Chapter 4 in which, in a feeble attempt to escape with his ears intact, Rose is pushed into a swimming pool, we meet Mrs. Norris mark two and Al is not present for which both of our main characters are exceedingly grateful.

(1st September, 2027)

The sun was shining high over head as noon approached. We had moved slightly, to the shadows cast by the ancient beech trees that dotted the perimeter of our overgrown garden, when Rose had complained that the sun was burning her fair skin. Al was lying on his front, flicking through the sixth of my tatty, dog-eared journals, licking his fingers as he turned the pages.

Rose and I were on our backs, fingers loosely linked as we stared up into the dappled sunlight cast by the branches. A light breeze was blowing, making the leaves rustle and caressing my skin.

There was a snort of laughter and I started as Al let out a howl of mirth. Raising my head off the ground, I turned and looked at him and he lay, practically convulsing, on the ground.

"Look!" He gasped between giggles, "I've found another one! Rose was soaking wet again today!"

"Was I really that clumsy at school?" Rose inquired with a grin. "All you ever seem to write about is me, covered in water, or falling over."

"Hush up Rosie and let me read this!" Al shushed her and held up the notebook to eye level.

I let my head flop back down and braced myself for the worst.

"Once upon a time-" Al started in a sing-song voice but got no further as Rose snatched it out of his hands. "Hey! I was reading that!"

"I'm reading it," She said firmly.

"Why?" I asked, confusedly.

"Because I know what happens in this bit. Don't you remember?"

I flushed, remembering full well what had happened that day and, oh kill me now, what I had written afterwards.

"Perhaps we could skip that part..." I trailed off, my voice squeaking slightly.

Al was looking from me to Rose then back to me. "What on earth are you two talking about?"

I shut my eyes. "You really, really, don't want to know."

(24th December, 2022)

"PEEVES SHUT UP!" I bellowed, flinging the umbrella at the stupid poltergeist's face. It missed ('Of course it did, your aim has always been rubbish' *bang* 'OW that was my head!' 'So sad, too bad Al') and Peeves retaliated by chucking a tub of paint at me, cackling madly. I felt the paint slide down my face and hair and grimaced. Peeves, grinning maliciously, zoomed away to go and bother some other poor unfortunate soul, lobbing the, now-empty, paint can at me as he went.

I managed to duck as it sailed by and it hit the wall with a clang that reverberated throughout the deserted corridor, smearing the stone wall with scarlet.

"Bugger." I groaned, wiping my eyes and blinking rapidly, trying to clear my sight of red gloop.

There was a mew from somewhere near my feet and I looked down. A great globule of red paint slid off my head and landed, with a splat, on Mrs. Norris the second's mangy head. She fixed me with her yellow eyes, reproachfully and mewed again.

"Bugger!" I said again, this time with more feeling and set off at a run. From somewhere behind me I could hear the shuffling footsteps of the caretaker and I threw myself round a corner, ducked through a door pretending to be a wall, jumped the trick stair, six from the bottom of the staircase and skidded to a halt in front of the statue of Boris the Bewildered. That meant I was on the fifth floor.

I could still hear the footsteps behind me and I froze, waiting for that moment when Filch would burst out from behind a tapestry and peg me up by my ears from the astronomy tower for getting paint on the wall. Then I unfroze long enough to realise that freezing wouldn't help me in the slightest. I barrelled forward and threw myself at the nearest door, then bounced off it as I realised it was locked. The next was locked too. The third proved equally unwieldy. The fourth, however, swung open. I threw myself through it, collided with something soft, there was a splash, a shriek and then silence.

The room was softly lit by a chandelier, hundreds of candles glittering above my head which was reflected off the white marble walls and floor. Long linen curtains hung at one end, covering the windows and a large pile of towels sat in a corner below a portrait, framed in gold, of a blonde mermaid who was brushing her hair and sneezing every now and again. There was also a swimming pool-sized bathtub set into the floor with at least a hundred golden taps at one end and a diving board, of all things, at the other.

And Rose was floating in the water, soaked through.

(1st September, 2027)

Rose stopped reading out loud and I screwed my eyes tight closed, hoping she wasn't about to go mental and peg me up by my ears from the beech tree or something.

After I'd pulled Rose from the water, apologising profusely, she had reached up and run her fingers lightly over my face. They came away red and she smiled.

"Ran into Peeves did you?" She had said. And then, so suddenly I couldn't believe it was happening, she was kissing me.

That night, that Christmas Eve, had been wonderful, incredible, amazing and a thousand other descriptive words. I had written what it had been like to kiss her, to touch her. No-one had disturbed us. Al hadn't come barging in. Peeves must have been off terrorizing someone else. Filch obviously didn't know where I'd gone. And for that, I'd been so grateful, covered in paint as I was, Rose in her waterlogged robes. But none of that seemed to matter.

We had kissed and kissed and kissed as outside, through the panes of the window, snow began to fall.