Rose Weasley and The Unfortunate Son of a Lunatic

Hogsmeade on Halloween

"Is it real?" Scor asked.

"What the mustache? Yeah, a hair growing charm."

Rose knew that this Halloween, the Halloween that James dressed as a muggle, would be her favorite ever, though, she couldn't understand why James would have gone through all this just for twelve eclairs.

"Shall we?" Max asked composing himself.

They all pointed their wands at each other and with a puff of yellow smoke, their hair changed colors. Scor's was now red, Al's blond, Rose's blonde, and Max chose to go with light brown. Rose thought that it was odd for him even to come dressed as they are, in a mask. He could change his appearance whenever he wanted. She supposed that he just wanted to feel included.

"So remember," he said. "Rose, you're Aubrey, Al, you're Hans, Scor, you're Sam, and I'll be Darren."

"But that is one of your names," said Rose.

"But nobody uses it; I'm either Vlad or Max to everyone."

James had climbed the stairs and was peering through the cracked door. "So we have four people behind the counter, and an old guy was talking to a kid dressed as a pirate. So on my count, we're gonna, one at a time-" but he was cut off when Max peered through the crack and walked pass him. "What are you doing? Get back here, you idiot!"

Easy as anything, he walked from the door behind the counter and into the main shop. He turned around and held his arms out. Rose couldn't see his face, but she could imagine that it was a face of smugness.

"Idiot indeed," smiled Rose also pushing past James. The people behind the counter paid them no attention at all. The terrific crowd gathering around the registers were absorbing most of their attention. James slumped out as well, evidentially disappointed that he didn't get to play captain.

"Nobody cares," said Max as James walked closer. "That's something you have to learn early in life."

Rose knew that James didn't like hearing life lessons from a first year. She could see very little of the store through the crowd, most in costume, but from what she could see, the sweets lined the walls, and bright, colorful décor and wrappers cluttered the store.

"Where's Al?" asked Scor looking around.

They pushed through to find him standing in front of a shelve of special effects sweets. Everything you could imagine was over here. Chocolate frogs that actually jump blowing gum that doesn't pop, peppermint imps to make you breathe fire. The kids eating the candy by this area were making loud animal noises, blowing bubbles, breathing smoke. One Hufflepuff boy blew a smoke ring while a Ravenclaw tried to blow fire through it.

"No fire breathing in the store," wheezed an old man in an apron shooing them out.

Scor pushed over to another shelve, this one, laden with chocolates, toffees, nougat, caramel, truffles and other heavy sweets. They wanted to buy it all, but with one look at the crowd, decided to come back later. Instead, they made their way, with difficulty, outside the store. Many people in black cloaks were bustling around, and many more were wearing costume. She was surprised considering you only get a dozen eclairs.

The cobbled stone street was decorated with fall leaves and store fronts had spider webs and other Halloween décor. Music was coming from most shops, and the weather was frigid. Rose felt a sudden jolt of Halloween spirit watching a skeleton dance down the street and gripped Scorpius' and Max's arms tightly in excitement, but mostly to bring a bit of body heat closer.

James scooted close between them with his head down. "They're all staring," he whispered from the corner of his mouth.

"That's because you came dressed as a bloody muggle," Max smiled.

"We're here, and we know how to get back," said Al. "you don't have to babysit us anymore."

"We're heading in the same direction," he replied. "I might as well stick around a little longer."

They checked out the owlery where hundreds of owls of every breed were on perches all the way to the ceiling. Rose cooed over a tiny one that could fit in the palm of her hand.

"I thought you didn't like owls," said Max.

"I don't like Mary's owl, but this one is sweet."

They visited Zonko's joke shop which looked like nothing compared to the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. They still bought a variety of items anyway which included aerosol ice, ("Spray in your friend's shoes for a laugh!") self-misspelling ink, ("For people you don't like.") and self-screaming quill, ("Set timer and wait.")

"I'm gonna leave this on the Slytherin card table set to the next potions lesson, Poppy; she'll take it," said Scorpius.

Rose then dragged the boys into Madam Puddifoots tea shop to buy a few candy apples. The store was very sweet, very dainty, and very pink. She was perfectly cheery eating her apple, but the boys came out rather stiff.

"I feel," James mumbled. "Less, like a man, now."

"I can't eat this."

"Don't be ridiculous Al-er- Hans, just because we got it in Madam Puddifoots doesn't mean it doesn't taste good."

"No, I mean I actually can't eat this, my mask," he was the only person wearing a full face one.

They headed to the Three Broomsticks pub to get whatever that incredible cinnamon smell was and chose seats near the back, at a table mostly concealed by a giant spider, to give Al a bit of privacy to eat his apple. The pub was very crowded, smoky, and noisy, but it was warm, and that's all that mattered. Max went ahead and ordered and surprisingly fast considering the crowd, a young lady with big hair and dark lipstick brought them four hot butterbeers, one iced, five cinnamon pastry tarts, two pumpkin ball clusters and a bowl of peanuts.

The nice thing about being incognito was that for one thing, they weren't disturbed because no one knew them, and two, they could listen to other people's conversations without being bothered. Victoire and Dominique sat at the booth in front of them, and they were able to listen to Dominique talk about qualities she looks for in a future date and Victoire talk about qualities Teddy has as a future mate. James was appalled by some of them. ("He doesn't use the word lovely.") ("Girls like that?") and ("He never tells me I look ravishing in the morning.") were the types of things he was mouthing throughout the conversation.


"Excuse me?" came a voice beside them as they were finishing their pastry tarts, they looked up to see a Hufflepuff fourth year. He was a particularly attractive one too, with blond wavy hair and blue eyes, he had a strong chin and a kind smile. They had thought that they'd be undisturbed, but they hadn't counted on the manners of a Hufflepuff. "I don't mean to disturb you, but, I don't believe we've met. Oh, you are Hogwarts students, aren't you?"

Max nodded because the question was directed toward him. It would have been so much easier to have just said no and not risk the chance of being caught. Why didn't Max ever lie?

"Oh, good," said the boy sliding himself into the booth. "I'm Illya Vizzini."

Rose recognized him now as the beater from the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. He reached out and shook Max's hand first. "Darren," Max mumbled in a comically deep voice. "Sam." "Hans." "Aubrey." He had surprisingly soft hands considering he was a beater. "Er-" James hadn't chosen a fake name and was thinking quickly, "Steve." was what he decided to go with.

"Do you mind taking your masks off?" he asked.

"Yes!" Rose exclaimed too harshly. "We're avoiding a few people," she tried softer.

"I don't happen to be one of those do I?" he asked.

"No."

"Well good. So, what house are you guys in?"

"Ravenclaw," she decided to say owing to the fact that bRavenclaw and Hufflepuffs are not on as good of terms with each other as Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. She didn't realize until after she answered that she should have said Slytherin, they're even worse with each other.

"My sister is in Ravenclaw you may know her, her names Lola."

"Uh, we've probably seen her, but I don't know who you're talking about," she said, wondering why she was the only one talking. "A group of wallflowers we are, we're typically in the corner studying or doing- Astronomy." Knowing that Astronomy was Ravenclaw's best subject.

"I don't really get Astronomy," he shrugged, helping himself to their peanuts. "I have no idea how the planets movements affect us at all here."

Max opened his mouth, no doubt to answer, but Rose interrupted him not noticing.

"I know!" she said excitedly, finally finding someone other than James who didn't understand it. "Keep me in the Milky way galaxy, anything else," she swiped her hand over her head to indicate the information going over her head.

"I thought you said you guys did Astronomy in your common room," he said confused.

"I said we did it; I never said we were all good at it."

He smiled, "Honest, I like that. But really, have you ever been able to see anything up there?"


In no time at all it seemed, they were discussing childhood pets, favorite classes, philosophy of life, likes, dislikes, she was telling him her catastrophe when using the telephone for the first time and he tried to explain to her how to use a muggle television, he was muggle born himself. She enjoyed talking to him and enjoyed listening to his accent which she pinned as Russian. He had a very blarney way of speaking and making whatever he was saying, even if it was about dust, sound exciting.

"Yes, checkers is more complicated than chess," he agreed with her as the sky outside the window became streaked with red. "Chess has so many different pieces that getting where you need to go is easy. In checkers, your pieces can only do one thing and must jump over its opponents rather than on them, making it much more challenging."

"That's what I was trying to tell him!" she said. "But Max here... where'd they go?"

She hadn't paid any attention to anything else since Illya had gotten there and was startled to find that her friends weren't sitting by her.

"I think they got bored," he shrugged, smiling.

"But I- I didn't see them leave."

He laughed at this. "They got up like two hours ago. They said that they were going to Honeydukes. Hans had to climb over you."

"Really? I didn't notice."

"You know, when I first sat down, I could have sworn that you had blonde hair, but now it looks more strawberry," he said tilting his head.

Rose inhaled sharply and grabbed a fork to use the reflection from the handle to see the color which was now a strawberry blonde. The hex only lasted a few hours and was now wearing off.

She insisted they leave now and assured him that the change of color was only due to the lighting, and was surprised to find that only two other students were still in the village when they walked out into the chilly Halloween air. Illya was kind enough to wake a Slytherin sixth year who had fallen asleep on a bench with a hat over his face.

He and Rose together walked quite a long way toward the castle and into the oak front doors. Rose pulled his Hufflepuff robe off her shoulders and started toward the marble staircase.

"Where are you going?" he asked. "The feast is about to start. Aren't you coming?"

"Yeah," she hurried, slowly working her way backward up the stairs. "I just don't feel well."

"Would you like me to take you to Madam Pomfrey?"

"No, I have some medicine in my dormitory."

"Would you like me to wait for you?"

"No!" she said too quickly. "Really, I'll be fine. You head on to the feast, and I'll get my pills."

She ran up the stairs toward the 'Ravenclaw' common room but split for Gryffindor as soon as she was out of sight. She stopped in front of the portrait of the fat lady and gasped, "Pumpkin pasties."

"Before I open," said the fat lady. "may I suggest removing your mask, only it's a little obvious where you've just been."

"Oh! Thank you!" she said before looking confusedly at her.

"I never tell the secrets of my students, I don't encourage this behavior, but if it is already committed, there's no reason for selling you out unless asked specifically by the headmaster," she swung open, and Rose crawled through the hole exhausted.

The common room was half full of students killing time until the feast. Max was on the sofa reading and looked half over his book when she walked in.

"Your clothes are on the chair," he said pointing without looking back up.


She took them without a word and hurried upstairs to change. Her dormitory was empty for once, and she stopped to think. If she changed, she would sit with Max, and maybe Al and Scor depending on whether they sit with the other Slytherins or not. But if she wore the mask, she would be able to sit with Illya which she really wanted to do. He was a fantastic conversationalist. But then again, she thought, if she did wear the mask, he may try to introduce her to his sister who would know she wasn't a Ravenclaw, not to mention Micah would recognize his mask. She was being ridiculous; she couldn't possibly sit by him.