Chapter Eight

When the bell rang for dinner, Rae rushed out of the classroom with Albus and Rose in tow. Not wanting to bump into Scorpius or his friends again, she didn't slow down until they had reached the great hall. That Demitri didn't seem to like her, either, his smirk was less than kindly. But maybe, like people had said to her before, he knew she was a Muggle-born and didn't like her for that. The trio seated themselves at the Gryffindor table and began to hungrily pile their plates with food. They could all finally retire to the common room after dinner, though it was doubtful whether any of the first years would be spending too much time relaxing as their teachers had given them mounds of homework.

"I think I'll go to the library after dinner, you know, start finding research material for that Transfiguration essay," Rose said conversationally, she was a very smart girl and it seemed that she wouldn't be falling behind with homework, at least. Albus agreed with her, though Rae suspected this was because he understood neither head nor tail of the essay and would be trying to copy what Rose put. "Will you be coming Rae?"

"No, I think I'll get it done later. I have to go up and see Lexxie, and then I might take a walk or something," she replied. To tell the truth, she wasn't in the mood to be doing homework; her hand felt like it had died with all the note-taking they had done that day. When the trio had finished dinner, they bid farewell to each other in the entrance hall. Rae made her way up the marble staircase and headed off to her dormitory. She had gone through the directions to it all morning so that she didn't get lost when she was on her own, though she had no idea whether it would be much use to her. A few minutes later, though, she arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady and was hurrying up the spiral staircase less than a minute later to see her kitten. "Good afternoon Lexxie, you missed me?" she said as her kitten leapt into her arms.

Still carrying her kitten, Rae turned and left the dormitory. She was just beginning to head for the entrance hall when someone shouted her name. Turning around, she saw Abel hurrying toward her.

"Rae! Afternoon. You still got that music thing on you? I talked to the headmaster earlier and he said he'll see what he can do," the teacher said with a smile. Rae beamed at him, she almost hugged him actually, but instead she passed Lexxie over and darted back to her dormitory to fetch her iPod. When she bought it back, she swapped it with her kitten and Abel observed it curiously, "well, I'll go sort it out now and give it you at breakfast tomorrow?"

"Yeah that'd be amazing, thank you!" she nodded. Abel smiled at her again and rushed off, leaving Rae with a blush forming on her cheeks.

*

Unusually warm for September, Rae watched Lexxie bound through the grass, leaping into the air to claw at the last butterflies of the year. She stuck her hands deep into her pockets and thought about Scorpius. Why did her blood matter so much? No matter what other people said, or how many times she ran Ginny's reassuring words through her head, Rae couldn't help but let it get to her. She had honestly thought she and Scorpius would be friends but because of her blood he acted as if he didn't want anything to do with her. Of course it wasn't her fault, but she couldn't let herself blame him either. She sighed and leant against an old beech tree and looked out at the lake.

"Hi," someone said quietly. Rae turned and saw Scorpius approaching her, looking a little uncomfortable.

"Hi," she said, not looking at him.

Scorpius stopped beside her, watching the lake and the little kitten dipping her paw in curiously, only to fly backwards when a giant tentacle poked out of the surface. They stood there silently for a few minutes, neither knowing what to say to each other. "I'm sorry if I hurt you," Scorpius said abruptly. Rae frowned, facing him. He looked as concerned as she did about what he had just said. Suddenly, he cleared his throat and began talking, though aiming it more at the grass than her. "I acted coldly towards you since we started Hogwarts and I thought it might have hurt you. I wanted to apologise, I never meant for my actions to upset you."

Rae turned away again, but she smiled slightly. This didn't seem to be good enough for Scorpius, as he grabbed her hand and pulled her to face him. Rae noticed that his cheeks were almost glowing pink.

"I… I want to be your friend!" he admitted, finally giving her a sheepish smile, his cheeks still glowing. Scorpius opened his mouth to reply, but there was a sudden shout which caught their attention. Rose, James and Albus were rushing toward them. "But…" Scorpius had lost the smile, and the usual melancholy expression adorned his face once more. "It's hard." He let go of her hand and turned to leave again, but now it wasn't good enough for Rae. Stepping forward, she grabbed his hand, feeling more determined than ever.

"I want to be your friend too," she said, "and I don't care if it's hard! If you want something badly enough, you fight for it, Scorpius!" he wasn't looking at her, he wasn't fighting her either. His hand was limp in hers, as if he just didn't care. Biting her lip, Rae stepped forward and yanked Scorpius' hand so he stumbled towards her and into her arms. He was more than shocked at this, he was downright paralysed, but Rae held him tightly in her hug. "I'll try my very best, because I really do want to be your friend." The words were barely more than whispers, but Scorpius heard her and a smile came to his lips. He had never had anyone fight for him before. Slowly, as if he didn't know what to do, he raised his arms and returned the hug before moving away and glancing nervously at the three approaching Gryffindors.

"See you," he said with a wave and, as quickly as he had come, he disappeared back to the castle. Rae smiled after him before turning to her friends; they looked thoroughly relieved for some reason.

"Oh Rae, why didn't you come with us? That Scorpius probably wanted to do you in or something," Rose panted. Rae didn't reply, Lexxie had just come back and was clawing at Rae's trouser leg. She picked the kitten up and hugged her.

"Yeah, he can be dangerous when he wants to be, Rae. You should watch out for him!" Albus warned.

"It's okay," Rae said gently, "we're friends." No amount of Galleons in the entire wizarding world could have paid for the expressions Rae got from her friends that moment; it looked as if someone had just slapped them all very hard around the face and called them highly offensive names. Rose and Albus were a little too shocked to speak, though James was purely outraged.

"You WHAT?!" he demanded furiously, "you're – you're friends?! With that slime ball?!"

"He's not a slime ball, James," Rae replied, a little annoyed now, "I've met him more than once outside of school and he's been lovely to me, and he's never said a cross word against me or my bloodline!"

Rose looked extremely uneasy; she was biting her lip and fiddling with the end of her shirt with both hands. It looked as if she was trying very hard to say something but had no idea how to phrase it. Rae looked at her expectantly, she knew none of her three friends would understand her and Scorpius but it was best they got it off their chest, she decided. Finally, Rose took a deep breath and said: "We all have the right to be friends with whoever we want-" (James looked outraged at this) "-and that's the same for you and Scorpius, Rae. We promise not to judge you for the friendship, but you have to understand that our families and Scorpius' have never seen eye-to-eye. His father and Uncle Harry were arch enemies in Hogwarts and his father also despised Muggle-borns… Muggle-borns like my mother.

"He made her life living Hell during school and my parents and Uncle Harry were constantly at war with him. You can't just sit there and believe that Scorpius hasn't had any of that hatred handed down to him? Uncle Harry was personally responsible for getting Scorpius' grandfather chucked in the wizard prison Azkaban, for which Draco Malfoy swore revenge for. I doubt all of that hatred has ebbed away over the years," Rose carried on, looking rather determined. "and I can bet everything I own that Mr. Malfoy told his son stories about how Uncle Harry and my parents destroyed his life or dreams or something daft. Of course they gave him trouble but for the right reasons, I promise…" she bit her lip again before continuing. "If you want to be friends with Scorpius, then go on. But we won't be the least bit friendly towards him, it's the way this goes for us, Rae. And we will protect you, no matter what you say. Being friends with a Slytherin is one thing, but a Malfoy – well that's downright dangerous for you."

Albus saw the look on Rae's face and stepped up to her, placing a hand on her shoulder and smiling.

"We're not trying to tell you not to be friends with him, or tell you bad things about his family," he said, "we're telling you the truth. Scorpius might be a nice guy; he has friends so he must be. But he's not to us; he hates us like his dad did. We're… we're just saying that, even though we're not going to act any differently around him, we'll always be there for you."

James looked as if he wanted to say 'speak for yourself', but Rose elbowed him in the ribs and he suddenly burst with a pained smile and: "of course we will!"

Rae laughed a little and shook her head, smiling at her friends. It was strange. They had insulted Scorpius and his family which annoyed her, but at that moment, she couldn't have asked for a better group of friends.

As usual, Rose shook Rae awake the next morning. Earlier than usual. Rae groaned, waving her arm to try and get Rose to stop but the girl persisted. Now, too woken up to even try to go back to sleep, Rae sat up and glared tiredly at Rose. "I want to curl your hair, come on!" with one more tug on Rae's arm, she stumbled up and followed her orders. It was too early in the morning to be arguing about anything, Rae decided.

Rae had no idea why her friend was curling her hair; she just guessed that it was something to do. But then, Rae realised, they had Defence against the Dark Arts first thing that morning! Of course, that would give Rose no reason to try and make Rae's hair curly, but it was good enough reason for Rae. Suddenly, her brain furiously snapped into gear to figure out what to wear.

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"And one more thing, if you have a problem with me, I'd prefer you tell me instead of glaring at me all the time. It doesn't go well with your complexion," she added sarcastically. Scorpius looked like he wanted nothing more than for Rae to have shut up.