Max sat on the warm Gryffindor sofa in front of the blazing fireplace later in the evening after having just finished studying with his friend, Rose. She was currently sitting on the floor by his feet very bravely letting him French braid her red curly hair.
"Do you think Al and Scor are acting weird?"
"Yep," he muttered, trying to focus.
"What do you think it is?" she asked.
"I don't think it's anything," he replied. He didn't think because he knew what it was.
"I don't know Max," she said thoughtfully. "I just have the feeling that Al's hiding something from me, but that can't be true because Al tells me everything."
Max felt a guilty tug at his stomach. The amount of trust Rose put in people was incredible to him, a boy who doesn't trust anyone. If we're being honest, not even Rose.
"He's growing up, Rosie," Max decided to say while trying to get his hand untangled from her hair. "There will be things you'll feel like he's hiding and there probably are."
"I don't like it," she muttered.
"I told you," Max smirked. "You're-"
"I'm not a control freak!" she interrupted angrily.
"I was going to say you were worried about him," Max raised his eyebrows.
"Oh…"
He tied off the end of her braid and patted her on the shoulder.
"All done."
Rose brushed the braid with her hand and seemed impressed.
"When did you learn to braid like that?" she asked.
"Micah taught me," Max replied taking his Astronomy homework and copying down the long since remembered names of stars and moons. Micah was Max's extremely crafty roommate.
Rose sat with her knees to her chest staring into the fire. Max looked over his paper at her and sighed.
"Leave them be," he said. "If they want to keep secrets then let them."
Rose didn't respond.
"What alloy is used when self-replicating heated Progs?" Max asked, though, already knowing the answer.
Rose looked up excitedly. "Manipulic," she replied. "Do you need help?"
"I could use another brain, yeah," said Max scooching over to make room on the couch for her. She hopped on the sofa beside him and started shuffling through his books, already with one of his quills in her mouth as she always absentmindedly did.
Max didn't actually need help; he was a clever boy with a wide attention span and could manage on his own. He knew, however, that she needed to be distracted. It was dangerous when Rose fell into thought or when she shut up. She never stopped talking usually. So, when she was silent for a long period of time, she was thinking about things that ought not to be pondered on, Belladonna Drury, for example.
He knew that everything that had happened last year had been his fault, despite Rose's constant reassurance that it wasn't. He had been stupid and headstrong. Rose had been a good friend and, because of him, was swept along to meet his mother… his mother. The word made him sick, the; word had no meaning. Mother? It typically comes with a sense of comfort for the children who hadn't been abused and used. For Max, though, he had been the unfortunate son of a lunatic. The word mother sparked fear and anger. He had a brother, his name was Will. Will was smart, he was energetic, he was level-headed and protective. Max had been a twin and had been six when it happened. Protective Will, always getting in fights to defend Max. The other boys in school would tease him for being a metamorphmagus. Max couldn't yet control his hair which was often changing colors. The other children would call him 'Magus' which meant 'sorcerer' to any other wizard, but when said to a metamorphmagus, it was an insult equivalent to being called mudblood. It meant animal, not human, unintelligent, unsophisticated, low-life.
"You misspelled this."
Max was thrown from his thoughts as Rose shoved his paper under his nose. He considered her pretty, freckly face. Worry showed apparent in her chocolate brown eyes. He knew she was trying to break his thoughts too. Something had changed between them since last year. Their relationship was less fun and more mature. Max agreed that this was his fault too. He had kept secrets last year about his past, about where he came from and about Will. He was treated like the cool and confidant individual that he pretended to be. But there were no hiding secrets from Rose, at least not for long. She pressed him, and he divulged. Since that day, he was no longer treated as Max, but to his friends, he was the poor chap whose mother kidnapped his brother and abused him, using him as a tool. He regretted that day.
"It's about time, Max," said Rose peering down at her watch.
"For what?" he asked, blinking out of thought again.
"Astronomy," she replied obviously.
His face split into a grin. He had nearly forgotten. Every other night he would take his three friends to the roof to tutor them in Astronomy, being the only decent stargazer among the four. Rose split for her dormitory to fetch her broomstick. Max stared at the orange flames of the fire for a moment. They were mesmerizing, but not in a warm welcoming way. Suddenly, they flickered green and shot out of the fireplace toward him; Rose's piercing scream of pain was deafening and seemed to be coming from within the flame. Max jumped so hard that he knocked over his ink bottle which spilled over his potions book. With a 'whoosh' sound the flames subsided back to where they belonged and flickered a pleasant orange once again. Max held his chest gasping. Was that in his head? Nobody else in the common room seemed to have noticed anything except for Hugo who crawled over from the floor, picked up the tipped ink bottle and slipped a muggle ink pen into Max's clenched fist.
"Are you alright?" Rose asked having just emerged from the boy's staircase with his telescope under her arm and looking confusedly at him.
"You know I'm not," he replied, not having to lie, she knew it was true.
Rose put on a fixed smile. "We'll be fine," she said grabbing his tie and pulling him up from the couch. Max didn't think she had meant to say we'll.
They mounted the broom together and jumped from the tower window. Hugo, Calvert, and Micah didn't even glance over; they had been all to use to them sneaking out now that Max and Rose didn't really even have to sneak.
Astronomy lessons on the roof were very dangerous. Not just because they could get caught, but because there was only one area on the sloping castle roof that was flat, and that was the divide between two pointed towers; they pretty much studied in a gutter. Max kicked the debris from the roof along with the rats that had somehow made it up. Rose leaned casually against the sloping tiled roof behind her as Max unfolded and set up his telescope. She had tried to help at one point but never could get it right and nearly always snapped something off. Luckily, Max was handy and could always fix what she had broken.
"They're late," said Rose considering her watch and peering over at the lake where she knew their dormitory was located beneath.
Max was staring at the lake too but was not looking for his friends.
"We'll warm up while we wait," said Max. "Find me, Titan." He spun the lens toward Rose who peered through intently.
Max knew that she hated Astronomy and hardly ever found what she was searching for, mostly because she was peering at the wrong side of the universe. He appreciated her effort though. Rose pushed her bangs from her face irritably and rubbed at the lens with her sleeve. Max stared at her for a moment. He didn't understand why she was his friend, especially after all he had put her through. He almost got her killed, yet, she was trying to pretend as though that had never happened. He had tried to be a bit more distant from her at first, for her befit of course. She hadn't taken kindly to that and had given him a talking to in the middle of the common room at rush hour. He didn't understand. Max stared then turned away from Rose to peer down into the lake. He was sure that Scorpius and Al were down there and had a feeling that they wouldn't be joining them for Astronomy.
Max woke the next morning on the common room couch. Hugo had left his muggle club welcoming cupcakes on the table and Rose and Max had stayed up to eat them. As usual, he sat up with an aching back and a stiff neck. He groaned when hoisting his book bag onto his shoulder but Rose happily got up and carried hers. She was never soar, mostly because she used his shoulder, lap, stomach, or chest as a pillow and was always shifting to be comfortable during the night waking him every time. He was pleased to find that his braid had lasted the night, allowing them to head straight from the common room toward breakfast rather than him having to wait for her to wrestle with the knots.
Max couldn't decide whether he was surprised or not to find the absence of Scorpius and Al at the Gryffindor or Slytherin table. Rose was surprised and became overcome with worry.
"I swear, I'm going down there!" she barked, standing up from the table and taking two strides toward the pass for the dungeons.
Max reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.
"Leave them be, Rosie," he pleaded on his other two friends' behalf.
She shot a warning look at him.
"They don't show up for Astronomy without telling us, and then they don't even come down for breakfast? Al loves food!"
Max raised his eyebrows at her. Her warning look faded, and she sighed.
"Look," Max started. "They are free boys who can do as they please. You may not like it, but I know you don't want to be that overly protective cousin who is always in their business, nagging them to no end, and spoiling their fun. If you take the route you're trying, you're going to end up being just that."
She scowled, not at Max, but seemingly at herself. Reluctantly, she sat back at the breakfast table without a word.
"Awe, Madame," James spoke up in a French accent so bad that Dominique turned her nose up to him. "Our little boy iz growing up."
Max slid a bowl of cherries across the table toward her knowing that they were her favorite. She didn't eat a bite. The worst thing about being Rose's friend is that when she was in a mad mood, she had to be sure that you were too.
Classes that day were mildly interesting. The same old things with a couple new tips. The same smelly potions with even more disgusting ingredients that needed to be dissected in addition to chopped, stirred, and later tried. Transfiguration was terrible and came with a couple more injuries. He and Rose were sent to the hospital wing because Max had somehow transfigured his own arm into a tentacle and Rose had been knocked out of her chair as it whipped around. They both laid in the hospital beds now. Max glanced over at Rose asleep on the cot beside him. Her face showed a painful red welt; he felt horrible. Max took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling above him. Something caught ears and broke his attention from the piece of lent shaped like a bee hovering above him. He heard footsteps drawing nearer and the familiar voices of Al and Scorpius were growing louder. Max was sure that they had heard about Rose and him being in the hospital wing and were coming to visit as they usually did in the many times Max ended up here.
He stood up from bed, dragging his half-shrunk tentacle arm behind him. He had to meet his friends outside to tell them to keep their voices down. Al had a habit of bursting into any room booming and shouting, and Max knew that Rose wouldn't be pleased to be woken up that way. He had a fight with his tentacle arm which was trying to grab the doorknob. He supposed that this small delay was a good thing. Otherwise, he would have missed the not so private conversation that took place just outside the hospital doors.
"Are we telling him?" Max heard Scorpius whisper.
"No," Al replied.
"But he already knows something's up. He hasn't told Rose anything yet, and your lack of lying experience is sure to give the whole thing away anyway. Are we keeping Max in the dark know too?" Scorpius muttered
"We have to," Al replied.
"I don't like it," said Scor thoughtfully.
"I don't like it either," said Al. "But something like this? This big? There's no way he'll keep it a secret; he and Rose are too close of friends; he'll feel too conflicted."
Max furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and curiosity.
"Why hide it from Rose now?" Scor asked. "She's bound to find out anyway. One lie will lead to more until we've dug ourselves into a whole too deep to climb from. Rose will be at the top, knowing everything and unwilling to help us up!"
"No metaphors please," Al said in a tone that was sure to have been followed by the rolling of his green eyes. "You remember her threats about tattle tailing to the teachers about Max's ransom last year?" Max scowled for a moment. He remembered how annoying it had been when trying to keep a secret. "She's bound to tell the teachers, you know, for our own good," Al mocked.
"I never really pinned her as a tattle tale," said Scor. "She can't be if she's friends with us."
"You didn't grow up with her."
Max pressed his ear to the door and listened harder as a silence followed Al's words.
"It feels wrong," Scorpius said.
"It is wrong," Albus agreed, half laughing. "There is so many things about this that it wrong. Kemp, if Professor Kemp found out even, we'd be in for it. We can't tell anyone. Not Neville, Professor Dalbert, Rose, or Max."
"But we're not doing anything wrong," Scorpius argued.
Max could almost hear the look Al was giving his friend.
"If we go through with this, then we will be. Expulsion, possibly Azkaban."
"We're not going to be sent to prison for this," Scor said.
"We'd be charged for kidnap and experimentation," Al whispered still more, and Max was having difficulty understanding.
"But it's the one who-" Scorpius barked in fear, but Al interrupted.
"She's not an 'it'!" he barked back. "And it won't matter, they can't very well lock her up in Azkaban, can they?"
"We're mad, aren't we?" Scorpius sighed.
"We always were. Come on."
Max knew this was his cue to run away. He tried to sprint in his socks and slid across the smooth floor toward his bed. With one fluid motion, he was in his bed and under the covers again.
Al and Scorpius waltzed in, and if he hadn't just heard their conversation, you would never be able to tell that they were hiding anything.
Max couldn't decide how to respond. Should he admit that he had heard everything and force them, to tell the truth? Or should he wait until the perfect moment to give them a burn? Or should he let them get on with whatever they were hiding and take a bit of his own advice to Rose about letting them grow up and be free?
"Oh God," Scorpius exclaimed, covering his mouth and pointing at Max's arm as though he didn't realize there was anything peculiar about it.
"It's healing," Max sighed, still not looking away from the boys.
He decided to probe. "So, you weren't at Astronomy last night," he said.
"Yeah," Scorpius shrugged convincingly. "Filtch decided to camp out in the dungeon corridor; we couldn't sneak out."
Max nodded slowly. "And breakfast?"
"Al wasn't feeling well, so I took an excuse and we both slept in," Scor assured him.
If he didn't know any better, he would have believed Scorpius.
He decided to press. "Did you find anything last night?" he whispered. "About the beast?"
Max noticed Al open his mouth to reply, but Scorpius discreetly tugged on Al's robes to tell him to shut up. Unfortunately for them, Max was watching for something like that.
"No," Scor said. "It didn't come back last night."
"Do you think it ever will?" Max asked.
Al was starting to have difficulty hiding the small beads of sweat that appeared when he was nervous. Max glared and opened his mouth to confess that he had heard it all. Until his purple eyes met Scorpius' steel gray ones. They stared pleadingly back at him, and Max felt a twinge of guilt. This boy had been the only of his friends who had tried to allow Max's secrets to remain as such. The only one who had pressed his friends to give Max his privacy. This beast was half Scorpius' secret, and for now, at least, Max decided to repay the kindness and to shut up about it.
"It's probably best not to chat about it when you-know-who is in the room," Al said gesturing toward Rose.
"I wouldn't call her that," Scorpius advised with raised eyebrows.
"You know what I mean."
Rose woke, and they spent the time it took to shrink the rest of Max's arm to its original size to eat dinner and get caught up on homework. She had a go at them too. Rose questioned their absence at breakfast and Astronomy but in a way that was casual and not over concerned. The boys spit out the same rehearsed lie more confidently, and Max actually felt envy for their ability to lie whenever they pleased.
Max was chewing on his lower lip as he tried to remember what cauldron base is best used when brewing drafts. He was waiting on Al to join him and Rose so he could ask, but Al and Scorpius had been off collecting books for much longer than they normally spent.
"Hey, Al?" Max called as Albus passed. Al jumped so violently with an armful of books that one toppled from the stack in his hands and hit him square in the nose.
"Yes? What?" Al said in a distracted sort of cheery tone, paying no attention to the welt swelling over the bridge of his nose.
"God! Are you okay?" Max asked standing up to take the books from Al's arms.
He looked down at the stack and was perplexed by the assortment Al had chosen. It was a variety of books on the darker sides of transfiguration, and A, B, C, 1, 2, 3 young children's books.
"Relearning English?" Max asked sarcastically.
"Ha!" Al fake laughed, swiping the stack back. "No." He turned abruptly and walked away again.
"Boys?" Rose called from the table, and Max rolled his eyes as he noticed his favorite quill's end feathers frayed from where they had been in her mouth. "Where are you going?"
Scorpius and Al turned around but continued to backward from the library with their books in arm.
"Al's not feeling well again," said Scorpius. "We're studying in our dorm tonight."
Rose stood up from her chair slowly and started toward them with an air of suspicion.
"Rather large load of books for a boy whose taken ill," she said.
Max watched Scorpius look to the stack in Al's arms that was almost twice the size of his own. He seemed to wilt slightly with dread but covered it up with an apologetic smile.
"How rude of me," he said and made a face at Al who regrettably loaded his stack into his friend's arms.
Rose pressed closer and placed the backside of her delicate hands onto Al's forehead. "Not very warm," she said with raised eyebrows.
"Your hands are just cold," Scorpius' voice was heard from behind the mountain of books he was slowly collapsing under.
Al looked from Scor to Rose and let out an obviously fake couch.
"Gee Al, you better get some medicine for that couch," said Scorpius who seemed humored about how unconvincing it was. "Come on." And they both hurried from the library.
Rose watched them leave, then turned abruptly toward Max looking triumphant. "And you still think they're not up to something?"
"I've known they're up to something, I just don't think we should meddle," he responded, kicking himself for not asking Al about the cauldron question.
"They had baby learning books," she said thoughtfully, sitting back down and placing Max's quill back in her mouth.
"They're bright boys," Max shrugged. "They're probably growing a gelatinous being and teaching it to do their homework."
Rose stopped talking, but her mind was far from the matter. Max smiled to himself. If you were going to be friends with this girl, you'd better not have anything to hide. She was very pushy, and nosy, and intervening, but he loved her anyway.