Sometimes when a lot or nothing happened in a week or she was looking forward to something, time would go by really fast, her memory getting kinda hazy.
This was different.
She could barely remember the last two weeks. Sure, she remembered her potions homework (which she still didn't understand at all), but she didn't remember what she had thought about after she got the potions homework, or what she thought about after that. Everything was a bit of a blur, and some of it a complete blank. It was as if she'd just been going through the motions for half the month of April.
Her friends said she'd been tired, but she'd been thoroughly sleep deprived before and this felt very different.
And on top of it all, Scorpius was acting weird. He wouldn't so much as look at her. He ducked away each time she tried to talk and he looked more miserable than usual. She never saw him studying in a tree anymore. She never saw him outside at all.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the shouts of James and Fred.
"ROSE!" They sprinted through, each grabbing one of her arms and dragging her away at top speed.
Once they'd made it to a hallway far enough away, they let her go.
"What were you doing by the Slytherin commons?" asked Fred, as if proximity to anything Slytherin was insane.
"None of your business."
"Saucy, are we?" James made a face.
"You don't wanna be near there," Fred said.
"It's about to get sticky," explained James.
"Really sticky," Fred concluded, before they both burst out laughing.
Rose stood with her arms crossed, entirely unamused.
"Hey," James said, beginning to come to his senses. "Where's your entourage? You're never alone."
"I just didn't feel well. There's nothing wrong with me wanting to be alone for a while."
Fred and James looked at each other.
"Oh dear," said Fred.
"It's a boy," continued James.
"You don't think?" asked Fred.
"A Slytherin boy?" asked James.
"Oh dear," said Fred.
They turned to her, distressed.
"You have to reconsider. Whoever he is, he can't be worth it. He's Slytherin," pleaded James, as if being Slytherin was a perfectly good excuse for avoidance.
"Shut up. It's not a boy."
Her cousins turned to each other.
"I don't believe her," said James.
"Not a moment."
"That's exactly what girls look like after they've spent time in a closet with me."
"I believe you're thinking about girls after a closet escapade with me.
She ignored them as they began arguing, her mind traveling down a different path. Was it a boy? Why was she by Slytherin anyway? She had just been walking mindlessly and she'd ended up walking to Scorpius. But that was ridiculous. She and Scorpius were just good friends. Keep telling yourself that, whispered a voice in the back of her head.
"See?" Fred began after they finished trash-talking each other's skills with females. "We're making our own point. Guys are idiots. And we're Gryffindor. Just imagine a Slytherin. You're better off with a cat." And on that note, they linked their arms to hers and began skipping her to Hufflepuff.
"Feel better?" asked James once they reached the circular door to the Hufflepuff dorms.
"Sure," she answered. Anything for a quiet moment.
"Good. Remember, hoes before bros."
"Whatever you say."
"Fred, I do rather fancy this skipping thing."
"I couldn't agree more." Fred let her go and looped his arm through James'. "Shall we be off?"
"See you later Rose!"
And so they left Rose to her lonesome standing outside the Hufflepuff commons, telling her feet not to go back down to the basement.