the like. I suppose we'll see in the test stage, but it makes sense theoretically."

Rose found herself tucking it all away—shock, hurt, anger—for later analysis, when she wasn't around someone who forced her guard up. She was a little shaken, but underneath that, a strange calm took over, as though she were watching herself from above.

Objectively, the comment hadn't been that bad—especially from the likes of Malfoy—but her anxiety, and the fact it had been on her mind of late, aggravated the sting in the comment, while simultaneously dismantling her defences against Malfoy's usual bullying. It had been like a slap.

"I suppose lessening the knotgrass added would encourage the numbing properties of the boomslang skin to develop fully in the incubation period." She nodded, ignoring the way Malfoy watched her carefully, mouth tugged down in the corners.

She stood over the cauldron, performing a cleaning charm on the stirring rod, before mixing it the required number of times, in the required directions. Malfoy hovered awkwardly, looking as though he planned to say something, but his pride was smothering any words that rose.

"At least," she spoke after ten minutes of silence, "you say it to my face."

Malfoy flinched.

She only had another five minutes in his company, before they parted ways without a farewell, heading in their opposite directions. He, for dinner; she, for her dorm.

Rose made it to the fifth floor before she started crying.

Friday 2nd December

Rose had composed a list of all the things she needed in Hogsmeade for the weekend, pasting the page in the front of her planner. Being officially December, the trees and tinsel dotted around the castle were a reminder of the looming holidays. Either way, there was a copy of Class Revolts and Revolutions of the 20th Century that Rose had seen at the last visit, a perfect Christmas gift for the far-left leaning Tessie.

Planning gifts for others was a sure-fire distraction for how much Rose wanted to crawl into bed, and try to ignore the rest of the day. Usually her roles and responsibilities forced her from bed on days like these, but it had been second period before Rose had summoned every ounce of willpower in her tired body to go to class. But even when she did, she couldn't help playing stupid games with herself—like letting Malfoy's words roll around in her head, or walking past people in her year and picturing what awful things they'd muttered about her behind her back.

The worst part was she recognized how ridiculous and harmful these games were—but recognition didn't give her the power to fix her brain, stopping herself from thinking negatively. It wasn't that simple, so Rose reverted to her usual methods—distraction, distraction and distraction.

She'd had to sneak out of the dorm again last night, the persistent thoughts so loud and shouty they stopped her from falling asleep.

Now she was heading for dinner, stomach protesting over the breakfast and lunch she'd not felt like eating.

She was on her way down the staircases when there was a shout, it wasn't until she heard it a second time that she recognized her own name amongst it,

"Rose! Hey, wait up!"

She paused, turning to see the figure rushing down the stairs to catch her, noting the blue tie knotted around his neck. She'd nearly been in Ravenclaw—she'd been what they called a 'hatstall'. The Sorting Hat had spent nearly six minutes debating on whether she should be in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. Family allegiance had won out.

"You alright, Richard?"

Ravenclaw's seeker, Richard Selwyn, usually didn't speak to Rose. He was the year above them—the most she knew of him was from Georgette's bitching—apparently, he was a worthy adversary on the pitch.

Other than that, he was mostly unremarkable, dark haired slicked back, and wide set eyes. Rose had never had a class with him, but knew his name at least. She silently thanked Georgette.

"I actually," his hand was on the back of his neck, rubbing, "do you have a minute?"

Rose tried not to imagine what he'd said about her in private—wondering if Malfoy's cruel words applied to the boys in the above years too.

"Sure, what's up?" they were alone on the staircase.

"I, uh—" he laughed nervously, "you're going on the Hogsmeade outing on Saturday, right?"

"I am, yep. Why's that?" Surely this wasn't leading where it sounded like?

"I don't suppose," he was rubbing his neck again, and Rose wondered if it hurt, "you wouldn't want to go with me? A date, maybe?"

After Rose's mantra of self-doubt—especially how it had increased in volume since yesterday—she was generally taken aback by his proposal. As Rose flustered, surprise delaying her response, Richard's face fell a little,

"Look, forget I asked—" he went to move away.

"No, wait," Rose fumbled, feeling guilty for leaving him floundering, "I mean yes. I'll go with you, yes."

His expression brightened, "Oh, well—good! I'll meet you in the entry courtyard tomorrow at nine?"

She returned his smile, "Sounds good."

Maybe she wasn't as despised as Malfoy had made her out to be. She had a date—and actual, scheduled date—with a real-life boy. And Richard seemed nice, his brown eyes were warm with something like kindness, and the gap between his two front teeth was really quite adorable. She wanted to ask herself what could possibly go wrong, but she didn't want to jinx it.

She accepted his offer to walk her to dinner—they discussed Quidditch plays on the way—and Rose felt lighter at accepting his offer. Admittedly, she hadn't really looked at him in that way before he'd asked her out, but often nice guys flew under the radar. And it would sure be a better use of her time than fretting over some stupid nonsense Malfoy had said.

Distractions, Rose thought, as Richard walked her to her seat, what a perfect distraction it was.