'Let it never be said the romance is dead.' - Kaiser Chiefs, Ruby
"I'm in love." Rose says dreamily as she sits opposite me in the library on Saturday (Emma forced me into this wretched place of learning).
That took longer than usual. A month of school has already gone by without this happening.
Emma and Lysander share a knowing look, but I just roll my eyes and carry on reading my RPM cars magazine behind my Transfiguration textbook (it took a lot of research and bribes with Scor's money and references to my dad killing Voldemort to get my RPM magazine subscription delivered to Hogwarts, so I'm not risking Master Pince the weird librarian confiscating it). "No you're not."
Rose grasps my hands and stares into my eyes. Did I ever mention that my cousin has the craziest eyes I've seen? "Jake is the One, Al."
I snort and pick up my magazine, which Rose knocked onto the floor. "Jake Bloom? Really? He's a twat."
Rose snarls and raises her hand to slap me, but gets distracted by the sight of my magazine. She squints at it for a moment before pulling out her reading glasses. "Seriously, Al? Give up on the cars, already! Aunt Gin-Gin's never going to buy you one."
I snatch the magazine away from her. "I know. I even learned to drive, and passed my fucking driving test without Confounding the examiner! I dropped her so many hints last year for my seventeenth birthday, but she just got me a stupid watch. She never fucking listens to me. It's always 'James this' and 'Lily that'. And dad's too busy trying to save the world again to care." I say bitterly.
Rose shrugs. Insensitive bint. "No one cares about your daddy problems, cuz. Get over it. There are more important things to talk about. Like my love for Jake."
Scor and Ria slide in next to Rose.
"Was 'sup my bitches?" Scor grins.
"Jake Bloom. Up Rose's vagina." I answer tetchily.
Ria shoots me a Look and laces her hand through Scor's. "That's nothing new, right?"
"I'm in love with him." Rose lays her head on Ria's shoulder contentedly.
"Honey, you know it never works out." Emma replies gently.
Say it like it is, babe.
"Look," I'm tired of this shit. "When did you sleep with him?"
Rose falls in love with every guy she sleeps with.
"Yesterday." Rose sighs happily. "It was the best night of my life."
She says this at least once a month, for a new guy every time.
"Then tell him you love him." I say.
I know exactly what will happen.
Emma opens her mouth to contradict my amazing advice, but is cut off by the arrival of twat-of-the-hour, Jake Bloom.
Speak of the devil.
"Jakey, sweetheart!" Rose flings herself at him.
Scor mimes retching and leaves, pulling Ria with him. That's new. He should be used to Rose's disgusting PDA by now.
"Rose has something to tell you." This is such good entertainment.
"I love you, my darling." Rose says eagerly. Well, she certainly doesn't beat around the bush.
I watch Jake lazily. I've been in his position so many times. He looks shocked, and gapes at her for a minute.
"Rose, I think we should break up." Then he runs out of the library as fast as his skinny legs can carry him.
See, that was his mistake. If a chick says she loves you, just say you love her back so that the sex keeps coming, until you find a better girl to snog.
But Bloom's still got that horrible little thing they call a 'conscience'. I got rid of that annoying bitch ages ago.
Yes, I know I should have been Sorted into Slytherin.
But speaking of break-ups, I need to get rid of my girlfriend, Ruby. She likes to wear socks and a scarf during sex, which I find a total turn-off.
She'll be in the Gryffindor common room now, knitting a new sex scarf. I get up to go and find her, leaving Rose blubbering in Emma's arms, wailing about Bloom (and about to be kicked out of the library).
I find Ruby in the common room, exactly as I thought I would, and I convince her to take a walk with me.
I was considering breaking up with her in the common room, but even for me that's a bit heartless.
As she blabbers on about kinky knitting patterns, we leave the castle and I hear faint singing on the way down to the Black Lake.
"My life, my life,
Makes me wanna run away,
But there's no place to go, no place to go."
Ruby stops babbling as she hears the singing, and I quicken my pace to see Ria leaning against the tree at the edge of the lake, wearing a green Quidditch jersey and genie pants, strumming a guitar and watching Scor, who is standing at the edge of the Lake, looking out over it and singing melancholically.
"Scor? Ri?" I call quietly.
Scor stops singing at the sound of my voice, and they turn around.
We stand for a moment, staring at each other, and it feels like I have intruded on a very private moment.
"Erm, guys, this is Ruby." I pull Ruby forward to stand next to me.
In an instant the tension is gone as Scor and Ria share a look, grinning deviously.
Shit.
"RUBY, RUBY, RUBY, RUBY."
Argh. I spin a quick Silencio at them and wait until they realise they aren't making any sound, and stop singing before I take the spell off.
"Sorry about that, man," Scor comes forward and claps my shoulder, "Couldn't help it."
Ruby is looking faintly scared. Can't really blame her. If two loons sang my name as loud as they could, I would run away before you could say 'crazy'.
"We'll leave you to it, hun," Ria winks at me, "See you later, Rubes."
Then she walks off, strumming her guitar, with Scor trailing after her, still singing.
I roll my eyes and tune out the noise.
"Ruby, we need to talk."
Her blue eyes fill with tears.
LOL.
"Are – are - you – you –"
"I'm breaking up with you." I say impatiently. Godric, by the time she got her question out, I'd be graduating and leaving her anyway.
"BUT AL, YOU CAN'T!" she wails.
Urgh.
"On the contrary, I think you'll find I can. And sweetheart, I just did. Sayonara, sucker."
Okay, maybe that last sentence wasn't totally necessary. But it sounded cool.
I leave her to her unattractive howling and head back inside.
Hey, I never said I was a nice guy.
I find a willing girl to give me permission to go up the Gryffindor girls' staircase, where I find Rose, Ems, Ria, Scor and Sander in the sixth year girls' dorm.
Rose is still crying, sprawled on her bed, with Emma stroking her hair soothingly and Ria patting her hand ever so often. Lysander is sitting on the bed opposite, giving Rose advice on how to get back on her feet, and Scor is hanging over the remaining bed, playing with the red duvet and singing softly about breakups.
They all look up when I enter, except for Rose, who carries on wailing like a banshee.
"Al, we're going to the Room of Requirement. Fancy coming along?" Ria asks me.
After one of Rose's breakups, the girls always go to the Room of Requirement, which appears to them as a cosy living room with comfy sofas, soft rugs, three beds, and best of all: a massive flat-screen TV, where they watch a Leo DiCaprio movie and eat ice cream.
"What're you watching?" I ask. Last time, they watched The Titanic, which ended up making all three of the girls cry, while Scor, Sander and I quickly snuck back out of the Room. Not an experience I wish to repeat.
"The Wolf of Wall Street." Ria smirks at me.
Fuck yes.
Scor sits up eagerly and Lysander grins.
"I'll be there." I smile at her.
Three and a half hours later, and we are sprawled on the soft carpet of the Room of Requirement floor, eating ice-cream and passing around a bottle of firewhiskey.
"Never have I ever….snogged Mrs Norris." Rose raises the bottle drunkenly, grimacing at me in what was supposed to be a smirk.
I scowl at her and grab the bottle, taking a swig. "It was an accident!"
"So you say." Rose sticks her tongue out at me.
"I'm not the one who kissed a fish!"
"You krombit, I was nine! I thought it would turn into a prince!"
"Pretty sure that in the story it's a frog that turns into a prince." Lysander frowns. He's not drunk at all, having sipped only water since we've been here.
I would force some alcohol into him, but he's even more of a lightweight than Rose. The one time he had a glass of firewhiskey and got drunk, he ended up lying on the staff table at breakfast the next day in the Great Hall, half naked and muttering about cheese.
Needless to say, he's never had alcohol since.
"Details, details." Rose waves away Lysander's remark and pouts. "Dad told me it was a fish."
Emma takes the bottle and gulps half of it down. I grimace at her. The lucky bitch never gets drunk, no matter how much she drinks. I am very jealous. She raises the bottle, "Never have I ever….. had sex."
Scor, Ria, Rose and I all take a sip of the bottle.
"Honey, we need to get you some action." Ria pats Emma on the head.
"I'm always up for it." I wink at Emma and try to also pat her on the head, but miss and end up lying on the floor. Yes, I've had a lot to drink.
The floor is quite comfortable actually. I curl up and stroke it absentmindedly.
"You know what? Al looks effin' cute like that." I hear a voice above me and the click of a camera.
I ignore them and kiss the floor.
I hear drunken laughter and two people grab my hands, dragging me along the floor.
They stop and then I am flying up and smacking into the padded ceiling of the Room.
I flip my middle finger at whoever is brandishing their wand below me, and then I am falling into a soft bed.
I sigh in contentment and stretch on top of the duvet, feeling as someone gets in next to me.
I go to kiss them, but feel them push me away. "Shove off Al, you're not getting any action tonight."
Oh. Lysander. Well, his loss.
But now the compulsion to sleep is too much, and I succumb to a dream-filled daze.
"I'M TOO SEXY FOR YOU!" I scream, sitting bolt upright.
I blink and look around to see Emma, Rose and Lysander staring at me from the sofas.
"Dude, chill." Lysander turns back away from me.
I moan at the bright lights in the room (which immediately dim) and Emma wanders over to give me a hangover potion, which I take gratefully and get out of the bed, flicking my wand to straighten my crumpled clothes.
I slouch onto a sofa next to Lysander and accept a cup of steaming tea from him.
"Feeling better?" I poke my cousin, who is sipping a cup of coffee happily.
Before my reputation falls to tatters, I will confirm that I have no interest in Rose's wellbeing, I just don't want her moaning to me in Potions about her broken heart.
"Mmhmm." She nods at me dismissively.
We sit in silence for a while before I realise what (I should say who?) is missing from our group.
"Where're Scor and Ria?"
Rose waves towards the third king-size bed in the Room, which has its drapes pulled around it.
"We should wake them up." Emma stands up and pulls me up too.
I stride over to the bed and pull open the drapes, looking forward to waking Scor up.
See, he's usually the one to wake me up by pouring a bucket of cold water on me. Godric, he's the bloody reason I hate mornings. I just want to give him a taste of his own medicine, but I stop in my tracks when I see the bed.
I feel blood rushing down there, and whisper the wandless spell Descendit Erectione before anyone notices.
Because, Godric fucking Gryffindor that is hot.
Scor is sitting up in the bed, watching something on his iPad in his lap, with his headphones on. And while a sleep-ruffled Scorpius Malfoy is frikkin' sexy, it's the girl sleeping next to him that's got me turned on.
Ria Black is sprawled on her front, with her arm thrown around Scor's waist. The duvet has fallen down to reveal her green and silver oversized Quidditch jersey with MALFOY printed across the back in elegant cursive, and the jersey has ridden up to reveal just a pair of black booty shorts.
Come on, who wouldn't get hard by looking at that sexy sight?
Scor sticks his tongue out at me and pulls up the duvet to cover his best friend's perfect arse. She shifts a little at the movement and tightens her arm around his waist before relaxing into sleep again.
Rose comes up behind me and pushes me out of the way before stopping like I did at the sight of Scor.
He smiles at her sheepishly and pulls off his headphones, running a hand through his hair quickly.
"I would have gotten up, but I didn't want to wake Ria." He gestures to the sleeping girl. "But seeing as even Al's up, I guess I'll wake her up."
He pulls out his headphones from the iPad, blasting the song out.
Ria's eyes flicker open and she smiles up at Scor before she frowns and sits up.
"'Sup sluts." She grins at us. Lovely start to the day.
"Hey whore." Rose beams and pulls her out of bed. It's a greeting they've been addressing each other with since they were eleven.
I have to turn away from the sight of Ria's long tanned legs, but she quickly pulls on her genie pants which were lying discarded on the floor from yesterday.
Godric, I wish I had enough memories of yesterday night to remember when she stripped off her pants.
But all too soon Lysander and Emma are shepherding us out of the Room of Requirement and down to the Great Hall to have breakfast, because, unfortunately, the one thing the Room doesn't supply is food.
A tragedy, I know. Rose has complained about it enough times.