Chapter 17-Rose Strips a Slytherin

Rose stared down at the lake. "Oh, this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, this is a terrible idea!" she shouted to no one in particular. It was just before the sun rose, so she was alone.

Rose had tied her hair back and taken every precaution necessary for surviving underwater. She repeated incantations in her head for fighting off creatures or potential plants she might encounter, but her wand was awful anyway. They wouldn't much help.

She breathed deeply and inched behind a large willow tree where she stripped down to her underwear and stuffed her clothes in the tree's knothole. She never bothered bringing her swimsuit to Hogwarts; the lake was off-limits.

She dipped her right foot's toes into the water…and it was warm. She'd never been in the lake, but she'd expected it to be freezing. She slid her feet easily into the silky water and lowered herself into the lake. A chill went through her as her toes touched the roots of the willow at the edge of the ground four feet underwater. She sunk down to her eyes so she could see the ripples forming from her body. All around her, the water's surface was crowded with tiny oak leaves and twigs. When she was finally in down to her neck, she uncapped a potion bottle and breathed in the vapors that rose from the surface deeply into her lungs until she felt her side organs freeze and zap like little electrodes were touching her alveoli over and over again. As long as she kept that breath in, she should have been able to swim all she wanted without air.

She immediately placed her feet beneath a giant root of the willow and pushed off, swirling in a downward spiral. She swam deeper and finally found the edge of the ground. The problem was she had no idea how deep the lake was. The Bladder Wrack didn't need very much light, so it could have been anywhere on the bottom. She was beginning to regret storming out on that girl from before. She must've known exactly where the Bladder Wrack was. If she'd just kept talking to her, she might've been able to coax out where the Bladder Wrack was.

Rose kept swimming down, but she didn't see any weeds along the edge of the lake. Then again, the lake was almost a kilometer wide. She could've been entirely in the wrong place. She couldn't summon it. It was stuck to the ground. It'd have to be pulled out first. She wished she had a spell to—

That's when she remembered. She did have a spell. The one Albus had used in the forest. She'd never used it herself, but Albus used it to find a way out of the forest. She could use it to find her way to the Bladder Wrack! It wasn't an offensive spell. It shouldn't have had any backlash, though it probably wouldn't work correctly. It was at least worth a shot. She swished her wand, thinking, Guide me? The water slowed her wand movements, but the instant the words ran through her head, a beam of red light shot from the tip of her wand and catapulted her forward. She was rocketing through the water at top speed. Pressure was forcing itself down around her, tightening its grip on her head and pushing its way into her eyes and ears like something was trying to force rocks inside of her. Damn that wand! It wasn't going to lead her there, it was bringing her there. No matter what body parts were left behind.

She finally opened her eyes to find the ground quickly coming to meet her. And she wasn't slowing down for it either. She needed to let go. But the wand wouldn't let her. Her hands were glued to the stick; they wouldn't come off. She tugged and fought against it, but they were melted into the wood like tar into a highway. She tried to scream, but nothing but bubbles escaped from her mouth and the frozen vapors from the potion melted when the breath came out of her.

But when she plummeted into the overgrown weeds at the lake's bottom, she shot right through them. She opened her eyes and found herself zipping through an underground tunnel like a torpedo. And there was a light at the end of the tunnel. She shut her eyes tight as she came towards it. Solid rock. She wasn't surviving that. A crack to the head would put her unconscious and let her drown. She sped through the water and turned up and out of it. For a moment, she didn't understand. She hung in mid-air for a split second before dropping back into the pool beneath her.

She sunk deep and eventually hit the bottom where she propelled herself up and back to the surface, sputtering and coughing and blowing air out of her nose from the water that had gone up it and settled into her sinuses quite comfortably with no hope of retrieval. She treaded water in the pitch darkness of the place for a time. Her loud breaths echoed off the walls. "So it must be a cave," she reasoned. "But then why is there air?"

She took out her wand and said, "Lumos." Instantly, it shed a bright light that blinded her so magnificently; she clamped her eyes shut and tossed the stick out, over the water. "Useless," she muttered, until she heard it clatter against dry land and looked back. From its far off corner of the cave, it illuminated the wall in a pearly glow that reflected back the water's rustling onto the walls so the light just above her looked as if it was moving in waves and bubbles. "Huh," she said. "That's curious." She was just in a small pool to the side of a cave. It was a tunnel that fed into the lake.

"If I can breathe here, there must be open air just above me," she thought aloud, enjoying the sound of her echoic voice. "I just need to find it or else swim all the way back through the tunnel to the surface." Considering she'd brought none of her potion with her, the second option was quite impossible without a bubblehead charm and the chances of that working were slim.

Rose swam to the edge of the pool and climbed up on the rocks and out of the water until she was standing on solid ground. The cave was surprisingly flat. At least that she could see. She looked back and ripped some Bladderwrack seaweed from the slime on the rocks. "Least I got what I came for," she said. She spent a bit of time maneuvering around the giant masses of rock that jutted up at her feet and even ducked beneath the ones that came down far enough to reach her head, for the ceiling was relatively low, until she came upon her wand and realized her dilemma. She couldn't keep throwing it. It would get caught somewhere she couldn't reach eventually. And she needed it to see. She reached down and grabbed the head of the wand with her hands. Her skin mostly muffled it and lighted the room with a pinkish glow, but the light at the cracks of her fingers was still too bright. For a moment, she thought about putting it in her mouth, but the image of her brains exploding out the back of her skull from her wand malfunctioning came to mind and she decided against that. The only clothing she had on was her underwear…

Rose stuffed her wand in her brassiere and tightened its straps so the light wouldn't escape. "If I lose a breast, at least I've got another one," she shrugged. She walked along her way, smiling at the blue flowers that appeared on the rocks from her floral-pattered bra.

Eventually, she came upon a hole in the wall. And that's when it dawned on her. She was in the dungeons. Some old, broken-down area of them at the edge of the lake. She thought perhaps the founders would've put charms on the place to prevent corrosion, but then again, this place could have easily been created before Hogwarts. She walked through the doorway and up the stairs until she came upon a giant assortment of stones, on the other side of which, she could clearly see light. She took the wand from her…pocket and raised it.

"At least I can do the one thing it's good for," she said. "And blast my way out of here."

Rose held up her wand and breathed deeply, stepping gradually backwards. She closed her eyes and shouted, "CONFRINGO!"

She ducked as debris flew about her, but opened her eyes a few moments later to look through the smoke. She tilted her head at the hole in the wall. It was remarkably small, but it would have to do. She didn't want to blast again and risk structural damage. She would probably just fit. She pushed her head and shoulders through and was just halfway through getting out when she spotted something in her peripheral. She turned her head and saw a Slytherin boy standing to her left, watching her climb out. In her knickers. He could obviously see she only had her brassiere on.

"Slytherin party?" he asked, slumping his shoulders. He only looked to be in his third or maybe second year. He was quite small.

"Um…yes," she lied, nodding her head, red curls bouncing in cold wet chunks as they leaned sideways on her head in the odd position she was in.

"Damn it! Why wasn't I invited? Okay, who threw it? Because I want to know who I pissed off to miss out on this."

She wasn't friends with any Slytherins, so the first name that popped into her head was "Scorpius," she said, cursing herself the minute she did. What if it came back to bite Albus? He was always picking on him. Oh, well. Too late now.

"Hmph," he said, walking past her, for some reason as if nothing was particularly strange about the situation.

"Wait!" she stopped him. "Could you maybe help me?"

Albus set down The Quibbler into his lap and quirked an eyebrow. "You want me to do what?"

"Duel Scorpius," Patricia said.

Albus rubbed his head. "Forgive me. I did hear you the first time. I really meant why."

"Why? Is that even a question?! He's always throwing his weight around and manipulating people to get what he wants."

Albus stared at her for a moment. "Yes," he said. "Rather characteristic of the Slytherins. Pretty much the definition of what they are, really. Why do I need to duel someone because of it now?"

Patricia hooked her hair around her fingers the way she usually did when something odd was going on. "Well, I may have told him you would duel him any time, any place."

"I'm sorry, let me get this straight. You challenged Scorpius to a duel for me?"

"Yes," Patricia said.

"You mean, the one who's a year older than me and almost certainly knows more advanced spells than I do?"

"That's the one," she nodded.

Albus stared off into the distance of the Great Hall. "I need new friends," he whispered to himself.

"What?"

"I said," he responded, snapping out of it. "Why in bloody Hell would you not just fight him yourself?"

"Because I was trying to help you!"

"You have a funny way of getting that done."

Patricia rolled her eyes and slumped in her seat. "He's pompous! He thinks he can push you around just because he's older and he's a Slytherin and has scary friends!"

Albus shifted his eyes about for a moment. "Those seem like pretty good reasons."

"But you're to put this aside once and for all and destroy him!"

"And if I lose?"

"LOSING ISN'T AN OPTION, ALBUS! We must train! Come!"

"Ah, now? Forgive me, but it's still" —he checked his watch— "ten in the morning. I haven't quite woken up yet and I have these plans with Nathan to enchant the school's chess boards... It's really this whole thing we planned so we don't have to hand in our potions papers on Monday."

Patricia jumped up and the sleeping heads of the people around her rose to see the commotion. "Fine. I'll research spells myself that'll knock you off your feet and we can duel later." With that, she scampered off, through the doors of the Great Hall.

"Oh, isn't that cute," Jeremy said smiling beside him. "She places confidence in you."

"Oh, shut it."

"Are you actually going to go through with this? The whole Scorpius thing she pushed you into?"

Albus bit his lip. "Not sure yet."

Jeremy just shook his head.

"What? You know what? You just wait until you like someone."

"I've liked girls."

"For real. Not some passing fancy because some flirt smiles at you."

Albus got up and left before he could hear Jeremy's response. It was lucky he did because Jeremy didn't much have one beyond a superficial comment that neither one of them would have been satisfied with. Albus was about to walk out when he noticed Lysander eating at the Ravenclaw table and walked over.

"See you got out of the hospital wing," he greeted.

"Brand new and ready to slaughter the Gryffindors in the next game!" he said confidently.

"You wish," Albus returned, but his eyes drifted to the seats around him. "Where's Lorcan?"

"How the bloody Hell am I supposed to know?" he asked snidely, biting into his apple so juices sprayed across his cheeks.

"He's your brother."

"James is your brother. Does that mean you've got locater spell on him so you know every time he's taking a piss?"

"No, but you're twins."

"So what? That whole blooming thing about twins being connected is bollox. I'll tell you that much."

"No, I mean you share a dorm."

"But all he ever does is sleep or mope around."

"Is he sick?"

"Hell no. Lorcan's just naturally depressing and boring. Stupid. Thinks he's psychic. Trelawney's put some weird stuff into that kid's head." Lysander twirled a finger around his ear as he scooped more breakfast food onto his plate.

"Right," Albus nodded, walking away, feeling a sudden warm affection for James and Lily.

He walk out of the Great Hall and traipsed down the hallways for a bit, still trying to wake himself up. Maybe he'd go out and practice Quidditch some.

But when he turned the corner, he came face-to-face with Rose. It wasn't that he didn't usually discover Rose about. Her bright red hair made her a bit hard to miss, but today, things were a bit off. For starters, her hair was dripping wet, making curls pop out along her face. Additionally, she was wearing robes several sizes too small. Slytherin robes.

"Hello, cousin," he said, looking her up and down as she stopped before him.

"You didn't see anything," she told him.

"Yet the deed has been done."

"We can pretend this never happened."

"Rose, please tell me you killed a Slytherin and collected those as your victory trophy."

"Albus…"

Suddenly, Albus caught sight of two people travelling down the hall in their direction.

"Oh, Merlin, I can't let anyone see you like that!"

"What?"

He flicked his wand and a jet of blue light enveloped his cousin. In a quick flash, she was a finch, flapping madly about before landing on his shoulder.

As the two people neared, one of them waved to him and he realized it was Leo with a girl. The two walked up to him.

"Hey, Albus," Leo greeted.

"Oh, hey Leo," he said, leaning as casually as possible against the wall. Who's your friend?"

"Shirley," she answered.

Leo looked over at her, confused. "Shirley?"

Albus looked her over. He decided he didn't like her. Her hair and eyes were endlessly dark and when she spoke, the words sounded empty like the sound got lost traveling in her throat and it took time to find its way out and to the ears of others. Her presence made him feel like the sunny day was damp and overcast.

"Leo, what do you say we head back to the common room?" And get away from her.

Leo looked over at the girl.

"You go on," she said. "I haven't eaten yet and I'd like to talk to Frieda." But when she was done saying it, her eyes flicked directly to his and a shiver ran through him.

"Well, come on, let's go!" he shouted, a bit too enthusiastically, streaking down the hallway.

Leo soon ran after and convinced him to slow to a walk. When they were about to turn the corner, Albus looked behind him. The girl was still waiting in the same spot she'd been in down at the other end of the hallway. She hadn't moved. She was just staring at him.

"Who is that girl?" Albus asked as they walked across the green outside, taking a shortcut around the school's exterior.

"Just my friend, Carina."

"And since when do you have female friends?"

"Why does everyone seem to be commenting on that?"

"Because you hate girls."

"I don't hate Frieda. We're friends. I don't particularly hate Rose, though I wish she wouldn't torture the boys in this school."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, I wish she'd just pick one already so the other ones didn't keep trying to chase after her."

"That's not her fault, Leo. She didn't choose to be the daughter of Hermione and Ron Weasley any more than I chose to be the son of Harry Potter."

"Maybe she could stop always trying to look so pretty."

Albus scoffed. "Rose try to look pretty? You're joking, right? The other day, Patricia had to take her into the bathroom and dunk her hair in the sink because she still had dirt in it from the day before."

"Yet people love her."

"What do you want her to do?! Wear robes three sizes too big, cover herself in manure, and put a box over her head? Or would her showing hands and feet be too sexually suggestive for you?"

Leo stopped and looked Albus over once. "Albus…are you a feminist?"

He paused for a moment. "Merlin's beard, I think I am. They've infiltrated the opposite sex at last. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Albus, I was just —."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" He began frantically running about. He looked down at his hands and fell to his knees in the grass. "Rose, Patricia, Aunt Granger…what have you all done to me?!"

"I was joking," Leo called to him in the background. "Besides, it's not like it's a big deal."

"I will be ridiculed all my life through," he whispered. Then, he paused, mid-thought. "Just as women are ridiculed…"

"Oh, for the love of—."

"Fine!" he shouted, standing. "I AM A FEMINIST!" He walked up to Leo and put a hand on his shoulder. "You have opened my eyes."

"Albus, how old are you?"

"Are we talking about physical or mental age?"

Leo sighed. "Never mind."

"Oh, wait," he said. "I have to meet Nathan. Maybe I should tell him about my self-discovery."

"Better keep it to yourself," Leo advised.

"Goodbye." And he ran off, completely forgetting that he'd turned his cousin into a bird.