Introducing...Rose Weasley. Yeah don't worry, you're not supposed to like her much.
Scorpius tentatively slid the door open to find all eyes upon him. The compartment was the same decor as the others, but larger, with the red, plush bench seats on three sides, and a small table in the middle, which was currently occupied by a stack of papers.
He glanced around, and took the only remaining spare seat, right in the corner next to the Hufflepuff prefect with the acne. Rose sat in the middle, and she waited only until Scorpius was seated to continue what had obviously been a full-blown speech.
"Alright, now that everyone had deigned to join us," she said, throwing a filthy look at Scorpius, who was sitting with his face buried in his hands, "we may continue."
"Patrols will be from seven until eight and will include the first and second floor for Ravenclaw, the third and fourth..."
Rose droned on for almost half an hour, pausing only to hand out the timetable she'd drawn up for each of the prefects, and to point out that the Head Boy had shown no signs of contributing anything, not that it was unexpected apparently, before launching into the exhaustive list of rules that they were all supposed to know off by heart.
"And finally, do you have any questions? No? Do you have anything to contribute, Malfoy?" she added, looking spitefully at Scorpius.
"Uh... no, I think you covered everything in adequate detail," he replied, having been shocked back into the land of the living by the sound of his name.
"That would be right, wouldn't it?" Rose replied, "You didn't bother to do anything at all to prepare for your prestigious position, it's the Malfoy way, isn't it?" she goaded, while all of the prefects smiled mockingly at him.
"Actually, I spent all summer wondering whether it was some sort of practical joke pulled by your hilarious cousin Albus and the rest of your delightful family. And you're a Weasley and you're accusing me of getting things easy?" he replied, before standing up, glancing tentatively down the corridor and promptly walking out.
Rose Weasley sat in the compartment, staring at the door long after everyone else had departed, back to their friends, back to their lives. She knew for sure that her oversized group of hangers-on would be ready to make doe eyes at her, and proclaim her virtues to the stars, as they were always want to do.
But something stopped her. Something had been different, something had shocked her. The Malfoy boy, Scorpius, had done it. It had been a realisation, in fact, a realisation that she had never heard or seen him fight back before.
Those couple of sentences were the most combative she'd ever seen from him, and it wasn't like she hadn't been around when her cousins had been using him for sport. Who hadn't? But it was a hard realisation that he'd simply never crossed her mind before. Was she really that self-absorbed?
She shook head to clear it of all these confusing thoughts. She was Rose Weasley, the world was her oyster, it was her last year of school, and these things shouldn't be her problem. She stood slowly, sliding the compartment door open, and stepped out.
Rose Weasley was widely accepted, by both the male and female population of Hogwarts, to be the most attractive girl in the year level. She had curves, she was tall, a heart shaped face and the bright red hair that some girls would have cursed, but on Rose it simply enhanced the appeal.
Rose was also a Weasley. Her father was an Auror, her mother was head of the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. More importantly, however, they were best friends with Harry Potter and famous members of the 'golden trio' as the papers were so fond of referring to them as. For Rose, this meant fame, fortune and instant popularity.
As appetising as this combination may have sounded, for Rose, it wasn't always the most delectable. She resented the fact that girls seemed to see her as a way of climbing the social ladder, that approval from their 'queen' put them above one another, and the in-fighting made her feel nauseous. In reality, she only had two real friends.
Dominique Weasley waved to her as she picked her way through the compartment, as the 'yes' girls all pined about how much Rose had deserved her Head Girl position, and how beautiful she was looking, and how lucky she was, and all the rest.
She seated herself next to Dominique and Lauren Winters, her two real friends in the compartment of about twenty people, which was packed out into the corridor.
"Did you have a good summer?" she muttered to Lauren, as the entire compartment looked expectantly at her, before all beginning to scream and shout at once about what they had done with their holiday.
"Yeah, we went skiing in France, you know that muggle sport?" grinned Lauren, almost shouting to be heard over the pack of hangers-on.
"Who's Head Boy, Rose?" asked Dominique leaning across to ask, suddenly intrigued, "because I heard from Annie that Albus was furious that he didn't get it."
"Didn't you hear?" Rose replied, looking between the two of them, "apparently it's Scorpius Malfoy!"
The look of horror on both their faces was all the support she needed.
Scorpius sat in his compartment with his robes on, a small smile on his face. He was Head Boy. He was Head Boy.
He kept saying it over and over in his head to try and make it sink in, but it wasn't working. It was too difficult to comprehend. How turned the badge over in his hand for the umpteenth time, when the compartment door slid open with a crash.
"You filthy piece of slime! That's my fucking badge, and you know it!"
Albus Potter was standing in the doorway, his face a beetroot red as he shouted, his anger causing spit to fly from his mouth. He furiously rifled his hands into his pockets searching for his wand, shouting some loud curse at Scorpius.
Scorpius, however, had also extracted his wand, and deflected the curse, which rebounded against the train window, shattering it, adding to the glass that had already been accrued on the compartment floor as a result of Albus wrenching the door open with so much force.
The train streaked on through the night, the wind and rain pelting in through the hole in the window, as Albus stood in the doorway, now flanked by three of his friends, which included the supposed heir to the Potter throne at Hogwarts, Hugo Weasley.
"You think you can fight back, Malfoy? You haven't got anyone Malfoy, no one in the world is going to help you," he mocked, leaning into the compartment, as Scorpius sat silently on the seat, leaning against the far wall as the rain lashed his face, and the wind whipped through his hair.
"And once we get to school, you're not even going to be Head Boy anymore. That's if you even make it to the front door," he added with a chuckle, and he nodded silently to his supporting cast.
Scorpius tried vainly to block away their hexes, but it was too much, the four boys overcame his defences, and he fell to the floor, his face down, as the bursts of light flashed eerily against the night sky, he curled up into a ball until the bursts had ceased.
"Oh, look, we've arrived at Hogsmeade Station, how disappointing, looks like your humiliation in front of the entire school is going to happen after all," Albus spat into Scorpius' upturned ear, before placing his shoe on Scorpius' head and grinding it into the floor, where the droplets of his blood mingled with the wet rain as the darkness of the night became his only companion.
Scorpius limped off the train, stepping down onto the now empty platform under the dim light of the lamps that lined Hogsmeade Station. The rain was ubiquitous, as it always was in Scotland, and the water ran through his matted hair and down the back of his sodden robes. He stumbled through the downpour, to the station exit.
He paused at the base of the school driveway, standing in the majestic gateway, staring up at the one place he truly felt at home. The grandiose stone structure rose from the rock it had been set upon in the centre of Hogwarts Lake, like a fearsome creature, turrets sprouting seemingly at random to create a very complex yet surreal sight. Peppered with what appeared from so far way to be fairy lights, the splendour of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was unrivalled in the mind of the youngest Malfoy.
The sound of Thestral's hooves on the driveway emanated through the darkness, and Scorpius could faintly discern the bobbing lanterns that they carried, as he peered through into the distance. He had been left behind.
Sighing slightly, and with scant regard for the hem of his robe or his shoes, which admittedly had not come to him in a wonderful state, he began the slow wander up the driveway to the distant lights.
Yeah, yeah, short chapter, I know. Potentially another one tomorrow however :). If you're good boys and girls.