That evening, as I sat at the table trying to ignore the pork chops staring up at me, begging me to sink my teeth into them, I could feel Felicia's enmity towards me even more. The more I thought about it, the more I noticed that she now hardly ever uttered any words to me, unless it was to ask me to pass the salt, which she accepted with a scowl.
I decided to turn my attention to the pork chops instead, and ignore Felicia. I was still a vegetarian, of course, but it wasn't going very well at all – still. For some reason, the House Elves at Hogwarts seemed only capable of making really good food that I just couldn't pass up, when its delicious smells wafted under my nose. I wondered if the pig behind the pork chops had suffered when being slaughtered. I decided that it was probably a quick death, and I snuck one over to my plate, eating it in secrecy, constantly throwing glances around me to ensure that no one had seen.
"Eating meat?"
I jumped into the air, and slammed my knife down, hitting Al's left hand. "Ouch!" he cried out, as his index finger began to bleed profusely. Looking around, I saw Scorpius and Demetria staring at me with incredulous expressions on their faces. My heart sank as I realized that Adrasteia was there as well, laughing that high pitched laugh of hers. What was she doing there? Didn't she ever just go away?
I jumped to my feet and pushed the plate away from me, trying to look as innocent as possible. Felicia was now holding Al's hand up above his head, saying something about blood flowing to the heart.
"What are you trying to do?" Felicia screeched at me. "Murder him?"
"I, uh, no…" I answered intelligently.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous," snapped Demetria. "He'll be fine. I know a spell that can heal that cut, you know."
"It's not a cut, she stabbed him!" Felicia cried.
"I didn't mean to!" I said hopelessly, throwing my hands up in the air.
"Can't he just go to the Hospital Wing?" Scorpius asked.
"I feel faint," Albus said weakly.
I was acutely aware of the entire Gryffindor table now staring at us, making a spectacle. Adrasteia was still laughing in that awful way, her tiny little nose scrunched up, making her look like some crazed animal. Jane, who was sitting across from me, stared owlishly up at us through her enormous glasses that magnified her eyes about ten times. Eurydice and Ellen, who had been deep in conversation with Felicia before the accident happened, were now looking at me with narrowed eyes.
"I think he's in mortal danger," Eurydice said darkly.
"Oh, honestly," said Demetria, scowling at Eurydice, "I happen to know a spell that can fix him right up."
"Excuse me," countered Felicia, in an overly polite tone, "I, Albus' girlfriend, happen to also know a spell that can heal this wound."
As far as I knew, neither Felicia nor Demetria knew any such spell, as neither one of them had ever taken Healing courses, nor had they ever played Quidditch, so they had never been in a situation where this was required.
Scorpius seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "You know," he said carefully, eyes darting from Felicia to Demetria, "I think that it would be easiest if someone just escorted him to the Hospital Wing."
"I'm losing a lot of blood," Al said, in what I would consider to be an overly weak voice.
"What's going on here?" a voice said behind me. I turned around. It was probably the person that I least wanted to see at that moment – James. "Who tried to kill Al?"
Scorpius rolled his eyes. "No one tried to kill Albus, it was an accident."
James eyes widened, and then started bulging out again. His face turned dark red. "It was you, wasn't it?"
"I – what? No," said Scorpius, looking warily at James, whose hand was clutching something inside his robes. "No, no, no," he added hurriedly, as James pulled out his wand. "No, it was…"
"NOT HAPPY WITH STEALING ROSIE AWAY FROM HER FAMILY?" James hollered. "THOUGHT YOU WOULD ATTEMPT MURDER ON MY LITTLE BROTHER?"
"No," said Scorpius, obviously trying to be calm, though I could see him slowly pulling his wand out of his back pocket. "Rose-"
"MY BLIND LITTLE BROTHER, BY THE WAY?"
"Can we please focus on the dying person here?" Felicia shrieked, pointing down at Al, who was actually looking a little pale.
"I'll take him to the Hospital Wing," I suggested, willing to do anything to get out of that situation.
"I think you've done enough, Rose," Felicia said coldly. "I'm going to heal him."
"No, you're not," snapped Demetria. "I am. You probably don't even know what to do."
"Yes I do!" cried Felicia. "Helios!" She jabbed her wand at Al's hand, which now burst into flames. Al screamed out.
"Now look what you've done!" Demetria yelled. Adrasteia had stopped laughing, and was now looking at us with mild concern on her face, as though observing a flock of animals fighting.
"Aquamenti!" I cried, and water sprouted out of my wandtip onto Al's hand, stopping the fire.
"I'll take him to the Hospital Wing," Demetria said, clutching Al's shoulder with her clawlike fingers. "You clearly don't know the first thing about treating a sick person." She wrenched poor Al out of his seat and started marching him out of the Great Hall, leaving Felicia gaping after her.
I sighed heavily, acutely aware that the entire Great Hall was now looking at us, and turned around to Scorpius, but found him gone. There was only James, who smiled smugly at me.
"Where did Scorpius go?" I asked.
James' smile widened, and he gleefully pointed at the floor. There wasn't anything. Only a mouse.
"What?" I said dully to James. The mouse stood up on its hind legs and squeaked. It had grey – green eyes and white - blonde fur. I looked slowly up at James, who still had a triumphant expression on his face. "You did not," I said, hardly daring to believe it.
The mouse squeaked again, this time even more high pitched.
"Oh, I did," said James, grinning. "I finally got back at him for everything he's ever done to me."
"You're insane," I said, as the mouse – Scorpius – now began trying to scuttle up my leg, clearly desperate to get away from James. I scooped down and picked him up, and he scuttled onto my shoulder, trying to hide behind my hair.
"Turn him back," I said to James. "I haven't had about Human Transfiguration yet, I can't help him."
"I won't," countered James.
"TURN HIM BACK!" I yelled.
"NO!" James shouted back. "Look at the coward, hiding behind his girlfriend."
Mouse – Scorpius suddenly lounged out from my shoulder, and landed on James' face, biting and scratching as much as he could. Adrasteia started laughing loudly again.
"Oh, no, stop, please," I pleaded.
"What is going on?" a stern voice suddenly said. It was Professor McGonagall.
"Oh, Professor," I said weakly. Why did she always turn up when I was in these situations? "Uh, James seems to have transfigured Scorpius into a mouse…"
McGonagall's eyes widened as she took in James, now lying on the floor, and Scorpius the Mouse, scratching his face, the two locked in combat. McGonagall pointed her want at the mouse, and he transfigured back into himself, now just lying on top of James, panting. He rolled off.
"COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!" McGonagall cried. "Fifty points from Gryffindor! How dare you use transfiguration on a fellow student!"
James frowned, and Scorpius smirked at him. "And you, Miss Weasley, as a prefect I thought you might put a stop to this. I am most disappointed."
I opened my mouth to say something about the unfairness of this, but she swept off. James scowled and put a hand to his scratched face before stalking away.
"Honestly, Rose," Scorpius sighed. "All because you won't give up on this vegetarian nonsense."
I thought this was rather unfair too, but I didn't say anything, because Scorpius said, "Do you… do you want to meet up later tonight?"
"After hours?" I asked. That was against the rules. I couldn't do that.
"Oh, come on, Rosie," said Scorpius. "Meet me in the North Tower. I haven't seen you alone in ages."
I relented, mostly because I felt sorry for him, after being turned into a mouse and accused of attempting murder and all.
After the entire scene I had lost my appetite, so I went to visit Al in the Hospital Wing instead. His cut had naturally been healed right away, but as his hand was now also severely burned it was soaking in a bowl of something that looked slimy and green, and smelled like urine. Demetria was sitting at his bedside, poking fun at Felicia.
"She probably thought that Helios sounded a bit like the word 'heal'," Demetria was saying as I took a seat beside her. "Never heard anything so stupid. Oh, hello, Weasel."
"Hi," I said. "I'm really sorry, Albus."
Al shook his head. "No worries."
"James turned Scorpius into a mouse after you left," I told him.
"What?" both Albus and Demetria cried.
"McGonagall turned him back, though," I assured him.
Demetria's eyebrows shot up. "I have got to see Scorpius, and hear that story… Feel better, Albus," she said, and patted him on the shoulder before leaving the Hospital Wing.
Albus started laughing as soon as she had left, and I joined in. "What on Earth?" he said. "Is it just me, or are Demetria and Felicia really fighting over me?"
"It would appear so," I agreed.
"Fighting over me," he said, looking bewildered. "I mean, James I understand, but me? And that Demetria girl… I thought she didn't even know I was alive? I mean, she always acts like I'm some bug under her shoe…"
"That's how she acts with everyone, Al."
"Well, all the same… What am I supposed to do about it?"
"What do you mean?" I asked. "What can you do about it?"
"I mean… I have to beautiful girls vying for my attention. How do I choose?"
"Well," I said. "Felicia is your girlfriend."
"True," said Al. "True. But she doesn't have to be."
"What are you talking about?" I asked cautiously. "Are you thinking about breaking up with Felicia? I thought you loved her."
"I do," said Al. "Or I thought I did. I don't know. It's just… she's not that nice all the time, you know?"
"Neither is Demetria."
"Yeah, but at least she's up front about it."
I grinned. "Yeah, I'll give her that."
After our little chat I returned to my dormitory, in order to start making a big show of going to bed, even though I was planning on sneaking out later. I found it almost deserted, though, except for Jane. She stared at me through her huge glasses.
"Where is everyone?" I asked her.
"In the Common Room," Jane said, lowering her book. "The three of them were sitting in a corner, gossiping."
"Oh," I said. I started putting on my nightgown. "Have you… have you noticed that those three talk a lot more together than they usually do?"
"Yes," said Jane. She paused, and looked back down at her book. Then she said, in a rush, "It's because Felicia's mad at you."
I froze in putting away my clothes for the day. "I've been getting that feeling," I said. "But… why?"
Jane shrugged and adjusted her large glasses. "I don't know. None of those girls really talk to me. Felicia has just been saying a lot of mean things about you when you aren't there… I just thought that you should know."
For a moment I wondered what it must feel like to be Jane. In the first week of First Year, I had paired up quite quickly with Al and Felicia, and Eurydice and Ellen had become fast friends. Only Jane seemed to be left out. The fact that she rarely spoke up in class, or, in fact, ever spoke, hadn't exactly invited any of us to include her. Somehow Jane always managed to be forgotten or shunted to the side.
"Well," I said to Jane. "Thanks a lot for telling me about what has been going on. I really appreciate it."
"No problem," said Jane. "Felicia seems mostly angry about something with... with your boyfriend."
"My boyfriend?" I asked, perplexed. "What does Scorpius have to do with anything?"
Jane shrugged. "Maybe you should ask her yourself."
That was the second time that day that someone had suggested that. I sighed heavily. "I don't think I'll take my chances with that, to be honest. I'm not really in the mood to have my head bitten off by a ferocious blonde. Maybe I can ask Al, and he'll help me."
Jane smiled, and I vowed to be nicer to her from then on.
About half an hour later, Eurydice, Ellen and Felicia came up to the dorm, but without saying anything to Jane or me, they crawled into bed, exchanging looks and smiles, as though sharing some unbelievably funny inside joke. I felt horribly left out. I had half a mind to ask Felicia who exactly she thought she was, just throwing me aside like this. We had been best friends for over four years! How could all that just be forgotten?
But then again, I couldn't help but think, wasn't I a little to blame? I had hardly noticed that she had stopped talking to me. I had been so busy with school, Quidditch, and all my new friends, and, of course, Scorpius. Maybe I had just stopped noticing her.
I lay back irritably in my bed, thinking that if Felicia was angry that I hadn't been noticing her enough lately, she could just have done something noticeable. After waiting for all the girls to drop off to sleep, I cautiously tip - toed out of bed, slipped a dressing gown over my nightgown, and then walked out of the dormitory very quietly. Besides slipping and falling all the way down the stairs, nothing went wrong. I tried to keep my whimpering at the enormous pain in my behind to a minimum, so no one heard.
I couldn't help but feel a little irritated at Scorpius for wanting to meet this late at night. Of course, for Scorpius the risk was part of the excitement, but for me, I would prefer to be able to relax together without having to listen for the sound of footsteps all the time. In fact, I thought, I might mention this to him as a pretense to be invited over to his house for the Christmas holidays. Yes, that would definitely work. Demetria had told me to ask myself why he wouldn't invite me to his home, but I wasn't about to do that. That was far too blunt, and Scorpius would just think that I was begging. In fact, now that Demetria had told him off for not asking me yet, he would probably do it tonight, in order to avoid having a guilty conscience. That was probably the whole reason that Scorpius had wanted to see me!
Feeling much better after having thought all of this through, I walked with purpose, yet of course stealth, all the way to the North Tower. I had a close call at one point, where Professor Nott walked dangerously close, muttering to his pet cat, but I managed to creep into the shadows and avoid being seen.
James had once bragged that his father had an Invisibility Cloak. I hardly believed him, naturally, but I couldn't help but wish for an Invisibility Cloak just then. If I was caught out of bed and forced into a detention, I would really let Scorpius have it. Not that he cared, of course. He wasn't a prefect like I was. He didn't care about losing points for his House, either. He was far too popular among his friends to be shunned for losing a few points.
I finally reached the entrance to the North Tower. As I started to climb the steps I deliberated whether I would have the guts to ask Scorpius why he didn't want to see me over break, the guts to confront Felicia about her sudden hatred of me, and the guts to tell Demetria that her infatuation with Albus was nothing short of silly.
Sometimes I just wished that I could go back to being boring.