4. Trying To Adjust

Scorpius read the letter over Rose's shoulder. Apparently, her father had crashed through the ceiling upon hearing about him, but had been calmed down with a cup of tea.

"So… does that mean that your father won't pay some Aurors to hunt me down?" Scorpius tried to make a joke out of it all.

"Actually, my father is an Auror himself, so he wouldn't have to." Rose said calmly and folded the letter. Scorpius felt uneasy at that piece of information, of course he knew that Ronald Weasley was working for the Ministry, but he had somehow never gotten to know what his profession was. Well, now he knew, and wanted to slip unnoticed through the floor so that he wouldn't awake the wrath of an Auror. And a Weasley at that.

"Are you okay Scorpius? You look a bit… pale." Selene had a worried crease between her brows.

"Huh? Oh I'm fine." Not. Selene just looked at him, but didn't say anything.

"So, anyone up for snatching Madam Hooch at lunch?" Rose said eagerly, taking a sip of her pumpkin juice.

"Yeah!" Scorpius thanked his lucky star for the quick change of subject by Rose, and reminded himself to do the same for her if she ever seemed bothered by a subject. Not that he thought she would be, he'd never seen her bothered during the two days he'd known her and wasn't sure if she would be bothered by anything. Except maybe… Okay, now that is just going too far. Why did he always have to come up with the things not to say? Or think of for that matter.

"Scorp, are you even listening to me?" Scorpius was pulled out of his internal monologue by Rose's voice, and her finger shoved into his arm. Ouch. She can poke hard.

"Eh… yes?"

"Before, or after lunch?"

"Umm… You decide." Just when he said that, Albus shot him a glance that clearly said 'you're going to regret that'

"Before it is!" Scorpius didn't have much trouble with the thought of flying on an empty stomach, but apparently, Al had.

Albus followed as the others made their way up to the castle from the greenhouses after their first Herbology class with Nev- professor Longbottom. It was hard thinking of Neville as their professor, especially since he and his wife Hannah would sometimes spend Christmas with them, bringing their daughter Alice.

"What's now?" Scorpius asked as they walked through the entrance doors alongside the Gryffindors.

"Uhm… Nothing, we have an hour before lunch so we can just do whatever we want." Selene fiddled with the schedule before putting it back into her bag.

"Maybe we should write that essay for professor Jones?" Al suggested.

"But it's not due until Friday next week! Can't we just go to the common room and play chess? Or Exploding Snap."

"What's that?" Selene looked puzzled. And worried.

"You don't know what Exploding Snap is?" Rose's eyes went wide as if she couldn't imagine a world where no one knew what Exploding Snap was couldn't exist. "Merlin, we'll have to teach you that!" She dragged Selene towards the stairs and Al and Scorpius followed.

Rose was leading the way, still dragging Selene, and having an idle one-way conversation with the poor girl by the time they came up to the fourth floor.

"You know," Scorpius mused, "she's almost like a girl right now."

Albus nodded. "Scary."

Scorpius couldn't help but silently agree. Just as they passed by a portrait of a middle-aged wizard in patched robes a voice cried out behind them.

"Hey, Weasley!"

"What?" Rose had a confused expression on her face. Scorpius turned around and found the stairs empty behind them.

"Over here!" A redheaded teenager appeared in the portrait of the middle-aged man, who woke up. "Woups, sorry professor."

"It's alright Fred." The man yawned. "I was about to wake up anyway."

"Fred?" Albus neared the portrait. "As in uncle Fred?"

"That's right!" He answered with a grin. "I'm guessing you're Harry's son, and Ginny's too, otherwise you wouldn't be calling me uncle."

Scorpius noted how Rose and Al exchanged excited looks while he was standing there, having a strange feeling of being watched.

"Well, what have we here?" a witch with pink hair jumped into the painting of the older wizard. A smile lit up her face as she spotted Al. "Remus, he looks just like Harry!"

"Ah, I think we'll have to properly introduce ourselves, Tonks." The wizard named Remus said. "I am Remus Lupin, this is Nymphadora, my wife, although she prefers to be called Tonks, her maiden name, and this is Fred Weasley. The first."

Both Al and Rose looked thrilled. Scorpius just stood there with Selene in an awkward silence, trying not to glance at the portrait of another wizard with an odd pair of eyes and a big chunk of his nose missing.

"We're Albus Potter and Rose Weasley," Al introduced themselves. "And this is Selene Atherton, and Scorpius Malfoy."

"Malfoy? A Malfoy? In Gryffindor?"

"Actually, we're all sorted into Ravenclaw." Rose interjected.

"Oh. Hey Moody!" Fred called out to the wizard that had been having his eyes fixed on Scorpius.

"What?"

"Do you remember the Malfoy you turned into a ferret? Well, apparently he has a son."

"I've already noticed that, Fred."

"Ah well… Just thought you might be interested in keeping an eye on him, that's all."

Scorpius felt a bit queasy when he heard that, but decide not to say anything. He didn't want to upset a Weasley his first week in school.

"Scorpius is fine." Rose assured them and Scorpius reminded himself to do something similar for her sometime.

"Right." The portrait of Fred Weasley seemed sceptical. "Well, if I know my Weasley's and Potters, and I do, you lot will be busy attracting trouble, breaking rules et cetera so don't let me keep you away from detention. Have fun!" And with those words he strolled off.

Scorpius noticed how Selene followed him with her eyes.

Rose looked around drowsily. Most of the Slytherins in the classroom seemed to be almost asleep, and the Ravenclaws wasn't better off. In fact, Scorpius and Selene were the only ones that didn't seem to be on the verge of falling asleep after almost an hour of professor Binns droning about some… what was he droning about anyway? Goblins? Or was it Giants?

She scribbled down the question on a piece of parchment for Al and nudged him in the side. He lifted his head from his arms on the bench and looked at her with a frown. She shot the note over to him.

'I think he's talking about the House-elf reform by your mother. It's either that or Goblins, I don't know, I fell asleep.' Was the answer she got. It wasn't really helping, so she didn't bother to write anything back, instead she followed his example and laid her head down too, and studied Scorpius's back as he seemed to be taking notes.

Rose woke up to the sound of a bell. Oh right, lunch! Wait, lunch? As she groggily got to her feet and stuffed the books into her bag she tried to remember what she had planned on doing before eating.

"Scorpius!" Woups, maybe a bit too loud. She lowered her voice to normal and poked him in the side. "We were going to Madam Hooch!"

"I know, I remember." She ignored his expression of non-excitement and grabbed his arm and started dragging him out of the classroom.

"Ouch. Eh, Rose? You can let go of my arm." Scorpius said in a faint voice and tried to pull his arm out of her grip. Just for fun, she dragged him a few more steps and then released him.

When she turned around, he was rubbing his arm where she had had her grip. "You know, if you hold on to the Quaffle like you held my arm, I don't think we'd have to worry about ever losing it. Except if a Bludger interferes." He said with a faint smile on his lips.

Rose stretched out her tongue in reply.

Oh my God, he's going to crash! Selene closed her eyes and clung to Albus' arm as if her life depended on it.

"Selene…" Albus said. "You can look now." She opened her eyes just in time to see Scorpius pulling up from what seemed to be an impossible dive, about two feet over the grass.

Madam Hooch blew her whistle and motioned for Rose and Scorpius to land, which they did, and started to write something on two different pieces of parchment.

"Alright, miss Weasley and Mr. Malfoy, you are both excellent flyers, I suspect you are quite used to flying, and I deem you both qualified for applying for your team. Here's a signed note for each of you, hand it in to the captain of your House's team and you'll get to try out for any position on the team." Madam Hooch gave them the notes and then took care of the brooms they'd been flying on.

"Did you hear that?" Rose almost jumped up and down in excitement. "We made it!"

"Isn't there still the try-outs?" Selene said and let go of Albus' arm.

"That's just formality, besides, it's not like we're trying out for Gryffindor or Slytherin, they're the favourites." Rose waved around with the note in front of Selenes nose.

"What's so big about Gryffindor and Slytherin when it comes to Quidditch, really?"

Rose and Scorpius exchanged glances.

"Because ever since my uncle Harry went here, Gryffindor has basically dominated the Quidditch field, and the House Cup!"

"And before that, Slytherin dominated both of those." Scorpius finished Rose's explanation as they made their way through the somewhat empty castle on their way to the Great Hall.

"Of course, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw have had their shining years lately…" Al said as they sat down at the end of the Ravenclaw table.

"Mostly because of Victoire and Dominique winning points for Ravenclaw, and for James, Fred and Louis losing points for Gryffindor. And then the Hufflepuff team is beginning to challenge Slytherin which has been laying low since Voldemorts fall." Rose finished off and grabbed a piece of bread.

Selene felt like her head was spinning with the information. She could manage memorizing parts of textbooks, spells and the correct way of using them, but she wasn't sure she could manage to hold all the information of Hogwarts, let alone the entire wizarding world, in her head without it being overheated.

Oh boy was she in for a hard seven years.

Rose woke up when the bell chimed. "Ouch, what did I miss?"

"We're in the Library Rose." Al said without looking up from the parchment he was writing on. Rose almost thought that his glasses were going to fall down onto it, he was leaning down that much.

"Oh. Right." She rubbed her cheek and stretched her arms out like a cat.

"Eh, Rose?" Scorpius had looked up from his parchment to put his quill in the inkbottle the four of them shared.

"Huh?"

"You… you've got text on your face…" Rose looked down on her half-written paper. The text was smudged where she'd had her cheek. She moaned and crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it into the trashcan that was standing by the wall. It burped and made chewing noises.

"Do you think it was meant to do that? From the beginning I mean." Selene said and watched as it walked away on tiny legs, possibly to find more papers.

"I don't know. It was probably a bored student who enchanted it or something." Rose said and started gathering up her things after a swift look at her wristwatch. "C'mon Scorpius, we've got try-outs soon." And with those words she literally dragged him away from the table and out to the Quidditch pitch.

Rose swept her hair out of her face as she flew up into the air with the Quaffle tucked under her arm. It was her turn to try to score at Li Thatcher, the fourth year Chaser who had temporarily taken Dominiques position as the Keeper so that she as the captain could inspect the others flying and technique.

Rose leaned forwards and let the old Nimbus 2001 speed up to its maximum as she zoomed over the field towards the goal posts. She dove under one of the Bludgers, avoided another Chaser who was currently on the opposite "team", and slowed down just in time to feint Li, threw the Quaffle, and scored.

As she flew back down to Dominique, she spotted Scorpius getting on his broomstick and fly off to catch an enchanted golf ball, since Dominique wouldn't let the Snitch out.

She landed beside her with a soft thud and hopped off her broom. "How am I doing?"

"Good, unless someone else does better you're our new Chaser."

Scorpius made a small dive to avoid the Bludger, still searching for the golf-ball in the air. He caught a glimpse of something small and white from the corner of his eye and made a swift turn with the Nimbus. It was the golf-ball.

He started the pursuit of the ball before it had the chance to disappear completely and was just about to grab it when a Bludger appeared on his right side, he made a quick dive and pulled the broom up just in time to catch the golf-ball. On his left he could see Al and Selene in the stands with excitement written all over their faces.

He turned and flew back down towards Rose and Dominique and handed over the golf ball.

"Impressive." The captain said. "You're in." Scorpius felt as if he was the happiest wizard in the world. He, a Malfoy was approved of by a Weasley. Well, a Weasley that wasn't Rose at least… She was currently jumping up and down in excitement, with the broom still in her hand.

"Really? Eh, thanks, I didn't…" Scorpius trailed off. It might not be so smart to say that you thought that the captain who just let you in on the team wouldn't do so because your families are enemies. Or anything like that.

Apparently, Dominique thought so too. "Just because my brother and cousins doesn't like you, it doesn't mean that I can't be neutral when it comes to judging your skills."

"Err… right. Captain." Scorpius had this strange feeling that if he ever dared cross this Weasley, he'd end up in the hospital wing before he could say 'Quidditch'.