The departure from King's Cross was a more subdued affair than in September. Hermione had to return to work, as did Harry, so Ron arranged for the children to Floo into the station with their belongings.

"Write if you've forgotten anything," said Ron, "or even if you haven't. Either way, be in touch soon, alright?"

Rose promised to write, as she did each time she left for school. Once onboard the train, she hurried down towards the end compartment where she typically sat with the twins. Hugo had already found some of his friends and was in another compartment with them.

Lorcan and Lysander were already seated and setting up a chessboard between them. The enchanted board remained stationary no matter how many bumps or turns they encountered along the track, making it perfect to pass the time aboard the Hogwarts Express.

"What happened with James last night?" asked Lysander as Albus followed Rose inside.

Albus groaned. "It was a nightmare," he said. "He kept asking how many warnings he would get before getting into any real trouble. Mum and Dad didn't have a good enough answer, so he kept badgering them about what he might or might not be able to get away with."

"Of course he did," grumbled Rose.

"He has his wand back now," continued Albus, "and I'm sure it'll be that much harder to get it away from him come summer."

If James caused any trouble on the train, however, they did not hear about it. In fact, the train ride was painfully uneventful. Rose watched the scenery rolling past the window until thoroughly bored by the icy landscape.

"Do you want to work on Transfiguration tonight?" asked Lysander, looking up from his chess game.

"Maybe," said Rose, frowning. She knew she would have to address this cursed spell soon, but the longer she avoided it, the greater the dread of having to put in the work.

She had only brought her Charms book back for the holiday in an effort to refocus on her schoolwork. She read the last chapter they had covered in class, refreshing her memory of its contents. After another few minutes of staring out the window, she read the chapter once more, fighting to retain the details.

Perhaps the king is only pretending to want his wife back, a corner of her mind whispered, entirely unfocused on her school reading. If he convinced her to stay, he could steal the demiguise away from her and hire someone to eliminate her after. There was, of course, the possibility that the king actually still loved her, but Rose found that much less likely.

As much as she tried and intended to focus on her work when she got back to school, she was tired from the trip. She ended up in the dormitory on her bed, starting on chapter thirteen of Demiguided.

"There you are," said Kara lightly, seeing Rose occupied with her novel as the taller girl swept into the room. "Not surprised. Have you spent all of your Christmas reading?"

"No," said Rose absently.

The others followed soon after, settling their things back into the room. Tia's aunt had sent her back with small tubs of lotion for each of the girls, which she tossed to their beds.

"Thanks," said Rose, setting hers on the windowsill. "How was your holiday?"

"Fine," said Tia with a shrug. "Glad to be back, honestly."

"Same," drawled Mary, drawing the vowel out for far too long. "I missed you all terribly."

Kara had just finished setting up a small black cube by the foot of her bed. She pushed it lightly with a finger, and a crooning male voice filled the room.

"Except you!" cried Mary, chucking a pillow at Kara. "Turn that off!"

Kara giggled as Mary waved her wand furiously at the cube. The man kept singing— or perhaps he was crying?

"That won't work," said Kara giddily. "It's a Muggle stereo. It's my room too, so I can play my music whenever I want!"

Rose dug into her bag for her wand, not in the mood to relive this argument again.

"Muffliato," she muttered. The other girls were relegated to muted sounds in the background. That was good enough for her.

—-

Rose resisted the urge to immediately cross the Great Hall the next morning to speak with Scorpius. He was sitting with Lily, of course, who was chattering away to her group of friends, which seemed to have expanded once again. She knew she would see Scorpius later that morning for Arithmancy. There was no need to draw attention to themselves now.

She took her time leaving the Great Hall, walking slowly in the direction of the main staircase. Scorpius caught up with her on the second floor landing. They climbed the stairs quickly, both silently remembering the day they had gotten stuck there.

"It was pretty awful," said Scorpius at last. "Mum and Dad split time between our place and my grandparents'. We all did Christmas dinner at their place, but I avoided them the rest of the time."

"Sorry," said Rose. "At least you're back now, right?"

"Right," snorted Scorpius, "as if you're surprised."

"I just meant—"

"It's thanks to your mum, I get it. No need to rub it in."

Rose stopped walking. "What?"

"She was the only one who fought for me to come back. None of the others cared."

"Scorpius," said Rose sharply, "what are you talking about?"

He regarded her coolly for a moment, then frowned in confusion.

"The whole mess with some bloody idiot coming on our property," he said slowly. "She was part of the response team."

"She— she works with legislation," Rose stuttered. "She— it's all magical creatures and Muggles, not the Aurors."

"Yeah," snapped Scorpius, "so when Dad went and nearly blew a Muggle up, she came in with all those other Ministry idiots to sort it out."

Rose's stomach sank. "Oh Scorp," she whispered.

"She didn't tell you?" he asked quietly, cheeks reddening.

Rose shook her head.

"Ah. I see."

"What—"

"It's not like we're in the middle of a Muggle neighborhood," said Scorpius defensively, "so when the ward alarms went off, Dad assumed— and Mum was home that night, and he's always so worried about someone hurting her to get to him."

"Did he hurt anyone?" asked Rose quietly.

Scorpius continued up the stairs and Rose hurried after him. They were another floor up before he responded.

"He activated the— we have these—" he began, stopping himself partway through each sentence. He shook his head, as if to clear it. "We have this defense system. That kicked in first."

Rose resisted the urge to ask why he was so nervous about talking about his home's wards. She guessed that they probably weren't strictly adherent to Ministry regulation.

"He realized the bloke wasn't a wizard pretty quickly. Got him inside and sent a message off to the Ministry. I was supposed to stay upstairs the whole time, but I could hear everything from the top of the staircase.

"Turns out the bloke got separated from some tour he was on. There's a big town pretty close by, and he got away from his group during some Christmas nature tour and couldn't find his way back. The Muggle-Repelling charms should have steered him away from our property, but apparently they just confused him more. The Ministry folks wiped his memory and got him down to the inn where his group was staying.

"Dad isn't in too much trouble. Some of them— some of them thought it was funny, Rose. They laughed at him." Scorpius paused to swallow, looking pained as he continued. "Said he was getting paranoid, asked if it was because of what they were doing at work. And Dad said he was worried about me going back and— and a bunch of them said maybe I shouldn't."

Scorpius' voice was strained now, and Rose was alarmed to see him tearing up. He returned to silence and took a few deep breaths. When he continued, he was composed again. Almost cold.

"They seemed to think it was funny," said Scorpius, looking straight ahead. "Your mum cleared a bunch of them out, told them she'd finish cleaning up. When they were gone, she told my dad that I had to go back to school. He— he didn't want to talk about it with her, but— she said he couldn't keep me pent up at home. That I had to learn."

Rose let that sit for a moment. Finally she said, "Well I'm glad you're back. And I'm sorry."

As they arrived at the Arithmancy room, Rose paused and grinned at Scorpius.

"What?"

"He won't admit it," said Rose lightly, "but Al is going to be so happy to hear that you didn't spend all of your break on a broom. He's itching to beat you."

Scorpius chuckled and rolled his eyes. "Fat chance," he said. "You know we're going to crush you lot."

Professor Ardenia was in an unusually cheerful mood. Instead of checking their homework, she announced that they would be doing a fun side lesson instead.

"I've been working on teaming up with your Astronomy class," she said, "but I hate being out at night when it's still so cold. We'll be doing a paired lesson come spring. For now, I thought we could do a bit of a different star study."

She worked in silence for the next few minutes, drawing a familiar structure on the blackboard at the front of the room. Once she was finished, she turned back to the students.

"You've all studied star charts before," said Professor Ardenia. "This is actually the chart for someone in this room for the month of January. Your job is to use what you've learned this year along with the information I provide to determine which of your classmates it corresponds to."

Though some of the class looked like this was not, in fact, a fun diversion from the curriculum, Rose found her heart rate accelerating. She hadn't been this excited about classwork since the previous year. It did sound downright fun.

Scorpius seemed less convinced that this would be enjoyable, but he opened his book and began working without complaint. Rose took a few moments to examine the chart before taking out her parchment and jotting down some notes.

It quickly became evident to Rose that this was primarily a logic puzzle. Professor Ardenia had only filled in some of the needed numbers. A few more pieces of information were noted on the side of the board, and Rose tried to figure out how each hint related to the chart.

The next thing she realized was that she didn't know enough about some of her classmates to determine whose chart this was. One of the facts listed was that they had two pets at home. Flipping through her book to the section on animals, Rose mentally struck Scorpius and herself from the list of possibilities.

After fitting most of the notes into the chart, Rose had eliminated most of her classmates but still had not come down to one solution. Scorpius nudged his parchment towards Rose. On the edge, he had scribbled Marsha Dogworth or Kara Welsh?

Confused, Rose glanced around at the other students, then wrote her response.

Kara isn't in this class.

Scorpius' brows pulled together, and he too looked around. Rose resisted the urge to laugh and wondered which of the girls he was confusing with her dormitory-mate.

Rose reached over again and underlined Marsha Dogworth, then shrugged at Scorpius. Marsha was one of the last three names on her list, so she seemed as good a guess as any.

A few minutes later, Professor Ardenia called the class back to attention.

"So, what do we all think?" she asked. "Anyone want to guess?"

A few students turned to a mousy black-haired girl sitting near the classroom door. She looked around, then slowly raised her hand.

"Yes, Marsha?"

"I think it's me?" said Marsha tentatively.

"Very good," said Professor Ardenia, "ten points to Hufflepuff. How many of you figured it out?"

About half the class raised their hands. Professor Ardenia nodded, seemingly happy with that result.

After class, Rose was able to catch Scorpius up about what Christmas holiday had been like on the Grange. He was impressed by Lysander's casual use of magic, and grinned when she mentioned Dmitri's letter.

"I knew he'd be alright," Scorpius insisted, but his voice also held a touch of relief. "Did he mention— did he mention Alistair?" His voice dropped to a whisper.

"He said he got a present from him," said Rose quietly.

"He's not the only one," muttered Scorpius. "He sent me this weird snake ring for Christmas. No idea how it got through— we don't get much mail these days, as you can imagine. The note said it was fit for a true Slytherin to wear."

Rose stopped in the middle of the corridor, eyes wide.

"I left it at home," continued Scorpius quickly, "never put it on. I know better."

"I'm surprised you got mail at all," said Rose. "I didn't bother writing because I didn't think anything would get through whatever wards your dad has set up."

"I was just as surprised," said Scorpius. "Odessa keeps bragging about this necklace her older sister sent her. I saw it in the common room— it's huge and gaudy."

Rose didn't have time to comment on Alistair's apparent newfound passion for jewelry. She had just remembered that she had forgotten to tell Scorpius something major.

"Something weird happened right after you left," she said to Scorpius. "The morning we were all supposed to go to the train, there was this— I guess it was an earthquake? But Lysander said we shouldn't be able to feel it inside the castle."

Scorpius chuckled darkly and shook his head.

"Oh, I was still here for that," he said, "that was right when McGonagall tried to let my father and I leave. We were up in her office when the castle started shaking. You should've seen Father lose his mind— he thought we were under attack. Was ready to blast whoever came through the door."

"None of the professors knew what was going on," said Rose. "I mentioned it to Mum during break, but she didn't think it was anything to worry about. Said that they were probably just adjusting the wards so we could all go to the train. Or for you to leave, I suppose."

But Rose was thoroughly unconvinced that it had been the wards. They would have to come down each year for the students to leave, and the castle had never trembled like that before. She knew in her gut that it was linked to the strange occurrences happening all over the school. She just hoped that Lorcan being away from his extra Divination lessons would keep him from being negatively affected.

She wasn't the only one worried about Lorcan's wellbeing. A week later, Albus brought him up in the common room.

"How's Lorcan?" asked Albus. "I haven't seen him since we got back."

"Cranky," said Lysander, smiling wryly. "Since he's not allowed to go back to lessons with Trelawney, he's been trying to keep busy in other ways. I feel bad for the other Ravenclaws."

Rose soon discovered what Lysander meant when he said Lorcan was keeping busy. She found him in the library behind a stack of books, pouring over a tome about—

"Knitting?" asked Rose apprehensively.

Lorcan looked up, frowning.

"Thinking about it," he said, indicating a list next to the books. Rose tilted her head to read: knitting, gobstones, debate, and yoga, among other things.

"Finding a new hobby, I see."

"Have to keep busy," he said, looking back to his book.

Over the next few weeks, Rose saw much more of Lorcan than she was accustomed to. He was popping up all around the castle— between classes, after meals, all hours of day and night. Everywhere she turned, she found a flash of blonde hair as Lorcan sped off to his next adventure.

"He must have joined eight new clubs since we've been back," said Lysander one night. He was shaking his head at the chess board sitting between himself and James. "People keep asking if I'm helping out— going to some and pretending to be him, you know?"

"He'll wear himself out," said Rose absently, flipping the page of her book.

Lysander looked over to her, and said, "Rose," reproachfully.

"Oh fine," she sighed, setting down her novel. "I just wanted to finish this chapter."

"You said I could bother you about your work," he reminded her, "so get to it."

She was still trying to catch up with a few of her classes. Charms was finally coming along, but Transfiguration seemed to be getting worse by the week.

Her friends were trying to help her, but there was only so much help Rose was willing to accept. She was still convinced that she didn't need them guiding her along— even as Albus quickly moved past her in Transfiguration.

Dmitri had not written back, but Rose wasn't surprised. If it had been such a hassle getting the first letter out, she couldn't expect the second to arrive overnight.

Two weeks of Astronomy classes were cancelled due to weather, which meant extra reading to do for the next time they met. Rose decided to put that off and focus on more pressing classes, like Transfiguration, which were causing her far more stress than studying the stars.

One afternoon, Rose saw Roxie outside the Great Hall, laughing with a group of her friends. Rose told Albus to go inside without her and stopped to talk to her cousin.

"Rose!" exclaimed Roxie. "Perfect! I need your help."

"What's going on?" asked Rose, startled.

"So I told Mum about the fashion show I wanted to do," said Roxie breathlessly, "and she said yes! But I need someone to wear a few of the robes so I can finish the hems. Do you have time?"

"Of course!" said Rose. "I'm so glad she said yes."

"We can use Randor's classroom tonight," said Roxie, "I have a few others coming to help. After dinner?"

Rose agreed and went into the Great Hall for lunch. It gave her something to look forward to besides more homework and listening to a play-by-play of the latest Quidditch practice. That night, she made her way to the Transfiguration classroom and found a group of Ravenclaws waiting for her.

"Rose!" cried one, running over and enveloping Rose in a hug. "Oh, how are you?"

"I'm great, Deasia," said Rose as the other girl released her. "How've you been?"

"Great!" chirped Deasia Barnes. "Nothing nearly as interesting as last year."

Deasia had been the Ravenclaw representative for the exhibition the Dragon Riders had intended to put on for the school, and had witnessed the dragons' erratic behavior as the year went on. She had also been part of Enchanting Enhancements, the underground student group providing their peers with potions ingredients, as well as more questionable supplies.

Roxie gave Rose a maroon robe to slip on, then returned to one of the boys, who was wearing a sleek blue piece with silver details.

"Roxie's been making some really great stuff," said Deasia, doing up the buttons in the front of her grey robe. "I'm so excited for her!"

"Me too," said Rose. "So, how's everything with Enchanting Enhancements?"

"Not as busy," said Deasia, "but Mindel and Riss are keeping things going. We just take orders directly from our housemates now. So I'll see what people need, pick it up from Mindel, and deliver it myself. Not as convenient as having one standard location, but also not as risky."

Rose watched as Roxie made her way around to each of the students wearing her creations. Pins flew out of a small container latched to her hip and stuck into the fabric, forming an even hem that barely skimmed the floor. Rose was the shortest in the room, but Roxie explained that the models were all different heights so she needed options.

"Lorcan seems to be doing a bit better," she remarked while working on the second set of robes Rose had donned. "He said Aunt Luna made him stop his lessons with Trelawney for a bit."

"He's keeping busy," said Rose, using Lysander's wording. "I'm still worried about him wearing himself out with all of these hobbies, though."

Lorcan had yet to settle on a single area of interest to replace Divination. He seemed to enjoy crocheting small balls, which his housemates had taken to bringing to Charms class to practice on. Rose was nearly hit by one in the corridor on her way to Ancient Runes later that week. Somewhere behind her, a prefect shouted out a reminder that they were not to use magic in the corridors.

"You know, the other Ravenclaws might have ideas of how you could keep yourself busy," Rose suggested to an irate Lorcan, who had come to their table during lunch, ignoring the prefects' reproachful glares.

"Yes," said Lorcan sourly, "but you know how Ravenclaws are when they have a problem to solve. And I would be just that— another problem to solve. They wouldn't leave me alone until they had killed me."

Lysander rolled his eyes at his brother's histrionics, but Albus frowned.

"That's a good point," he said. "You know those Ravenclaws."

Lorcan glared at him but did not reply.

The tension between the twins did not abate as January wore on. Though they were in separate houses, Rose realized that she was accustomed to spending a good deal of time with both Lorcan and Lysander, which was made increasingly difficult when either bristled at the mention of the other's name.

"Just try having dinner with us again," coaxed Rose, leading a scowling Lorcan towards the Gryffindor table. The expression looked strikingly out of place on his fair face. "I promise Lysander will be on his best behavior. You two really need to sort this out."

"You don't have to interfere," Lorcan grumbled, but he sat across from her anyway, grabbing a goblet and filling it with pumpkin juice.

The Hall was mostly full, but neither James nor Lysander had arrived for the meal. Rose shifted anxiously— Lysander had promised over breakfast that if Rose could get his brother to join them for dinner, he would do his best to make peace with him. Had James somehow convinced him to change his mind?

"So, how was class?" asked Rose quickly as Lorcan began to look around the room.

"Charms?" said Lorcan. "Fine, I suppose. Halberton is growing on me."

"Very different from Flitwick," noted Rose, "but I agree. How about Muggle Studies?"

Lorcan shrugged. "It's alright, I suppose," he said. "Professor Onacles has been distracted recently. Apparently there's some kind of problem in Hufflepuff he's trying to deal with, so we've been doing a lot of reading. But he's brought in some older Muggle literature, which is more interesting than last term."

"Muggle myths about wizards," said Rose, "right."

"Anything's better than that nonsense," said Lorcan. "At least now—"

It wasn't the thud of the Great Hall's thick doors that got Rose's attention. After her years at school, she had learned to drown out such sounds. The patter of small feet were similarly lost in what Professor McGonagall would have termed a dull roar. To be honest, Rose was not certain what made her glance up at the Head Table when she did, but her expression stopped Lorcan mid-sentence.

Lily Potter had tripped to a stop directly in front of the Headmistress, wide-eyed and panting. Towards the end of the table, Professor Slughorn looked amused, but Professor McGonagall was frowning.

"What's going on?" asked Albus, sliding onto the bench next to Rose. "Oh, why is Lily up there?"

"Just ran in," said Lorcan with a shrug. Around them, conversations extinguished as the other students began to notice the disturbance at the front of the room. Professor McGonagall's frown had deepened, and a moment later she stood. Ignoring the hush that had fallen over her students, she circled around the table and followed Lily out of the Hall, followed by Professor Halberton.

"Where's James?" asked Albus, his voice squeaking nervously as he looked down the table. "You don't think he's in trouble, do you?"

"Lysander's still avoiding me," said Lorcan casually. "They're probably getting into trouble together at this point."

Rose snorted. Lysander wasn't the type to get involved in James' lunatic schemes. Lily, on the other hand, she trusted far less. Her eyes flicked over to the Slytherin table. Scorpius was turned towards Tomasa Kerpbow, who was gesturing towards the Head Table with a grin that made Rose nervous.

The answer to both mysteries came a few tense minutes later. The doors to the Hall swung open once more, revealing Professors McGonagall and Halberton along with Professor Evariste and a group of his fourth year students. Lily marched in alongside them, a proud grin shining on her face.

James and Lysander broke away from the group with the other Gryffindors and came to the table. They looked unhurt, but wore matching expressions of irritation and confusion.

"Where were you?" asked Albus immediately. "Why did Lily come get McGonagall?"

"Class with Evariste," said James with a shrug, as if that somehow explained anything. "Things got weird."

"We finished the lesson and were ready to come to dinner," explained Lysander, rubbing his head as Lorcan silently filled a plate of food for him. "Dymphna opened the door, but it didn't lead into the corridor."

"We were in the dungeons," said James through a mouthful of bread.

"The dungeons?" squeaked Rose.

"The Slytherin common room, to be precise," said Lysander, finally cracking a grin. "Evariste just stared at it, then closed the door and opened it again, but it's still there. He didn't know what to do—"

"He thought we'd get Splinched if we went through," interjected James, "like what happened to Liam's dad last year."

Rose didn't know Liam well enough to be familiar with this story, but she knew what Splinching was from reading some of Aunt Luna's books.

"But then Lily came in," continued Lysander. "I guess everyone else was already down here— well, up here," he amended. "Evariste asked her to go get McGonagall so she could decide how to get us out."

"And?" demanded Albus, eyes wide. "How did you do it?"

At this, James seemed to deflate a bit, and Lysander chuckled.

"McGonagall Transfigured the rug into a dog and sent it through," said Lysander. "When it came back unharmed, she went through herself, and she was fine. After that, we all just walked through the common room and up here."

Lorcan nudged the full plate of food towards his twin, who accepted it with a smile.

"That's anticlimactic," said Lorcan flatly, looking at James. "You need a better ending for that story."

James made noises like he was trying to object but his mouth wasn't quite working with him. Lorcan finally broke a grin and laughed, shaking his head.

"Kidding," he said, still laughing. "Great story. We were getting worried when you didn't show up."

"Couldn't miss dinner," said Lysander with a shrug. "Leave me stranded on an erratic staircase, or in the bowels of the dungeons, just don't leave me with a hungry James."

James, who had just taken a large bite of his chicken, could not manage a response.

AN: After a long time away, I'm uploading the remaining chapters of year 3! I haven't checked to make sure there aren't continuity errors, so please let me know if I've uploaded anything that appears incomplete or incorrect. I'm looking forward to working on Year 4 and will be posting some recaps soon! Enjoy the rest of Y3. :)