The Red Rose That Has Green Thorns

The Headmaster chatted merrily with us, almost as though he were a student, as he led the way to mine and Scorpius’ new dorm.

“Here we are,” he grinned, standing in front of what I recognized with shock as a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.

“But…I thought it was destroyed!” I murmured, barely audibly. Professor Collins laughed and Scorpius shot me a curious glance.

“Indeed, during the war, it was completely destroyed by fiend fyre. However, before leaving, Professors Flitwick and McGonagall took it upon themselves to magically restore the room. It is no longer a Room of Requirement -” This was where Scorpius finally showed signs of recognition, “- but a dorm room. I had feared this wonderful piece of magic donated by those two professors would go to waste, as it took several years to push the separate Head dormitories idea through. Our winning point was that with time, perhaps the powerful magics that were used to create the room in the first place will take over and miraculously repair the room itself, but even if that were to happen, no one would know. As long as a student opens the room thinking only of the Head dormitories, then no one shall ever feel the need to use the room for foul purposes.”

“Ingenious!” I remarked, dropping Nira to trace my fingertips along the wall. “It’s simply remarkable! If it were me, I never would’ve thought of something like that…”

“Yes, it is quite clever, isn’t it? In any case, if you don’t already know, the way into your dorm -”

“You walk by three times thinking of it,” Scorpius said triumphantly, just as a magnificently carved oak door came into view beneath my fingers.

“Yes, yes, well done, Scorpius! It seems that your parents have let you in on the secret of the Room of Requirement, assuming it to be destroyed beyond all repair.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I grinned, tracing a few carved designs as Nira purred and rubbed against my feet.

“I’m not sure whether that was my father’s intention or not, but possibly,” said Scorpius, rather tentatively.

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer. You should find a bulletin board with the topics of your prefect’s meeting tomorrow, and other useful supplies and notices. Good night, then!”

“Good night Professor,” Scorpius intoned dutifully.

“Yeah, G’night!” I called at his retreating back. Scorpius grinned and shook his head at me.

Opening the door, he made a mock bow, an even bigger grin stretching into place.

“Ladies first,” he said, and I pretended to curtsy in return.

“Why, thank you, my good sir!” I laughed as I entered the room. I, however, froze nearly immediately and Scorpius, not paying attention, entered, closed the door, and ran right into me.

“Whoa, Rose, what in the world possessed you to stop right the - oh. Nevermind.”
I laughed then, and ran forward to throw myself on the soft red couch. In front of the couch, there was a hearth, and on either side of the couch were small mahogany end tables. Beside these two end tables, there were big, comfy-looking green armchairs.

Laughing, I remarked, “This looks like a muggle home at Christmastime! What with all the red and green.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Scorpius grinned, looking around. It was a very spacious room, and there were staircases on either side that ran up to separate doors. A few feet down from either door was a landing that connected to our small indoor balcony. It had large windows on the inner side, and I jumped off of the couch to run up those stairs and continue to explore. Up here was said bulletin board, I noted. Then I cried out in glee at the two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, separated only by a door in the middle, which revealed a bathroom grander than even the Prefect’s bathroom. The other edges of the bookshelves were a good ten feet away, where the stairs continued up to the two dorm rooms.

“What is it?!” Scorpius had rushed up at my outburst. When he saw, he laughed. Walking forward, he took a seat at what I’d just realized was there - a long, sturdy table with poufs and squashy armchairs reminiscent of what my mother and father told me their first divination teacher had in her room.

“Wow!” I sighed, seating myself in an armchair and resting my elbows on the table and my chin on my hands. I gazed dreamily into the distance, mainly in the direction of the bookshelves, without realizing I was doing so.

I didn’t know it just then, but Scorpius was staring at my look of elation and thinking to himself, ‘She looks so beautiful right now, I could…I could almost kiss her!’

“Snap out of it,” Scorpius laughed, and I did. I didn’t know that he was talking to himself more so than to me, but it didn’t matter. I noticed that his cheeks were a light pink and wondered vaguely why as he got up and went to the bulletin board. He unpinned the list of topics that we were supposed to cover in the first Prefect’s meeting and brought it back to the table, choosing the armchair on my left. “Let’s look over the topics for tomorrow’s meeting.”

“Right!” I agreed, switching positions so I could lean over the table more easily so we could look at the list together.

“First they think we’ve got to assign patrol pairs, nights, and areas…and they’ve given us a list of the prefects.” Scorpius summed up the papers in his hands, skimming them for the little bits of information, then pulling out the list of name from beneath the topics.

“They’re trying to make it easier on us,” I suggested, to which he just nodded.

“Probably.” his eyes roved the list of names and I assumed he was making pairs of the fifth years. That, however, was before he said, “I don’t think we should pair all of the fifth years amongst themselves this year. I think we should split up a few of the sixth and seventh year pairs and pair those with a different fifth year. Or do one sixth year team and one seventh year team, and pair each of those and four of the fifth years up…then the other four fifth years we can pair amongst each other. I’d say Lily Potter and Zachary Zabini would be a pair to work wonders…” his voice had taken on a teasing tone.

“Scorpius!” I pretended to be angry, then I laughed. “Oh, well. Must keep up the whole ‘pair a fifth year Gryffindor up with a fifth year Slytherin’ tradition, and all that.”

Scorpius laughed at this and began scratching notes on the paper. We made a few changes to airs and created new ones before we were satisfied.

“There!” I sighed, stretching. “We can go to sleep now, right? MERLIN’S GREY UNDERDRAWERS!!! It’s eleven thirty already?!”

“Time flies,” Scorpius shrugged, still teasing. “And yes. We should be done for tonight. It says here that all we really need to do in this first meeting is assign the pairs and patrols. So I guess this is good night.”

“Yep! G’night, Scorp!” I had a tendency to lapse into nicknames when I was in a rush or excited.

“Night, Rose.”