Draco had just walked outside to find Rose gone and a man being attacked by a falcon. Instead of helping the man, Draco ran inside and grabbed Liv, Harry, Hermione, and Ron, telling them that Rose was gone. They all rushed out to the man and Hermione shooed the falcon away, keeping clear of its talons.
"Where is she? What did you try to do to her, you-," Draco said, shoving the man against the wall.
"Draco, stop, he's a muggle, we can't do anything to him, despite the fact that I would like to kill him right now…," Harry said, restraining Draco and shooting daggers towards the guy at the same time.
"Wait, how do we know that he did anything to her? It hasn't been proven!" Hermione said, not knowing that Draco and Harry had already figured out the mystery behind Rose's animals.
"Well, the falcon is proof enough! Rose can talk to animals, especially birds of prey and Aspasia, and when she was in trouble, she unwittingly called out for help and the falcon heard her. That means the falcon attacked this man, because he was trying to hurt Rose," Draco explained, in a rage about the man's nerve.
"Does Rose know?" Hermione asked.
"Well…no…," Draco replied uneasily.
"Alright, mate, well, we'll leave that one to you," Ron said.
"I…uh…ok, I'll tell her… as soon as we finish with this scum," he said.
'How dare he touch her!' Draco thought. Even as he thought this his hand involuntarily balled into a fist. 'No, calm down, we need to find Rose,' he reminded himself, and tried to relax.
"Where is she?" Draco asked menacingly, and everyone's attention turned to the man.
"I-I-I, she ran away, I didn't do anything I just-," stammered the guy.
"Shut up, I don't want to hear it. Which way did she go?"
"That way," said the man, pointing towards the direction of their parked cars.
"Let's go," Draco said to the others, shoving the man roughly out of the way. They started towards the cars, but Olivia stopped them.
"Guys, the cars are two miles away. Rose is fast, but there's no way she's all the way there yet. If she's only been gone for five minutes, then she's probably a little less than a mile away, now I know that none of us are that fast, so maybe we should catch a cab," she reasoned, looking around at them.
Draco immediately walked to the front of the building and whistled sharply, hailing a cab in no time.
"Hurry up!" he shouted at the others. When they were all in the cab, Liv told the driver which way to go and everyone sat back to looked out the window for Rose.
As they were approaching the cars, Harry shouted out, "There she is!" Everyone quickly turned to look out his window, just in time to see her collapse.
"Rose!," they all shouted at once. The startled taxi driver stopped the car and they all got out and ran towards Rose. Draco was the first one to get there.
"What happened? She just collapsed!" he asked the others.
"She must've 'hit the wall.' That's when you run out of glucose as you are running and you just collapse," Hermione said. She sounded just like Rose did when she was stating facts.
"How could she have run out of glucose? We just ate a big meal at the Parthenon a little while ago!" Harry said, exasperated. Liv looked worried and a little bit suspicious, but she didn't say anything.
"Why are we just standing here?! Do something!" Draco shouted, looking panicked.
"Relax, mate, we'll have her awake in no time," Ron said, looking at Harry and Hermione for help.
"Of course, move out of the way you two. Enervate!" Hermione said, after checking for muggles.
Rose sat bolt upright.
"Where am I?! How did I get here?! Oh no! He isn't following is he?!" she said, moving her hands around in a flurry of confusion. She was causing a scene, so Draco caught her hands and pulled her up.
"Rose, stop, the muggles might hear! What are you talking about? Here, let's go to the cars and talk about it," Draco said, supporting Rose as she walked. Rose tried to shove him away.
"I can walk by myself!" She stumbled, and almost fell, but Draco caught her, and this time she let him help her, although she looked like she was sulking about it. When they got to the cars, Draco sat Rose down in the passenger seat, leaving the door open so everyone could talk to her.
"Rose, what happened?" Harry asked.
"Well, I was going outside and that guy attacked me," she said, tears dripping down her face. "It was just exactly like that horrible dream. Then, somehow a falcon swooped down and got him away from me, and I ran. I was feeling just fine, but all of a sudden I collapsed."
Draco wiped her tears away. "Uh, Rose, it might be a good time to tell you that you can communicate with animals," he said, waiting to see her reaction.
"I know, I had figured that out, but I thought it might seem crazy if I said it, so I didn't admit it to anyone."
"Rose, Hermione said that you must've hit the wall when you were running, but how could you have? We had just had a huge dinner before at the Parthenon, and I saw you eating. You couldn't have run out of glucose after that," Liv said, looking at Rose sternly.
"Liv, it's nothing, alright?" Rose replied, sounding almost menacing. She glared at Olivia, who glared right back, although she looked worried.
"Uh, do either of you want to give an explanation?" Harry asked, looking back and forth between the two.'
"No!" Rose said quickly, shooting a murderous glance at Liv.
"No," Liv said, but when Rose wasn't listening she told Harry that she'd tell them all later.
"Rose, you are in no condition to drive," Draco said, looking at her. There were bruises forming on her arms and her lip had blood on it.
"There's no way I'm leaving the car here," she replied stubbornly. Draco looked at the others desperately.
Liv replied, "Let me call Carolyn and Gabrielle, they'll come and pick it up."
"Hey you guys, I could drive it home no problem," said Matt as he came up to the car. "I noticed you leaving in a rush, so I caught a cab and had it follow you here. We got a little stuck in traffic, but I knew that you'd probably have parked your cars here anyways."
"Okay, Matt you can drive Draco and Rose home and I'll drive everyone else, ok?"
"Fine with me," he said, hopping in the driver's seat of the car. Rose handed him over the keys and Draco hopped into the back seat. They drove towards home, and Liv followed in the Firebird.
In Liv's car, she was telling them about why she though Rose fainted when she was running even though they had had a big meal right before.
"Well, you know how we all ate a really big meal? And you know how Rose went to the bathroom really quick before we left? Put two and two together," Liv said. He eyes were flashing with anger. "She's been through this before! She stopped for a while, maybe she's only doing it with really big meals now…"
"Wait, do you mean that Rose throws up her food after she eats? Merlin! That's terrible! Why would she do that?" Ron asked, shocked.
"Someone called her fat one time and she really took it to heart, I guess. For a while she was throwing up everything she ate, later I got her away from that, but I guess it's still a habit after really large meals."
"Is there anything we can do to help? I mean, that kind of thing can be really bad for you," Harry said.
"I'll try talking to her again. I doubt she'll listen, but I'll try."
Later that night, when they all arrived at the Potter Mansion again, Liv took Rose aside and tried to talk to her while Harry told Draco and Matt what was going on.
"Listen, Rose! You can't start doing this to yourself again! You're going to get hurt!" Liv said, trying hard to keep her attitude in check.
"Liv, I'm fine. I'm not going to get hurt, don't worry about it," Rose practically growled at her.
Liv threw her hands up in frustration and walked over to Harry, Draco, and Matt.
"Matt, you are going to have to get her off it, because she won't listen to me."
"Alright. She listened last time, hope I'm still lucky," he replied, a worried look on his face. He had been the one to finally break Rose of the habit last time, so hopefully he could do it again.
"Rose, please, not this again," he begged, looking her in the eyes.
"Matty, I'm ok. It was just one meal! It's nothing," she replied.
"It's not nothing! Rose, this kind of thing will seriously damage your voice, and we can't have a lead singer with cruddy vocals can we?" he said. Smiling slightly.
"No, I guess not. I promise I'll try really hard. Oh Matt I'm going to miss you so much while I'm at boarding school!"
"I know, and I'll miss you too, but you come back in the summers right? That's when most of our gigs are anyways."
"Yeah, definitely. Thanks, Matty. I'll miss you," Rose said, hugging him tightly.
"I'll miss you too, but see you in the summer ok? Don't worry, I'll keep the band practicing while you are gone," he said, hugging her back.
Finally, Matt and Liv left, and everyone went to bed. Draco lay staring up at his ceiling for a while, worrying about Rose. After Liv had told him about it, he couldn't believe that Rose would do something like that. She could really hurt herself with some thing like that. He was glad though, that they were going back to Hogwarts soon. His friends Crabbe and Goyle, would be there. They had never been involved in anything to do with Voldemort either. Neither of them were very smart, but they were very loyal. The Sorting Hat had wanted to put them both in Hufflepuff, but they insisted on Slytherin out of loyalty to Draco, who would've been in Ravenclaw, except he made sure he was put in Slytherin so that his father wouldn't get angry with him for not being in his House. Maybe Rose would be happier there, without all the pressures of living near muggles. With that one last comforting thought, Draco drifted off to sleep.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN ONLY BRING ONE PET?!" Rose screamed at her father the day of the trip to Hogwarts.
"Well it's not exactly as if you can bring the whole pet room with you now is it? You can only bring one pet with you, not including an owl," he replied calmly. He was quite used to the women in his family yelling, since Rose had a short temper and an attitude that matched her mother's.
"I don't have an owl! But what if I bring Rhiannon and Aspasia?"
"I don't know, Aspasia is pretty big, and she is a race hound remember. I guess you could bring Rhiannon as your owl carrier, since she is a smart bird after all, but Aspasia will need a lot of exercise and attention."
"I know, Dad. I've only taken care of her for the past two months. It would be fine! I could take her for walks between classes and such. Besides, she's a really good dog.," Rose argued.
"Well, I guess it's alright if she stays on her good behavior, but make sure Dumbledore is okay with it when you get there."
"Fine, but we should go, we're flooing to the Weasley house first right?"
"Yes, your mother and I have to go to work, but we'll see you off from here. In fact, you should be getting ready to leave right now."
"We're all ready, can we leave now?"
Everyone was waiting by the fireplace. They all made quick thank you's and goodbye's to the Potters and went by Floo to the Weasley house, Rose carrying Rhiannon's cage, and holding Aspasia's collar. Their luggage had already been brought over by apparation the previous week. There they found Ginny waiting for them.
"Hullo everybody! Well, we have a bit of a crisis. We don't know how to get to the station. Mum won't let Dad drive the car again like last time. She said he nearly ran over a nice old muggle woman, so we don't know what we're going to do," she said brightly.
"Where's Molly?" Rose asked. She loved her great aunt in-law, and she had the perfect solution to the problem.
When she found Mrs. Weasley, she told her that she'd be glad to drive. Mrs. Weasley looked skeptical at first, but after Rose showed her her driver's liscense, she smiled.
"Of course. This solves that problem. Well, we'd best be loading up! Fred, George! Come help put things in the car!" she said.
As soon as everyone had piled into the car, and Aspasia and Rhiannon apparated to the station by Mr. Weasley, Rose took off. They were at the station a short time later and were through the gate sitting in their compartment in no time with Aspasia and Rhiannon put with the rest of the animals that were to be taken up to the castle. Rose was sitting next to Draco, Ron next to Hermione, and Liv, who they had met at the station, next to Harry. Ginny had gone off into some other compartment, much to Ron's protest, since it had been filled with not only Ginny's friends, but some boys too. Ron had always been a little overprotective, and Ginny let him know so before she shooed him away.
They talked for a while, but a couple of hours later, Rose and Liv had fallen asleep. Rose's head lay on Draco's shoulder, and Liv was curled up against Harry. Ron and Hermione laughed gently at the two couples, exchanging knowing glances with each other.
"What are you two chuckling about?" Harry asked.
"You two are mad for them aren't you?" Ron asked back, making Harry and Draco look indignant.
"We are not!" they protested quietly, so as not to wake the girls.
"Honestly, boys, I can tell. You are completely crazy for those girls. Not that it's a bad thing at all, I quite like seeing other people fall in love," Hermione said, sounding factual.
"No we're not," they replied, sounding hesitant though. Draco was extremely fond of Rose, but did he love her? He couldn't answer that question. Harry thought the exact same thing to himself, and he couldn't answer it either.
"Oh be quiet. Alright, fine, change of subject. What do you think it's going to be like this year with most of the Slytherins gone. No offense of course Draco," Hermione said.
"None taken. I have no idea what it'll be like. You and Ron did a sound job of rounding them up, so a lot will be in Azkaban. The school will probably be nicer."
"Definitley, but I wonder if you'll have enough people for a decent Quidditch team?" Harry asked.
"I hope so, Quidditch has been a bore lately, but I expect it'll be back to normal now, like everything else huh?" Ron asked, yawning.
"Yeah. We should be getting to Hogwarts in an hour or so right?" Draco asked, directing the question at Hermione, who always knew those things.
"Yes, in fact, we should be changing into our robes by now."
"Alright, you two go ahead, we have to wake up the girls," Harry said. Ron and Hermione left, and Harry tapped Liv on the shoulder to try and wake her up, she . Draco had already woken up Rose like she had woken him when he was in the hospital. Harry smiled a bit.
"Could I have a little help with this perhaps?" Harry asked Rose. She was still smiling brightly, despite that she was blushing a little.
"Well, she doesn't wake up very easily. You can try almost anything and it won't wake her up, except for one thing. See watch, you can even try to pull her up and she won't notice," Rose said, trying to pull her up. Liv didn't budge.
"What you've got to do is tickle her. She'll wake up in a second, but watch out, because her fists will come flying too."
"I don't know, why don't you wake her up? I'm a little afraid of getting beat up, knowing Liv," Harry replied.
"Sure!" Rose immediately started tickling the life out of Liv, who kept trying to punch her. Rose was obviously used to this and easily dodged every attempt at a hit. Harry coughed a bit and the two girls stopped.
"We ought to get dressed, the train will be there in about an hour," he said. They all changed, and Rose was the last to get back. When she walked in, everyone started telling her about what to expect from different teachers.
The train had just pulled into the station, and they all got off. Hagrid was yelling for the first years, as usual, and everyone else went for the carriages. Draco, Rose, Liv, Harry, Hermione, and Ron approached a carriage. Suddenly, Rose gave a small squeak.
"What was that?" she asked, looking straight towards where everyone besides Liv and her could see the thestrals.
"You can see the thestrals?" Harry asked.
"No, I've read about them, but I can't see them. I think one just spoke to me," she said, looking a little bewildered.
"What did it say?" Draco asked curiously. Rose was actually quite good at talking to animals. She had gotten better over the past week, since she had been allowed to admit it.
"All it said was 'Welcome,'" she replied, climbing into the carriage. Everyone else climbed in too. Before she knew it, Rose was walking into the castle. She grabbed Draco's hand, looking a little afraid for the first time that day. Draco started a little at first, but he knew that she was nervous, and led her into the castle, where the former four House tables had been replaced by on huge table. The group of six now sat down and waited for Dumbledore to make his announcements.
