The Red Rose That Has Green Thorns

I took my shower quickly and was soon out being the good hostess while Scorpius followed my example. When he was done, Lily asked to borrow some of my clothes for the night so she could do the same and, in that manner, the whole group eventually had taken a shower and settled down to talk and goof off. It was ten by that time, and by then we’d all realized we’d missed supper. So Hugo and Louis and Albus decided to go get some, letting the rest of us just lounge around and be lazy.

“Rose?” Lily asked timidly a few minutes later.

“Yeah, Lils?” I replied, sitting up to look at her better.

“Can I talk to you for a minute? It’s…important.”

‘Important’ with Lily around others was a code word for ‘about a guy’. I had a feeling I knew what guy it was about, but I didn’t say anything but, “Sure, Lily. We’ll be up in my room for a while, guys.”

The first thing Lily did when the door to my room was closed was point her wand at it and cast Muffliato upon it. I quirked an eyebrow at her, and she turned to me and said in earnest, “Rose, I didn’t mean to like him, honest, and I know you have a lot on your mind with dating Scorpius and with the tournament, but I couldn’t go much longer without talking to you!”

The words tumbled out, and I kind of rolled my eyes, but said, “I have a feeling we should sit down for this.”

“Okay,” she sighed, and took a deep breath.

“Now, Lily, who is it?”

I thought I should ask and not just assume.

Lily mumbled unintelligibly, and I gave her a look that my mother would be proud of. It was a look I learned from her after all, the sternness and get on with it vibes entirely of her creation.

She sighed again and said, “Zack,” in a very small, embarrassed voice.

“That’s what I thought,” I rolled my eyes pointedly and walked over to my window. “Lily, do you think I care that you started to like him?”

“But Rosie, his dad was a Slytherin! He was in with that crowd! What will Dad think? Mum?! Rosie, I don’t know what to do!”

“Lily,” I said sternly, “my boyfriend’s father, if you’ll remember, was a Death Eater. Who the father is does not define the son, you know. It has been a chore trying to convince Dad of that fact, but your dad is the one who’s been the most help. I don’t think your Mum or your Dad are going to be angry that you like him. They’re the most understanding people in our entire family, when you think about it. Sure, Uncle Bill and Uncle Charlie are considerate of my feelings toward Scorpius, so Uncle Charlie won’t try to kill him and Uncle Bill is perfectly fine with him, but your Mum and Dad are the best about it. Don’t worry. Besides, if you like him you should go for it. I think he likes you, too.”

She flushed a bright red and stuttered for a minute, and I laughed.

“Now are we done with this talk?”

“I…I guess,” she breathed out, fanning herself in vain to attempt to get her flush to go away. I removed her Muffliato from the door and we went downstairs.

“What was that all about?” Al asked as we came down, food shoved in his mouth. They had gotten back while we were upstairs.

“Lily wanted to look at my shoes,” I shrugged nonchalantly, and she nodded with a kind of forced but natural-sounding giggle.

“Yeah. She has some of the cutest shoes but she never wears them!”

The guys just snorted, except for Scorpius who could tell a lie the minute it was spoken. I just grinned at him with a look that clearly told him that I’d talk to him about it later, and Lily and I joined the group sitting around the table to eat.

We didn’t stay up much longer as a group, but I found that I could not fall asleep, even tucked under Scorpius’ protective arm, so I slipped away and went up to the balcony. Still piled upon the table were various books we’d been looking at for homework, the tournament, and for our own entertainment. I sat down on a pouf and drew a random book nearer, flipping it open to somewhere in the middle and making a glowing blue ball of light. It was dim enough that it wouldn’t wake the others below me, but light enough for me to read by.

The book wasn’t nearly as interesting has I had hoped, but it didn’t put me to sleep either (which I had also been hoping for), so I sighed and pushed it aside, looking out a window to distract me. I pulled another book toward me then, and read some more.

*

I woke up to Scorpius shaking me, with a gentle smile.

“They’ve all gone down to breakfast,” he told me softly. He was already dressed in a simple white shirt and jeans, with his sneakers on. “Go get dressed and we can go down too.”

“Mmkay,” I said sleepily, rubbing my eyes and holding a hand out to him. He laughed at me and took my hand to pull me up, holding me close for a few moments, before letting me go so I could change as he’d requested.

When I left my room in a light blue t-shirt, faded jeans, and my tennis shoes, he was leaning against the wall at the bottom of the steps to my room, waiting for me. He held out his hand for me, this time, and I took it. This is the way we walked down to the Great Hall together; hand in hand.

It’s a little thing, but it lends comfort and stability to a person like me.

*

The next few weeks passed as normal, and it was soon the middle of March. The final task loomed up in three months, but I hadn’t seen any drastic changes in places like the Quidditch field, like had happened last time. I guessed, then, that it wasn’t going to be a maze that we faced next, but I had no clue what it would be once that option was retired.

Adding onto the little bubble of anxiety from the inevitable third task was the feeling that I was being pushed and shoved around more than was normal. The glimmer I had seen the morning before we all went out to have a water war in the lake made appearances a few more times, and each time I became more puzzled over its meaning. I didn’t tell Scorpius, although I felt bad that I kept the details of my visions from him, because I felt he’d worry if I did tell him. Especially if I told him that the person in my vision with the acromantulas who had been bleeding was really me.

I’d been to talk to Firenze about the visions a few times, and he was just as stumped as I was. Trelawney, sometimes fraudulent as she was, couldn’t make head nor tails of it either, and so I tried to set it aside.

At the moment, I was sitting beside Scorpius and Andy in the Great Hall, talking and laughing as we ate together.

“We should play a game of Quidditch together,” Al suddenly said, popping in and squeezing in opposite me at the table, beside Andy. “All of the Potter and the Weasleys and Andy and Demitri and Theresa and Joe and Zack and Martha and Olivia…wouldn’t that be wicked?”

“Sure, Al, you can sit there,” I said sarcastically, but with a grin so he’d know I was playing. Andy laughed lightly.

“That does sound fun,” Andy admitted to Al. Her words brightened his expression immediately.

“I know! That’s why I suggested it. Now it’s just a matter of getting Mr. and Mrs. Party Pooper across the table here to agree, and then talking to everyone else, isn’t it? Would you be interested if we could get them all to do it?”

“I would,” Andy nodded, hiding her grin. She could see, all too well, that I was giving my cousin a death glare at the Party Pooper comment.

“Party Poopers, are we…?” Scorpius got to it before I could. “Fine. See if we let you into our dormitory anymore. We’ll set a password so you can’t get in.”

I found a sadistic pleasure in the crestfallen look on his features. It was only temporary, and I knew it wasn’t really affecting him horribly, but it made me happy to know we could hold that over his head if he ever got overbearing. From the corner of my eye, I caught Lily entering the Great Hall with Zack, and grinned to myself.

They still hadn’t gotten together, but I swore it could only be a matter of time until they did.

“Hey, Rose!” she said, plopping down beside me. On her other side was where Zack took a seat, predictable, and he leaned across and said hi, too. “What’s up?”

“Floating candles,” I said in a deadpan tone, just to irk Al.

“See!” he pointed at me, looking at Scorpius and Andy pleadingly. “See, Scorpius? Rose, at least, is a party pooper! Even if you’re not!”

I snorted and looked at him in the eye with a smug look I’d learned from Uncle George.

“Al,” I said, still smirking, in a way, “if I was a party pooper, would I have let you win at Gobstones last Monday? Or Wizard’s Chess on Wednesday? Would I have let you crash on the floor of my room last summer when the Cannons lost their match against the Harpies and you couldn’t stand the fact that your mother’s team beat your idols and she was gloating just to spite you?”

Scorpius snorted into his hash, Andy stifled a giggle, and I just returned to eating. Lily and Zack didn’t bother to try to hide their laughter, and Al groaned.

“Rose, you didn’t have to go that far, did you?”

“I think I did,” I shrugged. “I can go farther, if that’s what you’re asking, though--”

“No! No, I get it, Rose! You’re not a party pooper!” he waved his hands maniacally.

“Good,” I grinned, then started laughing. “Remember that.”

And with that, we went back to eating with occasional chatter in between bites. Scorpius and I conceded to Al’s Quidditch idea, but told him he’d have to plan it (which was kind of a punishment, because Al was the worst at organizing events).

*

A week after that pretty much unimportant conversation at the table, the Champions were summoned for the weighing of the wands and the interviews and the photo, which came kind of later than I thought it would.

I was just glad Rita Skeeter wasn’t a Prophet writer anymore. She was lucky if Luna put an article in the Quibbler every now and then.