Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OCs.

"Oi! Are you – Christ in a cauldron; WAKE THE FUCK UP!"

Scorpius Malfoy literally kicked the confused, half naked girl out of his four-poster in the process of leaping out of bed himself.

Looking slightly abashed, he peered over to the other side as his former bedmate let out a wail that was abruptly truncated upon seeing me. I pursed my lips and raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to get the hint and get out. When the awkward moment only stretched on, Scorp made a strangled noise in his throat and made a shooing motion with his hands. Finally realising that she wasn't wanted, Michelle Bouchard huffed, grabbed her shirt and threw us both an unbelievably dirty look before stomping out of the Slytherin 7th years' boys' dormitory.

Scorp heaved a sigh of relief and stretched, ambling over to his closet. "Thanks for the wake-up call, Blair Hug. Really appreciate it."

About to sit on his bed, I paused, wary, and moved to Al's unoccupied one, instead. Lorcan Scamander's bed – at least, I assumed that the extra four poster bed tucked into a corner of the room was Lorcan's – was also made and empty. Shafiq's and Goyle's hangings were still closed – clever boys had probably placed silencing and soundproof charms around their beds.

And, apparently, so had Scorpius, which was why he hadn't heard me hollering for him to get his lazy arse up until I'd wrenched his hangings open and found him entwined with Michelle Bouchard. I mean, I'd known that he'd only asked me to wake him up early to "get (his) Herbology essay done" so that I do the kicking-out-of-bed routine for him, but doing Michelle Bouchard really was a terrible life decision.

"I can't believe that you shagged a Destiny's Child. You know that she's going to tell Beyoncé about it, and Bey is basically going to run her mouth and tell the entire damned school by dinner tonight."

Scorp shrugged carelessly as Al shuffled into the dormitory, freshly showered and already in his Quidditch kit. "I didn't shag her. We did some other stuff. But she's far less inventive than Kelly."

Al looked vaguely impressed at this. "Is that why Michelle was swanning down our corridor like a ship in full sail? Her shirt wasn't completely opaque, y'know – it was kind of glorious…"

What!

Irritated, I stood and aguamenti-ed both boys. "I'm going down for breakfast," I informed my cousin as they both spluttered and Scorp, bizarrely, tried to wring out his hair. "Please inform Syphilis Malfoy that he is a prick and that if he isn't careful, his own is going to either shrivel away with disease or get hexed off, which I believe that he deserves."

And then I swanned it out of the room, thoroughly annoyed at blokes in general.

I just didn't understand. Scorp was, in all actuality, obsessed with Rose Weasley, so what would possess him to shag everyone else in a skirt in the castle but her?

Teenage boys are prats.

Stomping back to my own dormitory, I snagged my broom, shouted at Lindsey to wake up, and recommenced stomping – this time, to breakfast.

It was a Saturday, which explained why there was barely anyone in the Great Hall at eight in the morning apart from some Slytherin Quidditch hopefuls trying to down some toast before our tryouts. They all fell silent as I collapsed onto a bench and began loading my plate with eggs and toast, but when I didn't turn around to say something encouraging or optimistic (… I'm a Slytherin, not a Hufflepuff), they slipped back into their own conversations.

I wasn't, however, too engrossed in my food to notice the arrival of Lorcan Scamander to breakfast. He slid a little clunkily into the seat opposite me, flashed me a smile, and scraped about half a platter of white pudding onto his plate, followed by a forkful of bacon rashers and a heaping spoonful of baked beans.

This may sound eerily creepy, but I've noticed that he's had the same breakfast just about every single day for the past week that we've been back at Hogwarts – he'd told us that a good Irish breakfast with white pudding was impossible to get at the Pulau, and it wasn't like his mother's cooking was particularly safe to eat, anyways.

I decided to bite the bullet and start the conversation ball rolling, seeing as that all he seemed to be interested in doing was masticating his breakfast, and I felt awkward just sitting there. "So how's school been? I feel like I never get the chance to talk to you."

Lorcan looked up and flashed me a smile that involved rather more teeth than I thought necessary. "We've only got two classes together, and they're both pretty intense."

It's true. It's not like there's much room for talking during DADA, which is taught by Arnold Wollestonecraft, who prefers to spend half the class bellowing and the other half supervising duelling, during which we're not allowed to speak because "trash talking is a lapse of discipline and is distracting to everybody". The new potions mistress, Mariah Wilson, prefers complete silence because potion brewing is a sacred art. We all think that she's a nutcase, but most people let it slide because she's brilliant. One of the nastier third years once lit a handful of WWW fireworks in class, and she damn near had a nervous breakdown. But, all that aside -

"-That's not an answer to my question," I pointed out, smooshing a path through my ketchup with a sausage.

Lorcan shrugged and shoved a strip of bacon into his mouth. "School's school. I've never been much interested in it."

I was about to inquire more into this (just to keep the conversation going – I mean, there's not much you can say to that, right?) when we were interrupted by the post.

I got a little parcel – hopefully containing my lucky knickers – whilst Lorcan got a couple of letters and a large manila envelope – which he ripped open first, eyes bright and breakfast completely forgotten.

I raised my eyebrows. What?

It was a slim magazine, with a picture of an agitated crowd on the cover. I tilted my head a little to read the name of the publication as Lorcan snapped it open and began reading.

One World, One Truth.

Oh.

Lorcan caught me staring and looked up, expression apologetic. "Sorry; I'm just really excited. I'm starved for real news."

He wasn't nearly as anxious to read the Prophet every morning, so I guessed that this… One World newsletter ranked higher on his priority list. "I take it that you're all for magical-Muggle integration?"

The light in Lorcan's eyes was almost fanatical. "It's the only way to move forward. Look at us, trapped in the Middle Ages for centuries – everything modern we have is Muggle in origin. Think of how much we could both help each other if we could openly live together!"

I took a nibble of my sausage, wary. "I suppose. But we could also continue to progress in secret by just nicking any new Muggle tech that comes out. There's no need to give half of Muggle Britain a coronary." There's no need to give Grandpa Vernon a coronary.

Lorcan registered my less-than-enthusiastic response and broke into an easy grin, the uncomfortable gleam fading from his eyes as he laid his newsletter, face down, by his plate. "Perhaps. But sometimes, all that progress needs is a little push." Then he re-devoted himself to his breakfast.

Curious, I glanced over at the wizard waving gaily on the back cover of his newsletter, and almost choked.

He was the man I'd bumped into at the platform.

What could a One World leader possibly have been doing at Platform Nine and Three Quarters on a Hogwarts day?

The One World bullshit was the furthest thing from my mind precisely fifty-three minutes later as I stood on the Quidditch pitch, hair charmed to stay out of my face, glaring at the House-Team Hopefuls. Half of them had been at breakfast with me, and out of that half, another half had been late.

I hate lateness. But if I automatically disqualified the latecomers from the tryouts, I'd be down a quarter of my pool of hopefuls.

Compromise it is.

"Laps!" I shouted, tossing a stopwatch at Al, who'd been staring dreamily at a knot of red huddled in the stands. Caught unawares, he almost fumbled the catch – another reason why he's not my Seeker. "Five rounds around the pitch for you lot, and eight for you lot, for being late. I adore punctuality only slightly less than I do winning. Keep that in mind. Potter here will take your times down as you pass him, and they will be considered in my assessment. Go!"

Some of them looked as if they were on the verge of grumbling, but they knuckled down and began running anyways. I was looking for two Chasers and a Beater, today. My partner, Ethan Bole, had graduated the year before, and the two Chasers who worked with Al were, quite frankly, inexplicably stupid.

So was Bole, actually, but at least he could hit at things upon being pointed in the right direction.

But I was done with having large but pretty much useless idiots on the team. We needed to be sleek, fast, and intelligent. I'm not quite sure how ambitious and cunning translated into troll-sized and fucking dumb as a dungbomb, but I was over that phase of Slytherin's Quidditch line-up.

We were going to win.

Lindsey stepped up beside me as Al distractedly took time, his quill automatically recording each lap on a timesheet. "Looks like all the other teams came to watch the bloodbath," she noted, narrowing her eyes at the stands. "We should ban Al from playing Gryffindor. He's hopeless against Jordan."

"We really should… but then again, looking at how things are going, those matches will be the only opportunities he'll ever have to score against her."

"Fuck you, Dursley!"

Lindsey sniggered as Al made a rude gesture in my direction before turning her attention to the hopefuls. "D'you reckon any of them will be any good?"

I pursed my lips, sizing up the rookies. Some of them had a reputation for being thuggish idiots who spent more time in detention than class – I discarded those immediately. What's the point of having a team that spends more time scrubbing classrooms by hand than flying?

I was distracted from my contemplation by the arrival of Thad Nott, our Keeper. He'd been circling the pitch on his broom while I'd been giving the evil eye to everyone on the ground, doing recon on the spectators.

"The entire Gryffindor team is here – McLaggen is being too much of a fuckface to actually pay attention to tryouts and is trying to get his game on with the hotter Weasley girl – but Jordan looks like she's taking notes." Thad sniffed, completely dismissive of Jordan's notes. "Cohen, Karlsson, Jablonski and McQueen from Ravenclaw are sitting over there, but I think that Jablonski was the only one who didn't bring his homework. Novak and some other Hufflepuffs are here, but I don't think that half of them are actually on the Quidditch team. One of them is… fuck, I think that a couple of them are getting high."

Typical.

I thanked him and filled him in on what we were doing – Nott's a sixth-year and a shoo-in for captain once Al, Lindsey and I leave. He squinted at the rookies as they finally finished their laps and gathered at the assembly point, sweaty and panting, and shook his head sadly.

I agreed.

"Goyle and Rinaldi, you're out."

Both boys may have looked outraged at this rapid dismissal, but I couldn't tell from the way that they were planted flat on their backs on the ground, faces contorted in the most hilarious ways as they tried to force air back into their lungs. If you can't last a five or eight lap run around a Quidditch pitch, you won't have enough stamina to last an entire game – which can, technically, run for hours.

Al tossed the stopwatch back at me – which I caught – followed by the clipboard – which I didn't, but Nott grabbed for me. Ah. What a Keeper.

Then, it was a matter of divvying them up into groups according to which position they were trying out for and running the drills.

In the end, I only had two cases of broken noses – apparently, Carrabas was using tryouts as a platform for getting revenge on Flint, who'd stolen his girlfriend last year, and Flint's mate Gardner wasn't too pleased with Carrabas after Carrabas very obviously hit a bludger at his friend. Gardner waited until Carrabas had his back turned before hitting a bludger at the hoops – the ball smacked into the metal, bounced off it and gained momentum before smashing into Carrabas's face. Poor boy never saw it coming.

Fourth years.

In the end, I retained Gardner as my partner (I value loyalty and opportunism) and Al found two Chasers that he could run a play with decently well. We even found a reserve Seeker for Lindsey – in all actuality, Dupont is even better than Lindsey, because she's a lot smaller (she's a third year and hasn't gotten to her growth spurt yet, I suppose) and faster, but I'm not replacing Lin when she's working perfectly fine with the rest of the team.

Also, I live with her. In the same room. I'd be fucking afraid of going to bed with her in the next one over if I cut her from the team.

As we were packing up, Nott sidled up to me as I shoved a bludger aggressively into its box and strapped it down. Lindsey was a little ways away from me, giving her protégée a brief rundown of her position and training details. "Err, Blair?"

I grunted in response.

"Are you going to Hogsmeade, next Saturday?"

"Yeah. Get down!" I just about knocked him aside as the second bludger came screaming towards us, and dove on top of it, careful not to let it rebound into my face.

"Well, erm. Would you like to have a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks?"

"Sure. We should probably do some team bonding anyways, so we could have drinks from about five to six, next Saturday. That's a great idea, Nott. Could you let the others know? Thanks." I managed to wrestle the second bludger into the ball box and strap it down as Nott stood there, rather unhelpfully.

"Err, sure. Ok." He sounded a little stunned.

"All right, Nott?" I finally looked up, wiping the sweat from my brow. God, these bludgers.

He took a step back. "Yeah – sure. I'll just – yeah. I'll let them know. Thanks, Blair! See you next Saturday."

And he was off.

Lindsey appeared at my side, nudging me away from the box so that she could replace the snitch. "You're a right idiot," she informed me conversationally.

I furrowed my brow. What?

"He was asking you out, you lump. And now we've got a team bonding session when I wanted to get my hair done. Thanks."

Oh. I flushed, embarrassed.

"He should've made it obvious!"

Lindsey straightened and rolled her eyes. "He did make it obvious. You're just the Queen of the Friendzone. God."

"What's this?" Al arrived, quaffle in hand. "Apparently we have drinks, next week?"

"Yeah. Your cousin has yet to pick up on Nott's I fancy you signals and interpreted an invitation to drinks for her as a suggestion for team bonding."

Al sniggered as he stowed the quaffle away.

"It's not my fault!" Starting to feel slightly defensive, I raised my hands. "And, to be honest, if I haven't noticed any of these alleged signals, then isn't it clear that I don't fancy him in that way?"

This time, it was Al who patted me on the back. "It's fine, Captain Beater. I'm sure you could hit on him during practice."

I smacked Al in the throat and got out of there before Lindsey could make a puberty joke again.

A/N: It's up! I'm sorry it's taking such a long time; exams are literally around the corner and I ought to be spending time catching up on my backlog of readings instead of procrastinating, but, meh.

IHateSnakes: Thank you! I hope you like this chapter, too.

WhatsTheTimeMrWolf: Thank you! I'd imagine that there's a great deal of swearing happening in a boarding school, away from parents, and there are few people more creative than an irritated teenager with a foul mouth.