Rose's first day back at Hogwarts involved her talking to several people that she didn't like.
She started off having Charms with the Ravenclaws, in which Lucy came over to her, hidden amongst the chaos of flying pillows, and asked her if they could maybe work something out: "I know that we've never seen eye-to-eye, Rose, but this competition's important to me, and I'm sure that it is to you too. So maybe we could put our differences aside, and, you know, work together? Two brains are better than one!" Lucy attempted a friendly smile, but it didn't reach her eyes, clearly holding no affection for her cousin.
They were a strange pair; similar in several ways, yet different in just as many.
They had the same build, both slightly on the willowy side, with gentle faces disguising a fiery personality. However, whilst Rose's eyes were a kindly chocolate brown, Lucy's were dark blue; full of determination and ambition. Rose's hair was in thick ginger curls, worn loose around her shoulders, but Lucy's was straight and dark brown, tied up firmly in a very business-like ponytail. They had the same posture, though: calm and confident, with their arms folded and an annoyed pout on their faces, showing that they were the ones in charge, and weren't going to take any rubbish from anyone.
This was what caused there problems: neither liked to be bossed around. However, Rose was prepared to take one for the team, just this once.
"Yeah, ok." She attempted a smile, holding out her hand, "Friends?"
Lucy relaxed a little, and clasped her cousin's hand in hers, before shaking it firmly, "Friends," she agreed. They looked at each other awkwardly for a moment, before releasing the grip, and Lucy saying, "Well, if you'll excuse me, I have pillows to Charm,"
"Yes, of course, as do I. I'll see you tonight, before dinner, for a team talk?"
"Certainly. We'll have to keep the others in check!" Lucy joked, and Rose laughed politely, before turning back to her real friends who were hiding smirks. As soon as Lucy was out of earshot, Molly exploded into laughter, and Rose let out a groan of horror.
"Say nothing." She ordered Molly, before burying her face in the pile of pillows that should've flown in a box at the other side of the classroom by now. She watched as Lucy effortlessly manoeuvred the last of her pillows into the box, and turned to talked to Louis Weasley, who seemed to be looking for an escape route. He found one in Albus.
"Sorry, Luce, I've got to go and talk to Al, you know, team meeting and all that," he explained hastily, before skirting around his fan club, (which consisted of Lucy's Ravenclaw friends,) and joining Albus and a handful of other boys at the other side of the classroom. Rose could see that Louis' reaction to Lucy had been similar to hers, if him rolling his eyes and laughing at the Ravenclaw was anything to go by, and she suddenly felt a stab of guilt for being casually cruel towards Lucy. It was something that she just did, without even thinking about it, but suddenly she saw how it must feel to be Lucy: desperately trying to get on with people, who hated her superior intelligence. There was nothing Lucy could do about her brains, apart from dumbing herself down, but Rose didn't see what she'd achieve by doing that. In fact, Lucy's situation reminded Rose an awful lot of how her Mum had described her first year at Hogwarts, before Ron and Harry had befriended her. Rose resolved to be nicer to Lucy from now on, and to stick up for her cousin if she heard anyone insulting her.
The day continued fairly normally, and Rose soon felt as if she'd never been away. That was one of the many great things about Hogwarts- you always settled back in so easily, probably because it was a second home to most of the students.
To some it was the only home that they'd ever known.
By the time the school day was over, and Rose was heading toward the Great Hall with Molly for the first team meeting, the former was growing tired of Molly's daydreaming about James. In fact, in Molly's eyes, he seemed to be perfect in every way.
"I mean, he's tall and handsome, not to mention clever and talented- and we both love Quidditch, I would say that it's destined, but I don't believe in destiny, neither does James. He's too sensible for that sort of thing, and he's so mature, and really hot! Would you ask him for me? I mean, ask him if he likes me?"
Rose sighed for what seemed like the millionth time that day. "What do you want me to say? 'Hey, James, I was just wondering if you had a crush on my friend Molly, because she likes you, so it'd be great if you'd just say yes and take her to Hogsmeade or something'." Rose joked sarcastically.
"No, you can't say that! That's far too obvious!" Rose was tempted to say 'Just like you, then', but stopped herself. "Just bring me up in conversation or something, and see how he reacts, or ask him who he likes. He'd probably tell you, you're his cousin."
"Really, I'd completely forgotten," Rose muttered under her breath. She was quickly losing patience with Molly and her daydreaming over James, "But James and I don't talk about stuff like that, in fact, we barely talk at all!"
"You'll figure something out, you're the smartest witch of our age after all,"
As the two girls stepped into the Great Hall, the first change they noticed was that the tables were, as Hermione had told them at breakfast, set for four, instead of in the usual long House tables. Rose found this felt strange, to say the least, as she'd never seen the Great Hall set out like this before. The second thing that she noticed was that the usual cheery atmosphere was severely depleted. Instead of the lively chatter that normally rang through the room, there was an awkward silence, never broken by anything more than the squeak of a chair, the opening of a door, or the tapping of nails on a table.
Hermione stood at the forefront out of the hall, and clapped her hands for the silence that was already present.
"Ok, students. Now that we are all here, your preparation for the first task may begin. I cannot give you any hints as to what the challenge may contain, other than what I told you at breakfast this morning, but it is extremely important that you revise what I have already told you: potions and antidotes. The Slytherin member of the group will be Team Captain until the first task is over. I suggest you begin this meeting with introducing yourselves to each other, as I doubt that you will all be friends already. I hope you aren't anyway, as that'd make this whole Challenge slightly pointless. You may begin!" Hermione finished, as Rose spotted the rest of her group sat at a table.
She made her way over rather awkwardly, as the tables were quite close together, and sat down in the last empty chair. She glanced around at her group, all of whom were looking at her expectantly. Lucy sat to Rose's right, and had a pile of books in front of her, all based on potions, antidotes, or Salazar Slytherin, and was resting her elbows on them, her face perched atop her clenched fists. Scorpius sat opposite Rose, leaning back in his chair, with only the back two legs on the ground. He placed his hands behind his head, looking at Rose with raised eyebrows, as if unimpressed by her presence. She felt a strange sensation in her stomach- a cross between irritation and that fluttering she'd had this morning when she discovered that Scorpius was in her team. Feeling herself going red, Rose glanced round to a shorter boy with light brown hair and a slightly dumpy stature. This must be the Thomas Smith that she didn't know. He smiled nervously at her through gentle, hazel eyes, and attempted to smooth out his already neat hair.
There was an awkward silence before it dawned on Rose that the others were looking to her as group leader, despite Hermione having declared the Slytherin's as the ones in charge.
She cleared her throat. "Ok, well... hi. I'm Rose, Rose Weasley, as most of you know, and I'm in Gryffindor." She looked pointedly at Lucy for her to continue. She got the message.
"I'm Lucy Weasley, Rose's cousin, and I'm a Ravenclaw. It's our fathers who were brothers, in case you're wondering." Scorpius clearly couldn't care less, but Thomas at least pretended to be interested.
"I'm Thomas Smith, and I'm a proud Hufflepuff." He grinned nervously.
When Malfoy continued to stare at his nails, Rose prompted him. "Malfoy? Are you going to introduce yourself or not?"
He looked up and stared Rose in the eye, "Why should I? You all already know who I am."
"I don't." Thomas pointed out quietly. Whether he was serious or not, Rose wasn't sure: she thought that everyone knew Scorpius.
Because he was such a bully, obviously.
Scorpius' chair clunked to the ground as all four legs touched the floor. "Well, maybe I should introduce myself then," he began, in a silky smooth voice. Rose recognised it from the tone he used before the two of them got into a duel. "My name's Scorpius Malfoy. I'm in Slytherin, just like my father, and his father, and their father's. In fact, I'm a pureblood, which is why I vastly prefer to stay away from Mudblood scum like Weasley here."
For some reason this comment hit home more than any of the other insults he'd thrown at her. Scorpius had called Rose and her family all the names under the sun, including 'Mudblood', several times before, so why was this particular occasion affecting her more than before? She felt her eyes stinging, but blinked the tears back. She couldn't cry in front of Scorpius, he'd never let her forget it.
It was her fault for rejecting his offer of a truce- if she'd done that, then he would've stopped insulting her by now. She took a deep breath.
"C'mon, Malfoy," she said, attempting a joking grin, "no need to be so rude. Why don't you tell us all about how your Quidditch practise went over the summer?"
He looked at her, confused, for a moment, as if wondering if it was a trick question of some sort. He decided that it wasn't, and began to describe the new broomstick he'd been bought, and the Quidditch wear that'd come with it.
As Scorpius talked, his eyes lit up, and his voice lost its snobbishness, which Rose considered a very pleasant change. She also realised that if he'd been good-looking before, when he was sulking, he was positively male-model standard now. Not that that meant anything to her.
After a few minutes Malfoy trailed off, suddenly aware of how open he'd been. His frown returned to his face. "What about you, Weasley?" He asked, before realising that there were two Weasley's present that he could be referring to, "Oh, I'll have to be more specific now, I suppose. What about you, Lucy, do you like Quidditch?" Although Scorpius' voice had a heavy dose of sarcasm in it, Rose considered it huge progress that he was talking to a Weasley in a civil manner.
Lucy launched into a long-winded discussion about the dangers of Quidditch, whilst Rose sighed at her dreariness. She looked up to see Scorpius doing the same thing, and they grinned at each other.
She caught herself.
Rule Number 1 of being Ron Weasley's daughter:
-One must not have anything to do with any relative of Draco Malfoy.
That included grinning at his son.
But thinking about it, where was the logic? Why should she not make friends with Scorpius, if he wanted to get along with her? Just because her parents hadn't got on with Draco, it didn't mean that his son was the same, and Hermione was doing all she could to encourage Inter-House ties! Rose decided that if she and Scorpius could get along, it would benefit everyone, even if her father would be angry for a short time... Ok, he'd be angry for longer than 'a short time', but that wasn't the point: the point was that this year was all about getting on with people from other houses, and her befriending Scorpius would do just that.
If he wanted to be her friend, that was, as when Rose looked back at him, Scorpius was glowering again.
This boy was a real mystery, she thought to herself in a nervous excitement.
Sorry it's not as exciting as you might've hoped, but I wanted to show the beginning of Rose and Scorpius working through their problems. Unfortunately, I think that Rose is going to struggle keeping her promise about befriending Lucy, so she'd going to need Scorpius soon... ;)
If you liked this, feel free to review
Similarly, if there's anything particular you'd like to see in future chapters, please tell me, and I'll try to include it, as long as it fits with my planned plotline.
Thanks for reading! x