The Red Rose That Has Green Thorns

**Warning: This chapter contains a random foreshadowing that I just literally pretty much pulled out of my arse and just a little bit of fun. XD Enjoy [please].**

Everyone (which includes all of my cousins, some of their friends, our Quidditch team from the exhibition matches, and Andy and Demitri and Joe and Theresa) was snoring around the common room the next day after having barged into the Head dorms to congratulate us and have a mini party to celebrate the fact that we, as well as Andy, had obtained only minimal injuries during the task. I was stretching, watching from where I sat - beside Scorpius, of course, on the couch - as the others in the room slept on. Scorpius beside me, his hair in disarray and looking too darn cute for his own good, slept with his mouth slightly ajar and his head leaning on my shoulder. I’m surprised I didn’t wake him up with my stretching.

Zachary Zabini was sprawled out across the floor, suspiciously close to where Lily slept in an armchair. Joe was sprawled, spread-eagled, across the other armchair and Theresa was curled up on a bean bag chair that she’d summoned from up on the balcony. Al, Hugo, Louis, Molly, Martha, and Demitri were spread out randomly across the floor, and Andy was once more on her own conjured couch. Where Al ‘randomly’ lay, however, was right in front of this sofa. Olivia had done the same as Theresa and got herself a bean bag chair across which she sprawled. Fred snored from right behind the couch. Not a bad company at all, I decided, save for some of the snoring.

I carefully stood up, making sure Scorpius didn’t fall over when I did so, and I picked my way out of the maze of legs and arms and sleeping people to reach the stairs. I went up and found some clothes for myself before heading to the shower, locking the door with a charm that only the caster could remove just in case someone woke up and had to use the shower.

I turned it on, letting the warm water roll across my skin and enjoying it with my head tilted up and my eyes closed. I let it soothe my cramped neck and aching shoulders, slowly washing up as the dull aches faded away. As I finished my hair, something flashed across my vision.

I knew that this ‘something’ wasn’t real. That is to say, it wasn’t a solid form, a living being. It was a glimmer of something that slid across my vision, and then it was gone. I finished my shower quickly, a strange feeling that this wasn’t the last of that plaguing me. I wanted to be out of the shower so that, if it was another vision, I didn’t collapse in the water and drown or something like that. It felt like a vision coming on, but it was strange in the way that I’d never had such a preliminary sort of thing to go along with it.

I dressed, drying my hair with a slow-drying charm as I brushed it, standing in front of the mirror and watching my already pale expression as it paled just the tiniest bit more.

“What is wrong with me?” I groaned lightly, finishing up and removing my locking charm from the door. Everyone was still asleep, so I decided to head down to lunch alone to get a few moments to think it over. Before I left, however, I went up and took down a divination book from the shelves, called Divining Divinations, which was said to help figure out what kind of premonition, or divination, you were having. I didn’t know if it would help, but it wouldn’t hurt to try, would it?

I headed down to the Great Hall for a kind of late breakfast, finding myself as one of the stragglers. There were maybe thirty other students eating their breakfast at this time. I joined in, sitting away from everyone else at the Prefect-slash-foreigners table to read a little in the book and to think about what that strange little flash had been.

After sitting for an hour and barely eating anything, I pushed my thoughts aside and smiled as the group I’d left in the common room streamed in.

“What did you leave for?” Al plopped down across from me, even though he wasn’t a prefect and definitely wasn’t a foreigner.

“I woke up and I was hungry,” I replied, shrugging.

“Rose,” Scorpius sighed, sliding in right beside me, close enough that our thighs pressed together. “You could have woke me up!”

“You needed your rest,” I supplied, in more of a questioning tone. He laughed and, kind of surprising me, stole a quick little kiss before filling his plate. He winked at me when I sent a playful glare his direction.

And with a happy little group surrounding me once more, my momentary dilemma was forgotten, and my book shrunk with a spell so I could slip it in my pocket.

*

The day was pretty uneventful. We, again as the large group, went out and had a game of catch by the lake, then Al decided he wanted to go swimming so he and my other guy cousins took off their shirts and waded into the still chilly waters.

“Al, don’t come crying to me if you freeze your nads off!” I hollered, sprawling out on my back in the grass as the cool air blew gently around us.

“Don’t come whining to me when you regret not getting in, too!” he retorted, tackling my little brother into the water. I snorted and Scorpius shook his head, sitting beside me. The wind tousled the hair that had never been combed this morning, and I wanted to reach up and touch the soft strands, but I didn’t.

After about ten minutes, though, I sighed and took off my jacket, shoes, and socks and waded into the cold water in my jeans and tank top, sneaking up behind Al with a finger to my lips to keep the others silent - the ‘others’, which now included Martha and Zack and Olivia.

“Gotcha!” I cried out as I leapt on Al, sending both of us plunging into the water. I stood back up quickly and waded to hide behind Zack as Al surged out of the water, spluttering.

“Rosie!” he cried, knowing I didn’t much care for the name. “What was that for?!”

I stayed silent, hiding behind Zack. The water moved, and I knew that my cousin knew where I was but pretended that I hadn’t noticed.

“Now I’ve got you!” he roared then as Zack stepped out of the way and Al hefted me over his shoulder.

“Al!” I shrieked. “Al, put me down!”

“If you insist.”

I let out another cry as he tossed me into the water. When I came back up, I put on my competitive glare and said, in my best challenging voice, “Oh, it’s on.”

Immediately after, I proceeded to call out that Andy was on my team to spite him. In return, he called Scorpius, and from there on we called out the names of our group until finally I had a team of me, Andy, Martha, Zack, Olivia, Demitri, and Fred. Al’s team consisted of Al, Scorpius, Lily, Molly, Louis, Joe and Hugo. Theresa said that she would be the referee.

“Weasley’s Water War begins!” she said, in a very good announcer