Rose Among The Thorns: The Third Evans Sister
By Jedi Blu, Lady at Large
Disclaimer: Found at the beginning of the tale.
Notice: There's been some confusion with the chapter numbering—pay no heed and read on. I'll fix it—eventually.
LOOK!: You have now flashed back to the Hogwarts of the past.
'Denotes Thoughts'
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CHAPTER SEVEN: First Impressions—1973
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When Lily had left what were then the two 'normal' children behind, during her first year of Hogwarts, Petunia had lamented, whined, complained, and eventually decided that if Lily had magic and she didn't, it was all her parents' faults. Besides that, she had concluded, Lily was a freak. No one on the telly had magic, no glamorous people in magazines had magic, and Petunia herself didn't—she was certain of this even before she was eleven—which meant it just wasn't normal. And turning tea-cups into horrendous little mice wasn't anything she envied.
But Rose had stood on that magical platform, waving farewell to her eldest sister, and wished that she was leaving on the beautiful train as well. The people around them were so interesting—although most of their hats looked downright ridiculous. Why wear such odd, impractical hats? But that wasn't important--had that man really just changed his hair from black to purple? Was that rather large toad really giving a small child directions? There were wondrous things all around her!
Yet she had been forced back into what Lily wrote home calling the "Muggle way of life." How boring, how ordinary, how dreary it was to Rose! She was an intelligent child, she most certainly knew when she was missing out. She was always searching for new things, always curious about the world and the way it worked, and always invoking the terrible question of "Why?" to her teachers. She was placed in advanced classes, in advanced schools, but her boredom was apparent the two years that Lily attended Hogwarts alone. Her grades, despite her intellect, started dropping as she found herself lost in daydreams.
Worse yet, her teachers collected doodles of strange things from her instead of homework. There were people flying on brooms, endless sketches of a man dressed like Merlin, animals that didn't exist, dragons, a giant castle, paintings with speech bubbles asking or making up passwords, men with long sticks, fighting each other, owls bearing sealed envelopes—crazy things. Nonmuggle things.
Of course, Mr. and Mrs. Evans knew why their daughter's mind wandered. Every time Lily sent home a letter it contained new and incredible things for the youngest Evans girl to read. It was a fascinating, on-going experience for her, to see the Magical through her sister's eyes. What was startling was how life-like the girl, only nine and ten those years, could sketch such things. Her art teachers raved about her talent, but hoped to encourage her to draw at least a few realistic things. A flying tea-cup, centaur, and Nearly-Headless ghost was all they received from her when they asked for such things.
Her insistence that such things were realistic was disturbing, as well as her continual use of the word 'Muggle' to describe teachers, classmates, and especially people she didn't like.
Whatever was to be done with Rose?
Petunia was absolutely horrified by the way her younger sister became so absorbed in the magical. She warned her sister that nothing good would come of it, that she should 'give over and be normal!' But Rose didn't listen, and only told Petunia to mind her own Muggle business. It was Rose's adamancy and complete disregard for Petunia's wisdom that really helped to put the middle Evans daughter on pins and needles when it came to magic. Rose was constantly barraging Petunia with things Lily wrote about, and pasting pictures of magical things all over her side of the bedroom the three sisters normally shared.
Lily's part of the bedroom was empty, and seemed to make the whole room lonely, when she was away to school. Rose would sit on Lily's bed to read the letters, and hug her stuffed dragon as often as possible when she really wished she could be with Lily.
Then, just days after her eleventh birthday, things changed.
Rose received her letter, and Petunia went ballistic.
"Freaks!" she shouted the moment she could be sure her parents weren't within hearing range. "That's all you two are! Freaks!"
"Maybe you're the freak, Petty," Rose responded, sitting beside Lily on her bed.
Petunia scowled at the hated nick-name. "Hardly."
"Calm down, Petunia," Lily admonished, making a calming motion with her hand—
"Don't you threaten me!" Petunia shouted, backing away a step from her two sisters.
"Petunia, I wasn't—"
"Don't even SPEAK to me! I can't believe this! I must've been adopted, I know it!" She turned her back on the two, but remained in the room.
Rose shrugged and looked towards Lily. "So how exactly do I get sorted?"
"Well, they take a hat and put it on your head, and it's very queer. You can hear it talking to you, and then—"
"It turns you into the ugly little toad you are," Petunia broke in, glaring at them both over her shoulder. "I can't believe this! First perfect little Lily, and now goes Rose, following in her footsteps! Don't you find that just a little demeaning, Rose? Humph. Everyone will want you to be as perfect and freakish as Lily!"
Lily rolled her eyes. "Rose will be just fine. No one will expect anything from her unless she gives them reason to."
Rose raised her eyebrows. "You think I'll do as well as you did your first year, Lily?"
"Probably not," Lily answered. "I was top of my class."
"So you're saying you're better than Rose?" Petunia piped up from her side of the room, where she had finally settled herself with one of her beauty magazines. Petunia was very good at creating discord.
"No, I'm just saying she shouldn't expect so much." Lily glared at her Muggle sister and then smiled at Rose. "All my professors said I was very gifted and take to magic like a dragon to fire!"
"But I'm very smart, Lily, surely—"
"Brains aren't everything. Obviously Lily's a teacher's pet." Petunia smirked over her magazine at her younger sister as she flipped a page. "She's the Perfect One, remember? So smart, so pretty. Everyone dotes on Lily. Everyone loves Lily the most, even Mum and Dad. Everyone is in Lily's shadow."
Lily was getting irritated. "That's silly, Petunia. It's not true, either. There are lots of people smarter than me, lots of people who don't even like me."
Petunia snorted, which was very un-lady-like and rather uncommon for her. She usually tried to be above and beyond reproach. "But it is true, Rose." She looked again at the youngest. "Just wait and see. No matter what happens, no matter how determined you'll be to do your best in that school of freaks, you'll never be allowed to measure up to Lily."
Rose shook her head, dismissing the notion, and tried to bring the conversation back around to the Sorting Ceremony.
~!~
Rose stumbled along after her elder sister, with her parents leading the way. Petunia had begged off and remained at home. Rose wasn't any more excited about this send-off than she had been three years before when Lily went away to school. Through-out the summer Petunia had continued to plant seeds of resentment and doubt into her younger sister's mind. Lily had tried to circumvent it all, but that was Lily—always trying to make peace and keep people happy.
Truth to tell, Rose hardly cared about Petunia's opinion of the magical world. She rather thought Petunia was just narrow-minded, and it wouldn't take long for her to learn how to cope with her sisters' changes. She did worry, though, about coming into Hogwarts after Lily. It was true that Lily was smart, and the prettiest of the sisters, so Rose worried she would have a great deal to live up to. But she was determined to prove herself, no matter what it took. She would do anything to be Lily's equal, to gain her elder sister's approval.
So she watched as her parents and Lily went charging through the barrier at King's Cross. She had been startled when they all went through, only glancing once to make sure she was still following, leaving her behind. They disappeared abruptly, and she had to take a deep breath to calm her nerves.
Readying herself, Rose also began to run until—it was a strange feeling, almost as if she was moving through a dense mud, but quickly. She found herself on the other side of the barrier, staring at a red engine baring the name Hogwarts Express, before she could blink.
Rose stood, gaping at the scene as she had but two years before, absolutely in awe of the creatures, people, and things she saw swirling around her.
She hesitated in front of the barrier too long.
A sudden sound—that of a luggage cart—came clattering from behind her and she turned barely in time to make out the dark figure of a boy running straight at her! He was looking over his shoulder, his eyes wide with something akin to anger or anxiety, and so he didn't see her until—
C
R
A
S
H
!
And Rose lay on the ground, with the stranger draped over her and their things a scattered mess!
Rose looked up at him from the flat of her back, and found herself staring at a boy that looked only a few years older than her. He had long, black, limp hair that hung in his face and a complexion so pale she wondered if he ever saw the sun. He was, for all intents and purposes, rather homely looking as well. His eyes blinked open a moment after the impact, and met hers. She shivered at the cold, empty expression his eyes bore.
The boy pushed himself off of her, and Rose scrambled to her feet as well. He mumbled something that sounded more like a curse than an apology. He glanced over his shoulder, obviously still agitated, and then brought his wand out. He waved it over their spill and mixed belongings, and everything slid back to where it belonged on their respective carts.
"Who are you?" Rose asked, her hands planted on her hips, not to be intimidated. "How dare you come charging through and not even look where you're going!"
He glared down at her, and opened his mouth for an answer that probably wouldn't have been very friendly, but instead she heard--
"Well! It's Snivellus!"
The boy's face drained to an even paler shade, and a look of slight worry over-came his features. Rose peered over his shoulder, standing on tip-toe, to see two boys who had also just emerged from the barrier coming towards them. They both had dark black hair, shorn short, but one looked as if his hair was completely wild. They were taller—taller than the boy who had knocked into her, and considerably better dressed and healthier in appearance.
Rose looked at their clothing--both wore dark Levis and collared polo's bearing an insignia she recognized as that of the Gryffindor House, and their trunks looked new. Both had owls in gilded cages as well, the mark of some-what spoiled young wizards. This pale boy who had crashed into her was indeed a contrast; his clothing was faded, he wore an old t-shirt and faded slacks, and boots that were scuffed and worn. He bore no insignia anywhere, but Rose had a guess of who he was from all of Lily's letters.
One of the newcomers wore glasses, which he nonchalantly pushed further up the bridge of his nose as if they were ill-fitting. "Snivellus! It's so good to see you again—and who's this? A new girlfriend?"
Snivellus—or the boy called such—clenched his fists around his wand, which the others couldn't see with his back to them. Rose could tell this meeting would not go well—and wondered at her luck to get caught in the middle of things.
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Thank you, my dedicated readers as well as any who have just stumbled upon my humble story. I'm so glad I've got people reading and reviewing! Remember, it's only polite if you enjoy the story to let the author know it!
To My Readers:
Loretta: Sorry, I can't help you out any as I have NO experience with Web-TV. Email FF.N if you haven't got it fixed yet, but I'm betting they aren't configured for your sort of internet access. Few people are. Trouble with Snape??? Whatever gave you that idea? ;-) You'll just have to wait and see what happens. The next few chapters will be entirely placed back in the '70's. Do we need to say 1970's now? This whole new century thing is confusing.
Seal1: It's so nice to find someone who appreciates a good romance. There are so many stories out there with 998% lust, 1% plot, and 1% character development. How boring and uninteresting is that?! I promise you I'll do my best to make this a TRUE romance.
Rae Roberts: Yes! I have achieved something I set out to do! Rose is a character I've grown to love as I've discovered more about her, and I really want others to understand her position and feelings. Heartbroken for her? Wonderful. :-) Hope this chapter explains a bit more about her character. Ah, and cheers to you RR! Your own fic is progressing wonderfully and I can't wait to see where Alex is heading in her own relationship with Severus.
Anne Shiley: First timer, eh? Good! I want to attract readers to my story, and I'm very glad it caught your eye. Thank you so much for your praise. I'll do my best to keep the story interesting while still being true to my ideas and goals for it. Ah, writing is such fun!
Remember, reviews make the world (er, fanfiction.net anyway) go round! And save the dragons!
-JB-