Chapter 7: There are all Kinds of Pain

Albus

Homework seemed to pile up unceasingly at Hogwarts. That's how Albus saw it at least. The workload actually didn't pile up to much, but he left it until the weeekend to do. So that's what he was doing that Sunday afternoon. Homework.

It was harder that day, as he was sitting alone in the common room. Scorpius had wandered off on is own and Rose was out for a walk on the grounds.

Albus shook his head. He couldn't daydream now. Not when there was homework to be done. He had just picked up his quill again when-

"Augh!" Albus leapt up. What was that? It came to him in a flash. Rose! What had happened?

He was out of the room and down the hall before you could say Transfiguration. He practically flew out of the castle with the rest of the student body at his heels.

Then he saw her. "Rose!" He gasped. She didn't look like the Rose he knew.

His cousin Rose was constantly talking and bubbly. The Rose he saw now was lying quite still on the ground, her eyes closed. She was breathing shallowly and was covered in various gashes and bruises.

Professor McGonagall and Hagrid reached him then and Professor McGonagall gave a loud, audible gasp of horror.

"Oh my! Hagrid, do you think you could take Miss Weasley to the hospital wing? Miss Blackburn, would you please run ahead and tell Madam Pomfrey? Mr. Potter come with me. The rest of you, back inside!"

Albus stood up slowly, unaware of his doing so. But there was ine thing he was sure of. When Professor McGonagall placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, her hand was shaking.

*

"Rose!" Her parents had just arrived and Albus couldn't blame them for thier shock. Rose didn't look much like herself. Albus couldn't quite get over it either. He and Scorpius had been sitting miserably beside Rose's bed for the past few hours, not speaking.

Rose hadn't stirred once yet.

Albus stood, and he felt his muscles strain from sitting for so long. He slowly slipped his arm around his aunt, who was quite near tears.

"Who would do such a thing?" She sobbed, voicing the question that had Albus himself had voiced so many times already that day.

Albus shrugged and turned around, not wanting to look at poor Rose any longer.

Scorpius was looking incredibly uncomfortable, as if he was intrudin in on something very private.

"Do you want to go for a bit?" Albus whispered. A grateful Scorpius rose from his chair stiffly and the two boys trudged out of the hospital wing. A harried figure brushed past them, and at the recognition, both parties stopped. "Dad?" Albus asked incrediously.

Scorpius raced like a rabbit down the hall as father and son embraced.

"Who was that?" Harry Potter asked his son. Albus started to ponder and answer, but he didn't seem to need one. "Where is Rose? Is she awake? Were you with her? Did you get hurt?"

Without waiting for any answers, Harry strode quickly into the hospital wing.

"See you later Dad," Albus called feebly. As much as he wanted to be with his father, he couldn't go back to that lonely room.

*

"Potter! Malfoy! Pay attention!"

Albus shook his head. Was someone talking to him? Oh, dear. Someone was, and that someone didn't look too happy. Professor Sugarbush, the DADA teacher, was standing in front of him, an angry glare in her eye.

"I expect you to listen to my lectures, not daydream," she snapped. With that she wheeled around and marched back to the front of the room to resume her speech on Dark Creatures.

Albus tried to pay attention, really he did. But there was so much on his mind right now, that even talk of Lethifolds and Chimeras couldn't stay on his mind.

His father had left that morning, after a friendly chat. Aunt Hermione and Uncle ROn were staying at the castle and Rose was no better.

Then there was his excitement for the Halloween feast, but it was somewhat downplayed by his concern for his cousin. He could only assume that Scorpius was sharing the same thoughts.

"Ring!" The bell signalling the end of class cut through Professor Sugarbush's droning speech; welcomed by all of the students.

Albus and Scorpius raced as fast as they could down to the hospital wing to see Rose. She looked better, but she still wasn't awake. Madam Pomfrey said that Rose had moved a bit during the night, which apparently was major progress.

The nurse appeared beside them , with several potion bottles in her arms.

"Out! She needs plenty of rest and quiet."

"Gosh," Albus whispered to Scorpius. "I thought she was getting plenty of that."

Scorpius snickered at that annd Madam Pomfrey looked disapprovingly at them.

As they slunk up to Gryffindor Tower, Albus remembered something. "What was that all important errand you had to do the morning Rose was attacked?"

"Pumpkin pie," Scorpius announced. Albus was incredilous. "You had to get a pie?"

"No. It's the new password."

Albus turned red. He had indeed forgotten the latest password change. "So if you weren't eating a pie..."

"I was talking to Professor Longbottom about my stuff."

Albus rolled his eyes, thinking of the jumble of knick-knacks that were cluttering up the dormitory.

Just then, a bright eyed girl from thier year bounced up to them. Albus recognized her as Ivy Blackburn, one of Rose's sort of friends.

Ivy hopped all around them, looking very much like she had chugged a bottle of Pepperup Potion. "She just said, I mean I just found out, I mean I should have straight away, but I didn't know who to come to first and it's just so exciting and-"

"What?" Scorpius asked. Albus wasn't quite sure what was going on either. "COuld you just tell us?"

Ivy took a deep breath. "Rose is awake!"

Without a second thought, the boys raced out of the common room, eager to her Rose's tale. They found her sitting up in her starched white bed, looking peaky but happy.

"Tell us everything," Albus said. And Rose began her story.