CHAPTER THREE:

The next morning Nina woke up to the sound of her roommates' voices talking about a subject she was not commonly associated with - boys.

"-but he is cute." She heard Hayden comment.

"Just say the word, Hayd, he is h-o-t.". Natalie admitted.

Nina sat up in her bed. "Who is?"

The girls all looked at her surprised.

"Sorry if we woke you up." Lucille was the first to talk.

"No, that's fine." But she got the feeling they were wary about the person they were talking about, so she asked again.

"Yeah, well..." Natalie started.

"Oh, God, you're all so dramatic." Katie turned to face her. "We were talking about Peter, and we know you guys are close, but they just didn't know if you would be bothered by it."

Nina nodded slowly, considering, and then broke out laughing.

"You-Peter-hot." Was the only thing the others understood?

Natalie raised an eyebrow and sat next to her. "You've seriously known him your whole life and you never noticed he was good-looking?"

Nina, who was almost in tears, fell backwards in her bed and shook her head. Her laughter slowly crept into the other girls, and soon they were all laughing.

"Maybe a certain someone has a crush on our dear Peter." Hayden managed.

"I do not!" Natalie protested, glowing red, which only increased laughter followed by someone coming in the room.

"And yet no one said your name." A new voice said, winking at Nina. "I just thought I would come to tell you that breakfast is over in a bit over an hour, so hurry up, will you?"

Katie nodded and muttered a thank you to Roxanne before looking at the other girls and falling into laughter again.


"Morning." Said Peter, approaching Nina and Hayden when they came down to the Common Room.

"Morning." Hayden answered. "I'll be right back."

She turned around once Peter couldn't see her, and raised an eyebrow at Nina, who in turn had to swallow giggles down.

"So, how did you sleep?" She asked her life-long best friend. Instead of an answer, he murmured something unintelligible. "Sorry?" The girl asked, edging a little closer.

"Albus and Scorpius were down each other's throats the whole night." He finally answered, frowning.

"They don't even know each other properly!" Nina complained.

"I know, Nin. It's just that everything one said, the other misunderstood." He collapsed into a seat in front of the fire.

"Something wrong?" Albus asked, coming downstairs in an overly cheery mood. The other two shared a glace at each other before Nina hauled Peter up and drove them all to the Great Hall, casual conversation making it's way into them.

They sat down in a place right in between the Weasley's and the first years, to Albus' great delight.

"Hey." He waved to his family. "Where's James?"

"He's sleeping late today." A redhead boy said, with a gleam on his eyes and a grin on his face.

"Oh Merlin, what did you do to him, Fred?" Dominique sighed.

Even though it was fun, Nina turned her head away from the quarreling Weasleys and started serving herself pancakes and eggs. She was barely into her breakfast when Peter nudged her in the arm and pointed casually to the doors, where Rose Weasley could be seen staring at her family and then going to sit down stubbornly next to Victoire – or at least she seemed stubborn.

As her eyes traveled back to her group of friends, someone else caught her attention. Scorpius Malfoy.

"Not you, too." Peter begged her, and then she noticed she was frowning at the boy.

"No. Not me at all."

Young Miss Blotts resumed her eating, and had a somewhat normal breakfast - if normal included keeping tabs on the young Malfoy. Somewhere in the morning she had let her eyes wander off to her friends for more than a couple of minutes; the food was long gone now, and apparently so was Scorpius.

"I need to go… write a letter to my parents." She said awkwardly, standing up extremely fast.

"I'll go with you." Peter said, standing up. "I should tell them which house I got sorted in."

Nina glared at the boy. "That's all right. I'll tell them." She faked a sweet, ironic smile and started walking before he could tell her anything else.

Once outside, she looked around just in time to see a blonde head walking off to the lake area.

"Malfoy!" She called. The boy turned around and looked at her, but made no move. Nina continued walking until they were merely foots away. "Merlin, I hate this last name non-sense. We're both in the same house and year."

She recognized the look on his face: it was pure doubt. And then the doubt changed into nervousness, and then he relaxed.

"I know, but we don't really know each other either. Scorpius Malfoy, at your service." He said, extending his hand.

"Nina Blotts." She answered, taking it and smiling inwardly. "So, are you up for a walk down these beautiful lands?" She took a fancy act when she said this, causing the boy to smile.

Well, it doesn't seem as if he might bite, she thought, and plunged to her original intention a couple of yards later.

"I have an idea, and I think you just might be very interested."

"You think?" The blonde boy now had this I'm-smirking-but-I'm-really-amused kind of smirk on his face when he told her to go on.

But he shouldn't have sub-estimated her cunningness to detect a problem – and to solve it as well.


A/N:

I now invite you to my profile to check out my new Ten Days Or Less Policy, in which I state that I will upload each chapter with the time I between them being no more than ten days, and if it is, I solemnly swear I'll upload a teaser or another full chapter along with it.

TALKING ABOUT TEASERS, sorry for this chapter being so short, but I wanted it to fall into my new policy, it's getting late, and I'm short on inspiration about how the little chat N&S have should go. I'm skipping that, but it'll probably be a memory later on, so don't worry.

Also, and this is IMPORTANT, when I do my next upload, I'll announce the official name for the story, and as this name plus the add-on I want doesn't fit, it'll probably be called Nina Blotts and the [etc], Year One. Just telling you so you'll know why you suddenly can't find me, but searching for Nina Blotts Year One should do it.

And pretty, pretty please R&R, it means a lot to a relatively new author like me. (in FF at least ^^).


I know, I know. I just broke my policy, but I've got a good reason. FF gave me an error. I originally uploaded this chapter Wednesday the 23rd, and I am posting this on Sunday the 27th. Sorry, tecnical difficulties.

No hate, just love. XX