"So did you have a chance to listen to the record I sent you for your birthday Rose?" Mary asked Rose over Breakfast the next day.
"Queen wasn't it?" Rose asked sipping her tea. Marry grinned nodding,
"Yes, they were quite good." She admitted. "I do like the look of that guy Brian too."
Mary giggled,
"I like Roger; I think he's the best looking one." She blushed and smiled at her toast.
"I don't know, there is something about Brian I just can't place it." Rose shrugged. Lilly had, had an early breakfast and Marlene didn't like to eat that early so it was Rose, Mary and Diana that were sat together, although Diana was half asleep and looking over her cope of Fantastic Beasts.
"Di, are you alright? I wish you would eat something." Rose said to the blonde girl opposite her.
"I have Creatures first thing and Bowin said that we would be looking at Graphorns up close today and I need to know that there won't be a repeat of last year with the Pogrebin that bit me." She insisted.
Mary laughed a little,
"I had forgotten about that. It was really rather funny actually."
"No it wasn't!" Diana insisted tersely. Rose kept out of the budding argument and looked about the hall. The gossips had died down somewhat but she still got a few overly interested glances.
Theo sent her a smile and a nod to which Rose waved back.
"You okay?" He mouthed to her and she nodded returning to her pervious occupation of looking around the room. Eventually she found him and caught his eye.
Johnny looked up feeling someone's gaze on him, straight into the eyes of his favourite cousin. He beamed when she waved him over to sit with her.
"Look you can't prepare for every eventuality!" Mary insisted to Diana who shook her head vehemently.
Johnny arrived in the seat next to Rose in a flurry of new robes and a heavy book bag nearly falling onto the bench rather than sitting.
She chuckled at his enthusiasm especially when he flung himself at her.
"Hello to you too Johnny." Rose said muffled by the smaller body.
Johnny sniffled a little before letting her go.
"How is the blue house?" She asked quietly leaning into his space so as to look like they were plotting.
"It's alright, the prefects are really strict and I miss you. Although I am sharing a room with three really nice boys." Johnny said his grin as infectious as it was gappy.
"That's great. I miss you too sprout I wish you could have been with me so I could take care of you, but I can do that just fine where you are too." Rose grinned smoothing down his dirty blonde hair.
"Have you written to Aunt Lucinda yet? I got a letter from Mum this morning and something from Dad too but I've not opened it." Johnny pulled out a letter covered in muggle postage. It was addressed to the house back in Suffolk and had been battered but remained unopened.
"You can open it now if you like and I could read it. See if its anything nice first?" Rose offered. The boy looked pensive for a moment before handing his surrogate sister the letter.
Rose quickly gripped her knife and lanced open the envelope. She withdrew the paper and cast a glance over it.
Johnny waited patiently for her to tell him what it said but as she read further he could see from her face that it was nothing good.
"Well, I won't lie to you Sprout, it's not exactly very flattering to your mother but he doesn't say anything direct about you which could be classed as a good thing." Rose offered positively. Johnny shook his head and sighed holding out his little hand for the letter; Rose took the opportunity and playfully hit his hand with hers in imitation of a childlike game.
"I'll just burn it like Mum said to do with the others." His green eyes met hers sadly. "He is never going to be proud of me is he?"
Rose's heart broke just a little and she sucked in her bottom lip running her tongue over it.
"Well, I am proud of you and so are your mother and Aunt and Uncle and I know that grandma Fawley is very proud of you. What one Muggle man thinks isn't the end of the world Johnny, you should know this." She assured planting a kiss on his forehead. Johnny nodded.
He still looked really sad though so when Rose spotted Sirius, Remus, James and Peter heading towards her she flagged them down with a nod.
"Alright Rosemary? Who's this?" Sirius asked stopping by her side.
Rose smiled up at the taller boys ever so slightly batting her eyelashes,
"This is my cousin John Fawley." She introduced the younger boy shrinking slightly at the imposing sight of the four taller boys.
"Ah, yes! Wee Johnny Fawley, I've heard a lot about you." Sirius said crouching down. James took the seat next to the young boy.
"You probably don't remember but I used to come to your family's garden party each summer." James said nudging Johnny's side. Recognition bloomed on his face and he nodded excitedly,
"Yeah, you're Potter!" He said happy to be meeting someone that he knew in the school.
"So, I reckon that you're missing your family and you want to be cheered up." Remus summarised his hands resting in his trouser pockets as his shoulder slumped over slightly making himself look less threatening. Peter just fidgeted next to them clearly bored.
"No, it's not that." Johnny said shooting Rose a questioning look. She nodded in encouragement.
"My Dad's not very nice. Keeps sending me letters." He pointed to the letter the Rose was still holding.
Sirius took a quick look at the paper in Rose's hand and sighed.
"Well, I'll let you into a little secret." He said looking about them for overhearing peoples. "My family don't like me all that much either. In fact, they kicked me out. I'm staying at James' place." Johnny looked shocked at this revelation.
"Family isn't just who your blood is Johnny. It's also who you want in your life." Rose said soundly rubbing his left shoulder comfortingly.
"Exactly, now, where do you need to be?" Remus said and Johnny quickly pulled his schedule from his bag,
"Erm, Muggle Studies, third floor." Johnny answered.
"What a coincidence, I was headed that way myself." Remus smiled down at the younger boy. "Why don't I show you the way?" Johnny beamed up at the Gryffindor prefect and nodded quickly following after him waving goodbye to Rose.
"He's such a good man." Diana sighed. Rose and Mary shot her a look of surprise.
"Got a little crush there Jefferies?" Peter taunted merrily, Rose had forgotten that he was still stood behind them.
"Shut up Pettigrew. It's not like anyone has a crush on you!" She snapped. Blushing madly Diana scooped her things together and all but ran from the table.
Rose looked to the boys on her left,
"You know I think she just might." She said happily, it wasn't every day that you learnt something new about your good friend that you lived with.
"We should be going. Oh, word of warning, maybe you want to avoid the fourth floor main corridor, it's a little… how did you put it Pads?" James said standing from the bench once again,
"Swampy." Sirius said proudly pushing back his curly hair.
Rose laughed while Mary groaned.
"But I've got Muggle Studies NEWT up there now." She moaned. Rose laughed again,
"Why are you even taking that? You're muggle born!"
Mary shrugged,
"It's an easy grade. Can't afford to be too picky when good marks are on the table." Rose just laughed in reply as did the boys who all walked away to their next engagement.
As it transpired their next engagement was Herbology the same as Rose and Dorcas Meadows. Dorcas was possibly the only Slytherin that Rose could stand and that was because she was an all-round 'good egg'.
They clowned around together with their Venemous Tentacular cutting that they were raising and had a great time making joke about different plant names as swears.
At the end of the hour James caught up with Rose,
"Hey, so Quidditch try outs are going to be Thursday afternoon, I've booked the pitch out, we have to find a new seeker, two chasers and maybe see if we can replace Fitzpatrick as Keeper. You and Eógan are safe though as nobody signed up to try for your position.
"I don't know if that's a good thing or not?" Rose grimaced, she got on fine with Eógan but if there was someone better then they deserved a shot, this year they were all determined that Gryffindor would win the league.
"I think it is, clearly it's something that you two are excellent at and have everyone intimidated over." James countered, they headed from green house six back to the castle, Rose had a free period and intended to meet Remus in the library to have him go over the lesson of defence that she missed because their teacher was being an arse.
"Either way, it will be good to re-examine the team once more, see where we were going wrong last year." Rose shrugged; she looked back and saw Dorcas and Sirius flirting with each other. Dorcas was a horrendous flirt, the best bit was that she never intended to be, with the people she actually liked she couldn't summon a word.
"I know where the team was going wrong last year Rosemary," James said bitterly, "We had an egotistical captain who deemed himself the god of the pitch."
"He actually said that once." Rose said airily. James barked a laugh,
"He never did."
"Did too, you were in detention." Rose shot back as they reached the main building.
"What have you got now?" James asked accepting Rose's statement.
"Free period, I'm meeting Lilly and Remus in the Library going over that defence lesson again." Rose said pulling her bag higher up her shoulder.
"Alright, I'm in Arithmancy with Sirius now so, see you for lunch?" James said pointing to the other staircase that led to the east wing of the castle. Rose nodded and headed up the west staircase to the library on the second floor.
Remus and Lilly were whispering furiously together when Rose arrived, she hung back a bit in the amongst the dark shelves watching them. Something was clearly wrong but Rose wasn't close enough to hear.
"Just leave it." Remus hissed suddenly losing his temper. He looked over his shoulder spotting Rose and his expression changed. His expression schooled itself back to neutral and he turned back to his homework.
Confused Rose took the other chair at the table,
"Hiya Rose." Lilly said brightly, it was overly cheerful like she was masking something.
"Hello Lilly. If I am interrupting I can leave and come back in again?" She said raising her eyebrows.
"It's nothing. Remus is just lying." Lilly smiled at Rose. Remus rolled his eyes,
"I wasn't lying to you," He protested, "I was nowhere near the corridor this morning. The first I get there is when I took Rose's cousin to his muggle studies class."
"But I told you Rose doesn't have a cousin at Hogwarts." Lilly insisted. Rose smirked to herself.
"I do actually." She said quietly. Remus gestured to her, his right hand splayed open to the ceiling, his face all but screaming at Lilly, 'I told you so.'
Lilly pursed her lips and tossed her dark red hair over her shoulder,
"Still doesn't mean that you aren't involved." Lilly groused.
"Yes it does." Remus laughingly growled. Lilly was stubborn and it was infuriating at times, even a boy like Remus who very rarely seemed to lose his temper could get annoyed at her.
Rose smiled to herself at their friendly bickering, she pulled out her defence text book and the notes that Lilly had made and began to read them.
"This isn't actually teaching us anything." Rose declared after a few minutes of reading the notes over, Lilly's penmanship with a quill had definitely improved from first year as the parchment was no longer covered in splodges of ink.
"Not really, I think he was just trying to terrify us so that we would listen for the rest of the year." Lilly said with a grimace.
"What I did find interesting in that lesson was Sirius' reaction to Augustine. I wouldn't be surprised if today he does something," Remus said with a small smile. He was trying to grow a moustache but at the moment it had yet to fill in and was merely a darkening of his top lip.
"What do you mean?" Rose demanded.
"Well, the swamp was targeted before Augustine's office." Remus shrugged looking over his notes and copying the most important titbits onto a flash card.
Rose frowned.
"So, he and James said they would put a hit out on him for making me stand the full hour. It's got nothing to do with Sirius in particular."
Remus nodded with an unconvinced face.
"Remus?" Lilly demanded, "What aren't you telling us?"
"Nothing." Remus said airily not looking up from his flash card.
"Does Black like Rose?" Lilly frowned looking from Rose to Remus.
"I couldn't say." He said calmly.
Rose frowned at the shelves around them. James and Sirius were some of her oldest friends, sure she wasn't really friends with Sirius until she hung around with him more last year, the boys had had some kind of falling out and she had been the one in almost all of his classes that he sort of knew so he hung round her until she didn't find him annoying anymore.
But to think that he liked her as more than a friend was concerning. She wasn't looking for a steady date, far from it she wanted the fun of messing around but too many relationships that she knew of blossoming in high school ended in disaster. Her sisters for one.
Victoria Merrick was the toast of Hufflepuff at one point but then she started to date a Slytherin called Peake and he broke up with her just before the summer of their last year. It left a stain on the year for Victoria as she was all ready to move on with her life with him.
"I hope not." Rose muttered under her breath.
Days past calmly as the rest of the school settled into the routine of the new school year. Eventually Rose found herself on the quidditch pitch again but this time with much better circumstances. These unfortunately were not mirrored by the weather.
Sleet pelted Rose in the face as she stood next to Eógan and James as the new recruits struggled to stay upright under the force of the rain.
"Right." James bellowed over the wind. "We are going to see how you all fly and then go from there."
Rose shook her head. There was no way that they had heard that. She fished out her wand placing it to her neck and then spoke as she would normally.
"We are going to see how you fly and go from there. Everyone in to the air." Her voice magically enhanced cleared the blustering wind and finally everyone knew what they were doing. James looked back at her and grinned throwing both of his thumbs up.
"Thanks!" He tried to shout over the wind.
Rose mimed cutting her neck and James waved her off mounting her broom.
There were some that weren't half bad and others that couldn't fly for toffee. Unfortunately the ones that couldn't fly for toffee were the ones that were trying evidently to impress her. Heaven only knows why.
James landed next to Rose and Eógan on the pitch. The try outs had gone on for longer than they expected and it was nearing dark now.
"Well that didn't go half bad. Think we may have a good team there." James said brightly pulling off his goggles and striding into the castle confidently.
Rose laughed and followed behind him at a more sedate pace.
Eógan cleared his throat behind her.
"Rose. We have been playing together for a good few years now." He began,
"Oh at least." Rose nodded.
"Well, I was wondering. Would you be able to get me a date with your friend?" He continued.
Rose frowned,
"And just who might that be? I have a fair few friends." She said seeking clarification.
Eógan paled,
"Well, McKinnon." He fumbled; he stood before her clearly a bundle of nerves playing with a knot on the wood of his broomstick.
"Oh, she's never mentioned a guy she liked before so I guess there is no harm in trying." Rose shrugged and smiled.
Marlene had never mentioned a boy before because unbeknownst to all of her friends she was not interested in boys. She was however very interested in a certain curly dark haired girl with pale skin that was, to Marlene's mind, brought out by the green lined robes that she wore on a day to day basis.
Eógan and Rose bantered happily back to the common room. Rose was extremely happy that she had a double free period on Friday morning and that it would be filled with taking an ever so slightly illegal trip to the forgotten prefects bathroom on the ninth floor so as to let her muscles relax after a training session such as the one they did that night.
It was late. Rose knew it was but she was still awake. She should not have been awake, not after the try outs and the end of the first week back. But here she was lying in her pastel pink lacy pyjamas staring at the canopy above her head as sleep completely eluded her. Rose was tired, yes, she knew that, but sleep refused to arrive.
Frustrated she threw her covers off and jammed her feet into her slippers and marched downstairs to quietly stretch herself into a relaxed enough state that she could then hope for sleep in.
"Black?" Rose reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped short. Sirius was facing the fire, his long fingers pushed through his glossy curly mane, as he sat on the sofa hunched over, the elbow of the hand in his hair propped on his knee.
He looked round sharply at the interruption.
"Oh it's you." He said thickly. He had been crying. He returned to look at the letter in his hand. It was several pages long and covered in thick squat text.
"Are you alright?" Rose asked stepping closer to him.
Sirius sniffed,
"Yeah, I'm fine. Absolutely." He lied.
Rose's brow pinched and she strode forward to the sofa. She didn't say anything she just held out her hand.
Sirius saw the long fingers and manicured nails of her right hand and placed the letter into it.
Rose read it quickly.
Sirius.
You should know that you have disappointed us deeply. Not only have you betrayed the family you belong to but you have sullied the good name of your ancestors by allying yourself with the scum that is in that school.
We are ashamed of you. You could have been so much more. We gave you everything and this is how you betray us? By cavorting with blood traitors and mudbloods. Never mind the muggle that you paraded through our home.
We see no other option than to strike you from the family, You should be aware that this was a painful decision to make and that should you with to return then you will not be welcome. Do not darken our door again. You will receive no inheritance and no property that resides within this house even if you should see the error of your ways you will no longer be allowed to be a part of this family.
This we do for your brother. You are a bad influence on him and as such you are not to speak to him, look at him or try to contact him in any way, you are not to approach him in the corridors of the hallowed halls that you now inhabit.
Regulus had been instructed to not engage with you.
See the over leaf for the signed documents of disinheritance.
Orion Black. Your Father
It hit Rose then. It was real, while she knew that he was staying at the Potters over the summer this meant that his family had fully shit the door on him never to return.
"I didn't think they would take Reg." Sirius sniffed. Rose set her hand on his shoulder sitting beside him, "He's my baby brother; I thought I would still have him left, could help him see that their poison was just that."
His grey eyes met her hazel and filled up with unshed tears.
"I'm all alone now." He whispered looking back at the floor, a tear dripping off his nose.
Rose took a deep breath,
"One of the best things about being all on your own is that you can create. Create a better world, a better family. If you ever become a father you can show Orion that you are worth something, by being warm and open. My cousin once told me a fantastic piece of advice. All a child needs is love, a grown-up to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land. If you can provide that then you will be miles better than him."
"Your cousin is eleven." Sirius scoffed sniffing again. Rose smiled,
"I have more than one cousin. These are older, my fathers' side." She explained. Sirius looked into her eyes again,
"Why couldn't you be my family?" He wondered aloud.
Rose blushed,
"I don't think you would want me as your family Sirius, I'm afraid I'd not be any good." She said softly.
He gave her a long hard look as if he was memorising her face. Perhaps he was, Rose had no idea half the time what was going on behind those sparkling eyes of his.
"I didn't get to say goodbye to him." Sirius blurted, he hadn't spoken to anyone about the night he turned up at the Potters dripping wet from the rain and covered in more than a few bruises.
"You don't have to tell me." Rose said softly. He let his head go and turned to her then, she reached forward and pushed a stray lock out of his eyes gently.
Sirius caught her wrist.
"I want to. I need to tell someone, it might as well be you." He said lowering her wrist but catching her hand.
"Alright." Rose nodded, "What started it?"
"I had packed up everything. It was just a feeling, but that night before dinner I packed as much of my room into my trunk as I could and then headed to dinner. I began like all the rest, you know, Regulus is doing fantastically with his good pure blood friends. Why can't you be more like him?" Sirius whipped his nose on the back of his hand.
Rose nodded sympathetically,
"Then I made a, what I thought playful, jibe about his role as the Seeker for the house and Reg laughed. They didn't. Said that I should try to get on the team because at least then I would have something to distinguish myself from the filth that I surround myself with, said that the next thing I would be doing is cavorting with Werewolves, Goblins and other such lesser creatures. I snapped, said; why would it be so bad if I did?" Sirius leant back on the sofa still keeping a hold of Rose's left hand. "It escalated from there, next thing I know my mum is flinging curses while I'm running out the door my case flying after me."
Rose couldn't imagine a fight so bad that it broke her family like that. This must have been building for years.
"When I went back on the 29th for my other things Reg and my father were out at a family visit but I thought my mother was going with them, she came back early and you saw the result of that."
"You are lucky to have gotten out when you did." Rose whispered. She looked into the dying embers of the fire and bit back tears.
"Oh yeah, I am so lucky to be disinherited from my family without even so much as a goodbye to the only member that I actually liked." Sirius shot back, his tone held no malice in it but it stung all the same.
"Think of it that you are free now." Rose said comfortingly, "Who are they going to write to about your detentions? Your mother? I would like to see that."
"Probably James' mum." Sirius answered sadly.
Rose was running out of options, he was usually the one that cheered her up.
"Well, if you really want then I could be your family." She squeezed his hand in what she hoped was a supportive gesture.
He looked at her then, his head tilting to the right to take her in, in the partial moonlight.
"Now I can't promise you I will be any good. Marlene told me today that if she had to describe me she would say that I was Pastel Pink made into a person so, if you want I can try. But I can't make any promises as to how good I will be."
"Will you always be there? Person to turn to when Prongs and Lilly finally shack up?" Sirius asked,
"Yes, I'll be your safety net." Rose said with a tight smile. Sirius slowly leant towards her coming to a stop with his head resting partially on her upper breast and partially on her shoulder.
Rose slung her arms around him and held his teenage body to her tightly.
"I've got you. There are two of us now." She whispered. Sirius just sniffed in response.
True to form Rose's parents sent the first of their care packages on the fourteenth of September. It was as it always was a large basket filled with perfume, sweets, cakes, fiction books, hair care products as well as extra parchment and quills.
"Blimey, how much do your parents put in these things?" Marlene asked shocked at the contents the Tuesday morning that it arrived. Rose just smiled and made a pile of duplicates and things she thought Sirius would like.
Interestingly he had stuck to their agreement to treat each other like family, should she express a dislike of someone or if they were annoying her she would vent her feelings to Sirius and then the next day they would become the target of a prank or two.
In return Rose had taken to slightly mothering him, asking if he had enough quills and parchment, if he had done his homework and reminding him of his detentions that she kept a track of in her planner.
"Not that much." Rose said to Marlene taking back the bottle of sleakeasy's hair potion that she did not need but they always put in, in case she needed to lend some out.
"Who's all that for?" Lilly asked as she watched Rose take some of the pink lining and enchant it to perfectly wrap all of the bottles and sweets.
"Not for you." Rose replied sweetly. She scooped up her treasures and quickly ran off back to the common room leaving her friends behind to wonder.
Rose hated that Sirius didn't get anything anymore so she had asked her mother in her most recent letter to send a little more in the care package. Her mother hadn't questioned it but had just done as she asked.
She stashed the basket under her bed in the dorms and thinking that everyone was at breakfast stole over to the boy's dorms.
Sirius was late. It was the second week back and he was late. The boys had tried to wake him up but he just wasn't feeling it. So now here he was his shirt buttoned up wrong as he tried to pull his braces up over his shirt, his toothbrush hanging from his mouth while he tried to pull his jumper over his head all at once.
"Oh." He heard a squeak.
"What now Pete? I already told you I was running late." Sirius tried to say around his foamy toothbrush.
"I'm not Peter. I'll come back later." Rose.
Sirius threw the jumper off his head to his bed and seized the brush from his mouth.
"Wait."
Rose froze, her back was to him and slowly turned back to face him. She was holding a little cloth wrapped parcel in both of her hands, it was tied at the top with a scrap of white lace.
"What's that?" He demanded gesturing with his brush to the pink bundle in her hands.
She smiled and held it out.
"Family care package." She announced.
Sirius smirked, threw his tooth brush back in his mouth and stepped forward taking it from her hands.
She clucked her tongue at him and reached for his buttons sorting him out as he opened the parcel.
Chocolate frogs, Bertie Botts Beans, Feature sweets, hair potion and anti-burn cream.
"All this for me?" Sirius asked cockily watching her fix his disordered buttons.
"Well, you are now family, so yes." Rose said blushing refusing to look into his eyes.
"Thank you." He said emotion colouring his voice.
"Oh hush," Rose said briskly, "Hurry up now or you really will be late, it's nearly nine as it is."
"Oh yea, we have Augustine first don't we. Your favourite." He japed. Rose pursed her lips and stood back from him.
"Yes, and I have no desire to have a repeat of his and my first encounter." She said picking up Sirius' robes.
He followed her hopping as he put his shoes on and then his jumper. He followed her out into the corridor as he slung his tie round his neck.
"Mr Black." Professor McGonagall greeted the pair. "Miss Merrick."
"Minny!" Sirius replied brightly,
Rose sucked in her lips to avoid smiling.
"Why are you half dressed in the corridor?" she glanced at her watch, "At five to nine."
"Well you see Professor, I overslept and as Rosemary has so wonderfully taken to calling me family she came to shivy me along, you know?" Sirius explained with his typical shit eating grin.
"I see. Well, you had best hurry along now then." McGonagall pursed her lips, her eyes bright with mirth.
Rose grinned at her and took hold of her friends elbow before he could say anything else and dragged them off to the appropriate class room.
"Non-verbal spells." Augustine announced when everyone had taken their seats.
"Today, you will be completing Non-verbal spells. This is important because… Mr Potter?"
"If you are in the heat of battle to announce your spell is a bad tactical decision." James answered his tone said he was bored but his eyes said otherwise.
Rose steeled herself, this was going to be interesting.
"This is bad because… Black?" Augustine gestured to Sirius near to the front. Sirius looked back to Rose and Remus and winked.
"Because it would give the other party time to prepare a counter." He said his head lolling back, "But Sir?"
Augustine paused, his mouth open to continue his speech. He returned his gaze to Sirius.
"Yes?"
"What if your opponent is a legimens? Then the element of surprise would be lost." Sirius said, rocking back in his chair,
"And?" Augustine prompted not knowing yet that Sirius was attempting to achieve the thing that all sixteen year olds do when they are in a lesson that they do not particularly want to learn anything in, distract the teacher enough that they begin to talk about their personal lives and then sit back and relax as you learn absolutely nothing.
Remus breathed a laugh into his fist where it rested against his smirking mouth while he watched.
"Well, have you ever battled a legimens, sir?" He prompted.
Augustine fell for it. Hook, line and sinker.
"Yes I have actually, during the height of Grindlewald when I was fresh to the office. I was caught in a dual; I believe it was in Berlin." And off he went filling the hour with old war stories about catching dark wizards and keeping the populous free from dangerous things.