Rose Weasley and The Unfortunate Son of a Lunatic

Salazar's

"Ooh, yeah, that looks real bad," said Scorpius sarcastically seeing as his skin looked completely healthy.

"What?" said Rose incredulously. She pulled back the rest of the bandages causing Max to spill his soup.

"Oi!" Max exclaimed trying to rub the broth from his tie. "This stuff is hot!"

"I don't understand it, they all gone, the burns. They were puffy and red and everything, this bit had little white dots too. Won't you look!" Said Rose.

Max peered down. "Huh..." he shrugged uninterestedly.

"What do you mean huh? They're all gone!" she tore off his green band-aid that Madam Pomfrey had given him after extracting blood.

"Ow! Hey! What are trying to do?"

"The pinprick is gone, like it wasn't there!"

"So what?" said Max scooting away from her. "I heal quickly."

Rose lifted his arms to check him around thoroughly.

"I don't have wires if that's what you're looking for," he said looking wary.

"I wish I could heal that fast," Scorpius smiled. "It would help me in potions; I'm always singeing myself.'

But Rose was looking at Albus who didn't look so impressed. They both remembered what had happened with the Moonacher antidote, or, what didn't happen.


"Rosie," Al spoke through his enchanted hand mirror to her late at night. She had to stay in the girl's bathroom, so not to wake her roommates. "Look, I found something in Immune, guide to cheating death, about a bulb you can mix in a stew to avoid a cold, do you think that could be why he didn't get a cold after Halloween?" Albus suggested.

"He would have told us if that were the case." Said Rose from on top of the counter. "And none of us knew that we would fall asleep on the roof."

"You're wasting your time guys." Said Scorpius from his bed in the background. "Why can't some things just stay a mystery?"

"BECAUSE THERE'S AN ANSWER!" Rose exclaimed frustrated. She was hushed from the other side of the door.

"Tell her to keep it down." Said Alac sleepily from the Slytherin common room. "We're trying to sleep."

"Rose doesn't like uncertainty," Al whispered to Scorpius. "Rose, we've been looking for ages and haven't found a thing better than, spells to heal scratches or to kill viruses, but those are way too advanced and wouldn't explain why he survived bubbli pods. He couldn't have taken some antidote for them. He didn't know the Rockshood wasn't added; I didn't even know, and the antidote to bubbli pods are exceedingly rare and difficult to take anyway."

"Is Rockshood not the antidote?"

"No, Rockshood absorbs the poison and kills it, but taken alone, is also deadly."

"Max assured me that he didn't know why he doesn't get colds, or heals quickly or survived, and Max can't lie."

"Why not?"

"He won't tell me..."


All their research had brought them nowhere. Rose and Al had spoken to Professor Killpii about bubbli pods and Rockshood. They had talked to Madam Pomfrey and even Professor Neville about some magical plant that could explain Max's apparent and always constant health, but none of their questions were answered.


The snow continued to fall until a thick layer covered the grass. Slytherin and Ravenclaw had a Quidditch match mid-November. Rose decided to come unbiased because Al was on the Slytherin team, but Molly's boyfriend, Phineas, was the keeper for the Ravenclaw team. She found herself throughout the game yelling and having to be pulled back by her robes because she had been leaning too far over the edge yelling at the penalty for Ravenclaw just given.

"Calm down won't you?" Max laughed. "Stewart did just grab Locksley's hair."

"It's his own fault for not cutting it," Rose frowned. "Stewart probably didn't mean to catch it."

"Oh yeah," Max nodded sarcastically. "because a beater needs to reach out and grab stuff in the first place. Besides, I'd watch out for Stewart. He seems to harbor Salazar Slytherin's opinion of blood purity."

Max and Rose ran out onto the pitch to meet Al who looked so angry that he almost threw his Firebolt, but being so fond of it, he seemed to change his mind and only stroked the tail roughly.

"Al!" Rose called finally catching up to him.

"I almost had it!" he growled. Scor made his way toward them too. "I felt the snitch; I hit it toward him! I practically handed it to him!" Al dropped to his knees and grabbed his hair. "I just ruined our chances of winning." They had to bend to hear him say.

"You still have one on up us," said Max. This statement cheered him up a bit.


When the four of them weren't in class, or in the library, they were doing homework in the gardens. Snow would fall outside, but behind the ivy-covered wall, all four seasons flourished. They spent most of their time in the Autumn area when doing homework, but would use the room that the summer area provided to work on their Charms. But on the days that they couldn't sneak off to the gardens without being followed by Danielle Daniels who was almost never seen more than ten yards from Max, they would have to take refuge under a huge oak tree to study.

Apparently, the word had gotten out that Max was a dark and dangerous wizard. Poppy Parkinson had started the rumor it turned out after she had been almost dry drowned. Though a few people were now avoiding him in corridors or classes, all the Gryffindors knew that he wasn't and it seemed that Max was enjoying the privacy from the other houses.

Al and Scor were assuring others that he wasn't a dark wizard, but Rose wasn't so sure. She knew he wasn't, sure; after all, he did have a Hufflepuff dad. But he also had a Slytherin mother who he wasn't fond of, maybe she was dark, maybe he did have dark blood. That wouldn't change her opinion of him of course.

The rumor that Rose and Max was interested in each other was put to rest by Alexis Micherl who stated very loudly that if there were anything there, then something would have happened already. Danielle had become much more friendly to Rose after that. Of course, still asking question after question about Max. Alexis and Rose had grown slightly closer over time. Her utter disgust with germs had become less due to being contained in a confined space with the most disgusting creatures on the planet, humans. Mary had, thankfully, been more distant toward Rose since Cromwell who had recovered and was back to sleeping on Rose's pillow. Danielle was just as nosey as ever. Pamela turned out to be blind; Rose had figured it out the second week of term. Alexis was the only person at the school that she had told about visiting the village and more importantly, about Illya. She had assured her that she had no interest in him in that way, but Alexis refused to believe that. Though Rose was sure that she would keep the secret, she regretted telling her anything because one afternoon on a third-floor corridor, Alexis had thought it would be funny to shove Illya into Rose. It wasn't funny at all. Rose had turned red, and he had apologized before walking on. His friends laughed at him as he left and one of the guys said, "Trampling little first years now are you? What did that poor little girl do to you?" Poor little girl?

She had waved at him without thinking a couple of days after Hogsmeade, and he had smiled back with a nod but looking confused. She felt like an idiot.

Most of everybody's days were spent playing in the snow. This was Rose's first snow fall with a wand so she had fun manipulating it to do whatever she wanted, like consume Max. They bewitched snowballs to fly at each other in a never ending battle of magic. They all built snowmen and had them fight each other in a tournament where the other houses would get together to see the winning snowmen battle each other while they punched the air and shouted.

Though the days were filled with fun and games, the evenings, were not. The Gryffindors spent all afternoon studying, but no one stayed up later than Rose and to his displeasure, Maddox. They sat by the fire and were always bending low over books and parchment. Scribbling constantly with quill in tiny writing across her paper. Max was always trying to write as big as he could to limit the measure of writing he had to do. The only time Rose ever did this was with History of Magic.

"Augh," Max groaned. "Rose, it's two in the morning, can we please go to bed, everyone else has. I'll finish the paper in the morning."

Rose shut her book abruptly and scowled at him as he lay upside down on the couch. She was irritated, annoyed, and exhausted, emotions that always made her snappish.

"Fine," she huffed. "You can go to bed sure; it's not like the report is due in the morning anyway. You can fail your exams and end up behind a desk at a dead end job because you were never ambitious enough to put the work into your education. I won't say I told you so, but don't expect me to support you and your six kids in future."

"...So that's a yes? Cool, goodnight." Max sat up and headed to bed; a place that she wished she could go.

She felt sorry for jumping at him. She was surprised that he was still her friend given how often she did it. She couldn't admit to anyone, but she hated being alone. She hated it. Loneliness was never a problem back home, she had her parents, the Potters, and her brother Hugo who, she didn't realize, reminded her a lot of Max. His sarcasm, open-mindedness, intense fascination in things that others would care less about, and his utter disregard to the completely obvious. For example, Max's complete ignorance to the fact he had a stalker. Danielle was always around him, in the library, grounds, classes, meals, in between corridors. She had thrown herself onto him when ice skating across the Black Lake and had tried to blame it on slipping. Rose, Al, and Scor laughed at the fact that he didn't know she fancied him. Ever since he had found out, Max became uncomfortably aware of her presence and even climbed over tables to avoid her; she never seemed to get the hint.


Rose became more and more tired as November crawled by and into December. She had fallen asleep in Defense Against the Dark Arts and woke terrified to an eruption of sound, then laughter. Professor Dalbert was sitting on the teacher's table with an air horn, and Max was red from laughing so hard; he had tried to keep her awake until then.

"Sorry," Dalbert said. "Early Christmas present, had to try it."

She had stayed up so late the night before that she had seen Yoman and the other Gryffindor elves climb silently through the tapestry hole. She had somehow ended up helping them decorate the Gryffindor common room with garland and tensile. She had difficulty switching out the throw blankets with more festive ones because Max had fallen asleep on a pile of them on the couch and Rose had a furious fight with a sleeping Maddox as they yanked back and forth for throws. Max woke the next morning to find the Gryffindor common room festive and decorated and Rose laughed until her stomach hurt, not at the awe on Max's face, but at his report on Uric the Oddball's childhood story for History of Magic plastered to the side of his face from where he had fallen asleep on the wet ink.


One thing that bothered her over the entire semester, was how little she would mention Scorpius in her letters to home. They would often all write together in the morning during breakfast. Scor was perfectly open in his writing and Rose felt a guilty every time she would see her name because of how little his name was in hers, or at all. She wasn't ashamed of being his friend, not at all, but what her dad would think about their friendship scared her. He hated the Malfoys she knew. He had even made a point to tell her not to get too friendly with him, but she had, he was one of her best friends. Al wasn't worried, Scorpius' name was written several times in his letter. Max's letters were always too short to bear any of their names, but hers, she would never let them see, and she felt like a horrible friend for it.


The Slytherins had been oddly kind this year, compared to what Rose had imagined anyway. Poppy Parkinson and Fraunk were still bullies but nothing the Gryffindors couldn't sort out. Unfortunately for the Gryffindors, they had to be slightly more witting about their approach. Fraunk and Parkinson had somehow become ringleaders of a clan of old school Slytherins. An odd sort of leadership, first year beside a fifth. But they had successfully rounded every Slytherin in the school it seemed, who hated muggles, blood diversity, and especially Gryffindors.


For some reason, every Gryffindor that had ever done anyone of them wrong had somehow ended up in either detention or the hospital wing. See, the Slytherin group had a different approach. They would first choose a victim and focus all of their attention on that particular person, then slander their victim slowly until they were in the presence of authority where they would start taunting, mocking, and ridiculing them quietly until their victim couldn't take any more of it and would pop them in the nose, therefore making the first move, getting themselves into trouble, a telling off, or in James' case, detention for punching Pollik in the face after he called a second year a mudblood. Professor Killpii had James rearrange and organize the potions cupboard which consisted of disgusting and slimy ingredients that had smashed and needed to be wiped up.

A mudblood was a crude name for a witch or wizard who was born to muggle parents. Muggle-borns.

The four friends seemed to be the only students that the Slytherin group ever openly pulled their wands on; them and Fred. Parkinson had significant grudges against them. Scorpius betrayed her friendship, Al had cracked her tooth, Rose had dueled her, and Max had cursed her. Fraunk was always at Fred for his singimigig of course, but Parkinson's ill feelings toward them had reflected on the group who were now always down their throats. Rose was furious to find Scorpius in the hospital wing covered in painful boils.

"I walked in on them doing an initiation in the common room after dark," Scorpius was telling them. "They were giving blood and everything; it was scary. So, I threw a few dung bombs in there and ran up the stairs. Honestly, I'm surprised this is the worst I got."


Rose felt sorry for Al and Scor who couldn't escape from them ever, they took classes with a few from the group, slept in the same vicinity. They had meals with the Gryffindors every day, though. This only seemed to make the team angrier at them. They hadn't yet succeeded in bothering Max, though. Rose assumed that Poppy had told them that he was a dark wizard and had clued them in on what he could do. They didn't seem too keen on taking Max on yet and lucky for Rose, she was always with him and was sure that the others knew that if anything happened to her, especially if he was around, that they would be cursed into oblivion. Max was way more protective over his friends than he was over himself. But she was confident that the group was cooking something much worse up for them.


Rose, Scor, and Al had to drag Max away from Poppy because he had attempted swinging at her after she had called Rose's mother a mudblood. They all ended up having to take refuge in the Gryffindor changing room because the group had begun slinging ice at them. Scor locked the door and they all sat shivering. Rose hated this feeling. When they were forced to run, or hide. It reminded her every time that she really was only a first year.

"What's their deal?" Rose asked through chattering teeth. "Can't you guys reason with them?"

Max snorted. "There you are trying to keep the peace, wouldn't be much more satisfying to sock them in the face?"

"Of course it would," she huffed. "but because I don't want detention or to be expelled, peacekeeper is the best I can do."

"No, we can't reason with them," said Scorpius. "They hate us, think we should be put in Gryffindor with all the other brutes, they said. We're with Gryffindors more than we are our own house, might as well become one, so they said. We tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn't have it. Called up blood traitors."

"What do the other Slytherins think about all this?" Rose asked.

"Well a few of them have told 'em off," said Al. "But the rest just let them get on with it. They're not bothering any of them. You may haven't have noticed, but Salazar's views are still very prominent throughout our house. That's what this lot is trying to call themselves, Salazar's."

"Why don't you talk to Professor Donima? Surely she could do something about it."

"One of the seventh years did," said Scor. "But she said that she couldn't do anything about it unless she finds proof that they're doing something wrong. They're good, though, they don't get caught. They let the Gryffindors do that for them. You guys are so quick to use your fist that you don't always stop to use your brain, no offense."

"Sure, because that wasn't offensive at all," Rose scowled.

"Not you, just some of you."

There was heavy pounding on the door.

"You did lock it?" Max asked.

"Course I did."

"So whose initiation did you walk in on?" Max asked.

"Uh," Scor thought. "Relctory and Stewart."

"Stewart!"

"Not your Stewart, our Stewart." Scorpius corrected.

Angelo Stewart was on the Slytherin Quidditch team, and Ishmael Stewart was on the Gryffindor's. Everyone thought they were related though they weren't. The fact that they both were the beaters on their teams, and the fact that they both had black hair and brown eyes caused people to suspect them, siblings. Though in personality, they couldn't be more unalike. Ishmael hated being tied in any way to Angelo.


The pounding on the door was growing louder and shouts could be heard, but not distinguished, from the other side.

"Scor, go see who's there," Al shivered.

Scorpius reluctantly got up and made his way to the door, peering through the crack.

"I think," he mumbled, pushing the door open slightly.

As soon as the door was cracked, it was flung open violently. A hand reached out and grabbed Scor by the coat and pushed him further inward with a wand at his throat.

"Rocky?" Rose exclaimed.

He looked up in surprise pass Scor.

"What are you lot doing in here?" he asked.

"We were... cold," she chose to say, not feeling very keen on telling him that they were hiding.

"We thought you were the Slytherin brutes."

"We?" Rose looked past Rocky to see Ishmael and Enoc wave at her.

"We've been trying to get in, but the door wouldn't unlock, not even with magic."
Rose pulled Scor back by the coat.

"Oh right," said Rocky patting out the fist of fabric he had made in Scor's jacket. "Sorry 'bout that. Like I said, we thought you were that Slytherin lot raiding or destroying our dressing room."

"Why couldn't you get in here?" she asked.

"Don know," he sighed gesturing to the door. "The unlocking spell wasn't working, and we didn't want to destroy it."

"Of course you couldn't get in." scowled Scor re-buttoning his silver buttons. "I hexed it, won't open 'til I want it to."

"Impressive," Rose smiled. "But why are you guys here?"

"Quidditch practice," Rocky grinned.

"Practice? But it's evening, Hufflepuff's evening."

"I just saw their captain, Lime, doing snow angles by the lake; I don't think they're taking advantage of their night, so we are! James went up to the castle to find you. He won't be pleased."

The Gryffindors were the only team crazy enough to continue training in this weather. The snow was becoming heavier, and a full three feet was set across the grounds. The snow whipped and scratched their face as they flew and after every practice the entire team drug themselves to the hospital wing for cold treatment. Madam Pomfrey became so frustrated with their seeming lack of care for their own heath that she told them to stop practice until after the Holidays or else she would no longer treat their virus. Rocky had attempted to schedule practice anyway to which the whole team sternly refused. Rose hugged the Matron after the team left and she was so happy that she limped out, forgetting to ask for treatment for her bludger accident.