CHAPTER SIX

GHOSTS IN THE FOREST

Later that day, the gossip about the new Muggle Studies professor had only gotten worse by the time Rose, Al and Scorpius reached the class for the final period of the day. The desks were all individual in rows and columns and Al, Rose, and Scorpius took a cluster of three towards the middle. To their surprise, they saw Devon sitting a few desks away and Rose smiled at him. "Hey," he said sheepishly. "Er, I just figured if I wanted to join your group I should…"

"No, that's great," Rose said quickly. "And I'll let you know about the first meeting soon."

"Sure," he said. "I… thought with Scorpius I wouldn't be the only Slytherin, but…" Rose looked around and realized that Devon was in fact the only Slytherin in the room. The majority was split between Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. After a few minutes, the room quieted down as a woman Rose hadn't seen before walked into the room, wheeling in a cart of books. She set the cart against the wall, and turned to face the class. She seemed nice enough, Rose thought, and smiled at all of them before starting to talk.

"Hello, everyone, I'm Professor Creevey. Some of you might know my sons, though they're a bit younger than you—you're the third years?" Some nodded and she smiled again. "Welcome to Muggle Studies! As you may know, the curriculum has been changed just in time for you to enter the program, as we'll be focusing on more practical studies rather than the objective view taken previously. Professor McGonagall felt with the last teacher's resignation that it would be a good time to teach the class from a more personal, hands-on point of view."

Scorpius nudged Rose. "So she is a Muggle?" he whispered. Rose shrugged and raised her hand.

"What's your name, dear?" she asked.

"Rose Weasley, Professor."

"Nice to meet you, Rose. What's your question?"

"I hope it's not rude… it's just that everyone's been talking about it, Professor, and I was just wondering… are you a Muggle?" she asked, feeling her ears growing hot as she spoke. Professor Creevey smiled.

"No, not quite. My family are all magical, but I'm not. I was raised in the wizarding world, but I never went to Hogwarts, and I went on to lead a Muggle life; I taught English and Art at a Muggle primary school until now. Muggles can't find their way to Hogwarts, I'm afraid, it's proofed against them, so I'm the closest to a Muggle they could do. I suppose it's helpful to the course, though, since I've lived in both worlds. Well, now that that's settled, let's get started." Professor Creevey rolled the cart into the center of the room. "If you all would pick up a book from the cart, that'd be wonderful." Rose walked up along with the rest of the class and picked up one of the books, Electricity and How it Works. It was clearly a Muggle book, as Rose flipped through it and saw no wizard terminology at all. "I know you all have textbooks, but we're going to be using these first in order to have a basic understanding of technology before we begin. We'll spend about a month or so on electricity and then go from there. Turn to page 1, please." Rose opened the book and looked around at the classroom, full of people whispering and looking at their friends, confused.

"I'm going to fail this class, I've barely ever seen a phone," Scorpius groaned. Rose smirked.

"Too bad, Malfoy, don't think you can handle it? I bet you could drop out."

"Shove off," he muttered and she giggled a little. This was going to be fun.

The next day Lucy stopped Rose in the hallway on her way to History of Magic and said, "We're changing the meeting day. Thursdays instead. There's Quidditch on Tuesdays now, Ravenclaw changed the practice times. Can you put this up in Gryffindor?" She handed her a flyer pretty similar to the ones used last year, without any reference to the attacks.

"Sure," Rose said. "Do you have anyone in Slytherin? Scorpius is back in Gryffindor."

"Oh. Really?" Lucy said. "Okay, er…do you know anyone? I still don't know if Grace and Alex are coming back."

"Devon Goyle," Rose said. Lucy wrinkled her nose.

"Didn't his dad just get sent to Azkaban?"

"Yeah, and my mum put him there, who cares? He's not his dad, and he wants to join."

"All right, Rose, sure. Give this to him," she said, holding out another flyer. "See you later."

That night, Rose was sitting in the back of the library, getting for the first time a sense of just how much work she had taken on. She only took one more extra class, she knew, but Runes was definitely a lot of work, and Divination was nothing to do with anything intellectual, just took up time. She knew she had been there for a while, but she had no idea just how long until James and Roxanne found her and jerked her book out of her hands. "Come on, Rosie, it's been hours, we've got something fun for you to do."

"What? It hasn't been… hours," she protested, and James shook his head.

"Yeah it has, actually. Come on. We're going."

"Where?" she asked, though she supposed she was going, as she was already putting her books back into her bag.

"The Forest," Roxanne explained as they left the library and started down the stairs toward the entrance hall. "We had an idea."

"That cave," James said. "No one's using it."

"We were just going to make it a Marauders thing but we figured we'd open it to…anyone we knew," Roxanne said. "You're welcome."

"So a clubhouse?" Rose asked. "Why?"

"Because… I don't know. It's out of the way, no one would think of it, and besides, it's still got those Runes that probably mean horrible things and I want to make it something… better," James admitted.

Rose sighed. "All right, fine."

"Excellent," James said. They emerged into the entrance hall and found Al, Harry and Fred waiting.

"You got her out of the library, impressive," Harry said. "Come on, let's go."

"Wait, there are Aurors now, right?" Fred asked. "How are we going to get past them?"

James groaned. "Er… Al, give me your Cloak." Al did and James threw it over himself, as well as Rose and Roxanne. "Just trust me," he whispered to them, and told Fred, "Go."

When they opened the doors, they were met with the two rather intimidating Aurors standing outside. The woman came up to them, while the man stayed at their post. "Where are you all going?"

"To see Hagrid," Fred said casually, "you know, the gamekeeper."

The woman looked down at the Hut and Rose was relieved to see Hagrid was sitting on his porch and saw them, and started to wave. "All right," she said, and they left quickly.

"That was dreadful, is that going to happen every time?" Roxanne groaned.

"Al, we'll be needing your Cloak quite a bit this year," James muttered.

"Well, hello!" Hagrid greeted them. "This is a surprise!"

"Hi, Hagrid," Al said, and James nudged Rose.

"Come on," he whispered, and they ran into the Forest before pulling off the Cloak. "All right," he said cheerfully. "That went well. All we need to do is get back into the castle when we're done."

"Do they lock the doors now?" Roxanne asked.

"Er, yeah, but not till ten. We've got… two hours."

"It's eight?" Rose asked, shocked. "I missed dinner?"

James shook his head. "Yeah. You're definitely… dedicated. All right, cave. Come on." When they reached the cave, James took a look at the wall of runes and pulled out his wand. "Scourgify," he said, pointing at the wall, and the runes painted on the wall seemed to scrub themselves out. The one rune that remained was the one etched into the wall, the one Rose still couldn't figure out the meaning of.

"What even is that?" Roxanne asked. "Rose?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I looked through some books over the summer, but I didn't have anywhere near the Hogwarts library resources."

"We could start looking," James offered. "We could maybe get the Modernists on it."

Rose shook her head. "It might be nothing. I don't want to worry people. McGonagall said she didn't know what it was either. Maybe it was just some symbol they made up."

"We can cover it with a banner or something, James," Roxanne said. "Like a lion?"

"Yeah, maybe," James said.

"Maybe it's an old symbol," Rose said. "Maybe some of the ghosts know?"

"I think some of the ghosts hang out somewhere around here," James said. "Let's go, I know a place."

Rose and Roxanne followed James out of the cave. "Do you know what he's on about?" Roxanne whispered. Rose shook her head and Roxanne shrugged. They followed him into the Forest for a few minutes, until they reached a large clearing. Rose looked around and saw a few of the teenage ghosts sitting on a large stone, talking. She didn't know what it was about the place, but it gave her a weird feeling. The tall trees seemed to be leaning over the clearing, giving it a darker feel than most open parts of the Forest. She wasn't sure she exactly liked the clearing, and tried to focus on the ghosts. James walked up first and waved when they sat down.

"Hey, James," one of them said.

"You know them?" Roxanne asked.

James scoffed. "I know everyone, Weasley, I'm very popular." Roxanne snorted and James turned back to the ghost. "Hi, Lavender. These are my cousins Rose and Roxanne."

The ghost he called Lavender looked at them eagerly. "You're Weasleys, aren't you?" They nodded, a little confused, and she smiled a little shyly. "Er, is either of you Ron Weasley's daughter?"

"I am," Rose said, curious, and Lavender's eyes widened.

"Really? Could you tell him I said hi? Lavender Brown? …Who's your mother?"

"Er, Hermione Granger?" Rose said, a little confused, and Lavender raised an eyebrow.

"…Really? Great," she sighed. "Well… tell him anyway, okay?"

"Okay…" Rose said.

"Oh, and uh, whose…?" she asked Roxanne.

"George Weasley. And Angelina Johnson," she said, and Lavender smiled.

"Oh, good, I always thought they were good together! …Oh, and… I know about Fred, you know, but he's not… he went on, I'm sorry."

"Oh," Roxanne said. "Right. Er, my brother's named Fred…"

"Really? That's so sweet—" Lavender began, and a boy behind her put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, Lavender? I think they're here about something else. What do you need, James?" the boy asked.

"Do you know what this symbol is?" James asked. Rose took out a piece of spare parchment and sketched it quickly. When she held it up, they just looked confused.

"Never seen it," Lavender said.

"Er, I think I've seen it, but… it's Dark, I think, but… yeah, I don't know. Sorry," he said.

"That's okay," James said, "we were just wondering."

"James? I can see them leaving Hagrid's, do you want to sneak in behind them before they close the doors?" Roxanne said, glancing at the edge of the trees. James sighed.

"We've got to go. Thanks, though," he said, and they stood up to go. James and Roxanne ran down the path, but Rose stopped a little to look back up at the ghosts. She wondered how exactly Lavender knew her dad, and it distracted her enough that she managed to trip over a tree root a little ways down the path from the clearing. When she stood up, wiping the dirt off her robe, something stuck in the path caught her eye. She thought she must have uncovered it when she fell, and she stooped down to pick it up. It was a small, black stone, possibly of some kind of precious material, though it was covered in dirt and the edges worn away. She shrugged and put it in her pocket, and ran after Roxanne and James out of the Forest.