Rose Weasley and The Unfortunate Son of a Lunatic

A Successful Escape

Rose had tried her best to act cheery. Max's apparent depression was heavily weighing on her. While everyone else was splashing around with the giant squid, Rose, Max, Scorpius and Al were standing under the one dark area on the ground, or so it seemed. They had a little rain cloud above them wherever they went. Four days left.

Rose had suppressed her curiosity on what she had seen the other night when Max had lied. She was dying to ask but thought it would be best not to. She was really quite astounded about how he was taking this. If it were her problem, she would be biting the heads off anyone who tried to talk to her. But Max was only a bit edgy. He didn't snap or yell or resort to violence. For being the naughty kid in class, he was simply... quiet. He would rarely start up a conversation, and when he did, it wouldn't last long. It seemed that he was always lost in thought. This abrupt change from magnetic Max, mouthy Max, to mournful and silent Max, was almost worse than if he yelled. Rose wanted her best friend back the way he was. But she felt selfish when missing the old him, knowing that he's probably silent to keep from crying. Though this change had made her angry, she wished it hadn't. She felt as though he was being unproductive and stupid. He thought that the only way to resolve this would be to pay the ransom. He wasn't taking a logical look at things, at the circumstance. Rose highly doubted that Belladonna would release Will after she was finished with Max.


"Max?" she asked gingerly while mending a hole in his Weasley jumper.

"Hmm?"

"You haven't spoken in almost four hours."

"I just did."

"'Hmm' aren't words," she said annoyed.

He didn't respond. He was watching Al and Scorpius by the lake skipping stones. Rose knew that Max knew that the two boys were talking about him.

"Max, please say something!" she said desperately.

"An evil witch wants to extract something from me, my brother's about to die, and I haven't eaten in almost forty-eight hours," he said glumly.
Rose felt herself becoming angry.

"I'm sick of this!" she exclaimed standing up, his jumper clenched in her fist. "The three of us are trying to keep you from getting killed! I haven't heard your normal voice in a full week, and we're working to give you options that will ensure that both you and your brother survive but you won't have it!"

"She'll kill whoever you want me to send," he said for the millionth time.

"Augh!" she growled in frustration, and threw his jumper onto the grass, storming toward the castle.

"Oi!" he called. "What are you trying to do? Be careful!"

She turned slightly to see him grab his sweater and begin pulling grass from the yarn. She felt something jump for a moment in hearing his voice again. Whatever had jumped, deflated again seeing him pull the jumper to his chest and lean back against the tree trunk lazily. She clinched her fist and turned back toward him.

"If you're not going inform a teacher about what's going on, then I will!" she said scowling.

"Yeah?" said Max standing up, scowling as well.

"Yeah! I don't want you or Will to die, and the only way to ensure that you both live is if experienced wizards go, not an eleven-year-old!"

"Well, have fun doing that now!" he said gritting his teeth frighteningly. He grabbed her wrist and held it between them. "It's eight! Teachers have now retired to the lounge or bed."

"Then I'll stay up to find them," she said.

"No, you won't, because I'm not coming and you hate being alone!" Rose scowled more darkly; he struck a genuine fear of hers.

She glanced over at Hagrid's hut to see the absence of the flickering fire from his windows and knew that he wasn't home.

"I never said I'd do it tonight!"

The rest of the students were now heading up toward the castle to avoid being locked out. Max turned and walked off with the crowd as Scorpius and Al joined Rose who was scowling after him.

"Another fight?" said Al.

"He's going to make a break for it tonight," she huffed.

"Then convince him not to," said Scor.

"He's done listening. I'll stay up and stun him if he tries to leave."

"You do realize," said Al slowly. "that if you do this, and his brother does die, Max will never speak to you again."
Rose didn't respond. She knew that this was going to be the case but didn't want to admit it.

"If it means he lives, it'll be worth it."

"Well then," Scorpius breathed, now pulling the other two up to the castle. "Keep the hand mirror with you, if he tries to leave, just buzz Al and me, we'll head straight up."

"I'm telling a teacher in the morning," she said.

"Did you tell him that?" Al asked.

"Sure," she shrugged.

"No, Rosie!" Albus rolled his eyes. "That's why he'll make a break for it tonight; he thinks his time's up! You can't tell him things like that!"

"Al, don't pester me, I'm not in the mood."


Rose split from Scor and Al at the marble staircase of the entrance hall and found Max reading, Magical Places, a muggle's guide, on the sofa in the crowded common room. His hair had been brown for the past week, so she had to see his face to know it was him. Rose sat on the cushion beside him and opened someone else's copy of, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1, and pretended to read. She was determined to stay up all night with wand in hand. She was not going to let Max kill himself. She had overheard him talking to the fat frier ghost a week back, who accidentally, with a little help from Max, told him that only Professor Dalbert's and Professor Kemp's offices are connected to the floo network all the time. Max had been asking about what would happen if someone knew, and how they would break into the school.

"Not to worry young lad!" the ghost had chuckled. "One doesn't just step into a fire and say 'Hogwarts'! There are ways one must do it! Secret words for the castle! Don't freight, son! No one's going to harm us!"

"But what if someone wants to leave the castle, to make a break for it?" Max asked, and Rose, who had been passing after dinner and had stopped to listen from behind the statue of Vector the Vulnerable, knew that he wasn't really worried, but just wanted to assess his option of escape.

"Nobody knows which fires are connected! And they'll have a job getting into Kemp's office! As for Dalbert, I think we have a D.A.D.A teacher who is up to stopping any mad man."

"Thank you frier," said Max beaming. "I feel a lot safer."



"You don't have to dog guard me," said Max, not looking up.

"Are you planning on leaving?" she asked, still staring at the book which she had already read.

"I don't plan on anything," he responded. "You do realize that my brother will die."

"Not when the authorities arrive."


They didn't speak for a long while. The other Gryffindors were still celebrating the end of school, and after the firecrackers were lit and the butterbeer drained, students started filing off to bed, all entirely cheerful, all completely unaware that in less than four days, a child would die.

Rose looked at her watch. It was one in the morning, and the common room was completely deserted. Her eyelids began to droop, and the words scrambled on the page. She wondered if Max felt the same. She glanced over to see him slumped over on the arm of the sofa, fast asleep.

"I don't want you to die," she whispered he didn't stir. "I don't want Will to die either." She choked for a moment. "I don't know what to do." A tear rolled down her face, and she quickly wiped it away as if someone were watching. "There is no way to win, Maddox. Either you go, and be murdered, don't go and Will dies but each alternative results in you not being my friend in the end. That's why I have to tell a teacher. It's the only way out of this with the slimmest possibility that you both will live." She dropped the book and slumped back against his shoulder. "These are not the kind of problems that we're supposed to have at our age. We're meant to worry about exams and school, Quidditch matches and what we're gonna do over the summer not whether we're gonna see next summer. I'm sorry that this happened to you, it's not fair. Why couldn't Poppy have a kidnapped brother and pay the ransom? Well, I suppose it wouldn't make much of a difference for her, she'll save her own life in a heartbeat. Ugh, why do you have to be so nice?" she hit him on the arm before slouching back down. "You're not going to talk to me next year, are you? You're either gonna hate me, or be dead. I'm going to miss your obsessive Astronomy antics. I complained about them a lot, but you did help me get by; I'm not a fan of Astronomy. Thanks for helping me with homework during Quidditch by the way; I don't remember if I had thanked you or not. It's not easy being my friend, before you, I really didn't have any. Thank you for putting up with me, I can be a little overbearing, so I've been told. You're not going to remember any of this, are you? I think not. Good thing too, I doubt I would have admitted any of this if you were awake. I'm stubborn. You are asleep, aren't you?" She sat up again and poked his arm. "Is it weird that I'm talking to you right now? I mean it's not the first time I've spoken to you when you were asleep. I've done it before, not knowing that you had fallen asleep, though. I'm just gonna," She laid down beside him and held onto his sleeve. "So I'll know if you try to get up. Sorry in advance if I have to stun you. Just wait until tomorrow, we'll see what happens then."

She closed her eyes and every five minutes or so, would clench her fist to be sure that the fabric of his sleeve was still safely there.


Rose was awoken from her light sleep by the sound of crinkling paper and a couple of small tugs on the fabric in her hand. She opened her eyes too small slits and saw the silhouette of a boy tucking a wand into his side pocket. She lifted her head to see that she was holding onto an unoccupied robe. Max had apparently slipped out of it and was now gearing up to make a run for it. Rose almost jumped from the couch and reached for her wand in her robe pocket, but it wasn't there.

"I took it," said Max spinning around quickly and sweaty to face her. He looked frightened but stood tall pretending not to be. "It's in my common room, at the bottom of Micah's supply box.

"Why would you tell me that?" she said, now worried; how on earth was she going to stop him without a wand?

"Because I'll be gone by the time you can retrieve it," he said hurriedly and out of breath. He opened his mouth to say something but seemed to change his mind because she turned and bolted to the portrait hole.

Rose swept her hand across the face of the silver hand mirror on the table next to her reflecting the rays of moonlight and ran after him. She may not have a wand, but she had two terms worth of Quidditch muscle; she would knock him out if she had to.

"Where do you two think you're going?" called the fat lady from behind them. "We're so close to the end of term! Don't ruin this for Gryffindor!"

Max had a head start, but Rose was gaining on him. Their footsteps made a loud slapping noise against the stone floor, and it was only a matter of time until Filtch or one of his six grandcats caught them. It looked as if Max were heading to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, the only other room with floo.

"Max!" she called. Rose reached out and grabbed him by the collar of his white button up shirt around the third or fourth floor and caused him to make a choking noise.

Max spun around and pointed his wand at her with shaking hands. She let go of his collar and backed up quickly, thinking wildly about what he had done to Poppy and whether he was going to do the same to her.

"Rose..." said Max warningly, but he didn't sound scary at all. His voice was shaking, and his wand hand was faulty. "Please, I don't want to hurt you."

"Then don't!" she said, eyeing his wand through the dull light from the window beside them and wondered if he even dared. "Come back... let a teacher take care of it, not you. Please Max"

Max looked furiously from her to an entrancingly carved oak cupboard, and back to her. He tucked his wand away and grabbed Rose by her arms, and began shoving her toward the cupboard.

"What are you doing!" she fought.

"Just... stop fighting... get in the cupboard!" he wrestled her.

"No!"

She could try to hit him of course, but even if she freed her arms from his grip, she couldn't bring herself to get her fist that close to his face.

"Will. You. Stop. Fighting!" he struggled. "I'm going, and I can't have you try'n stop me!"

A medium volume fight took place where Rose kicked and whaled her arms around. Max flung open the cupboard and lifted her onto the bottom shelf with a surprising amount of strength before slamming the door as she continued to pound on it. He said an incantation and she heard a loud click, and she peeked through the crack of the door as Max backed up and looked at her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But this is more important." And he sprinted away.

.......

"DID YOU JUST LOCK ME IN A CUPBOARD, EVERARD?!" she screamed.

She was banging on the door to see if she could perhaps knock it down but was interrupted by a loud cackling growing closer.

"Someone's breaking the rules! Let me see! Let me see!" Peeves sang.

"Oooh!" he laughed when stopping in midair before her and doing a summersault. "Who do we have here?" He pressed his devilish little eye against the crack in the door to see Rose leaning against the back wall, scowling with her arms crossed. "A Granger-Weasley!" he said in mock shock. "Saintly smart?" he laughed, rolling over again. "We have a baby in the cage-y! baby in the cage-y!" he continued to sing.

"Peeves, will you just let me out?" she asked, though thinking that she knew the answer.

"Let you out!?" he gasped. "Why would I do that?"
Rose heard slapping stomps on the stone floor growing closer.

"Filch? Oooh, you'll be in so much trouble!" Peeves grabbed his stomach and laughed.

But it wasn't Filch, turning the corner, she saw that the footsteps belonged to Scorpius and Al. She had completely forgotten that she had buzzed them on her mirror.

"Scor! Al!" she called hopefully.

"Rose?" said Al growing close to the cupboard. "Why are you in a cupboard?"

"Max did it, now let me out!"

Peeves sat cross-legged in the air with his little round head on his hands to watch.

"Alohomora!" Al called, pointing his wand at the lock. But it didn't budge. "Alohomora!" he called again. Nothing.

"He used the proclock charm," said Scorpius, jiggling the lock. "Only the person who cast the charm can unlock it again."

"Who taught him that?" said Rose angrily, hitting the door.

"I taught him," said Scor guiltily.

"Why don't you blow the lock off?" she asked desperately.

"Sure," said Al. "if you want shards of wood stuck in your body."

"Ooo-hoo!" cackled Peeves. "Three students out of bed, I should tell Filch, he's only down in the dungeons."

"Peeves!" said Rose, readying to try to reason with him.

"You should," said Scorpius. The other two stopped and looked at him in disbelief, wondering where he was going with this. Peeves stopped laughing and looked at him confusedly too.
"You should tell Filch," he continued. "that would be the right thing to do, and it would make Filch so happy." Peeves winced a moment, apparently imagining himself doing the right thing was painful. "Oh look who it is," said Scorpius, glancing down at Nelson, one of Filch's cats. The ugly thing stared at them beadily, then whisked off in the opposite direction. "There he goes to tell Filch. What'd you reckon? Two minutes till he arrives? I guess we deserve it. We were only trying to make the teacher's job harder, it being so close to the end of term. Oh well, Filch'll be pleased, and he thought all the fun was over."

Peeves was having a mad battle in his own head. Rose was staring through the crack to see him shake his head, blink a couple of times, glance at the cupboard, then at the direction Nelson the cat went. Without warning, an uncomfortable, slightly more alive than a ghost but less than a human sensation swept through her and a clammy something gripped her wrist. She felt a whoosh similar to the feeling of running through the brick wall at King's Cross. She opened her eyes and found that she was no longer in the cupboard. Al and Scor's mouths were open.

"I'm gonna tell Filch where you are, and when you're not there, he'll be furious!" Peeves cackled and flew through a stone wall behind them.

"What?" she gasped. "Just happened?"

"He pulled you through the solid wood!" said Al.

"I didn't know he could do that!" said Scor.

The initial shock of what had just happened was wearing off, and she remembered why she was in a dark corridor at three in the morning. Rose sprinted off toward Dalbert's office, Scor, and Al now running behind her.


Scorpius, having the longest legs so being the quickest, was in the lead and was the one to fling open the D.A.D.A classroom door. Scor tripped over a desk due to low light and Rose pushed open the office door which was already ajar. Out of breath, she looked up the see Max turn around quickly, a handful of floo powder in his hand.

Almost in slow motion, she ran toward him as he backed into the fireplace.

"My second house!" he yelled. Green flame slowly spiraled up his legs. Scorpius grabbed Al by the arm to keep him back, but Rose jumped toward him thinking that she may still have time to pull him out. Max looked shocked and horrified as she leaped toward him and into the fireplace. Rather than getting him out, the green flame spiraled up her arms as her hands closed around his sleeves. With a yank that was quite painful, she felt herself being sucked down what felt like a drain by her elbows.

"ROSE, NO!" she heard Al shout before all sound was blocked out by a deafening wind spinning around both her and Max.


She was traveling by floo with Max. They were both spinning in circles, both with their eyes open. She was trying to keep her elbows in, trying not to freak out. Being still during floo travel was essential, but it was made difficult with Max pushing her away. It seemed that he was trying to push her through one of the other connected fireplaces that were whirling by.

"Max, stop!" she would yell. "Stop!"

She was still holding onto his shirt to keep herself from being thrown against the walls. Max pushed her once more as a large opening passed, but this time, a loud, horrible crack split through the wind and both she and Max froze. She wondered for a bizarre moment, what that crack was. Then a terrible pain began to rise through her leg. So, bad in fact, that she let so of Max's shirt. He grabbed her and pulled her back close. She began to feel sick, not just because of the pain, but because the whirling was getting to be too much. Her leg had smashed against the wall.

All the sudden, it stopped, and their feet his solid ground. Rose collapsed due to the sudden and painful impact, and she screamed. Her eyes were watering, and everything became blurry.

"Oh, oh-" Max made a choking noise as he felt around her leg in horror. She screamed at the pain he was inflicting just by touching it, but she couldn't bring herself to look.

Her eyes were swimming, and she looked up to see straight up the chimney, then down to find that they were laying in a mound of ash and dirt, broken and burnt logs and crinkled pieces of paper. She wished for a moment that Al were here, he would know just what to do about her leg. She looked forward for the first time, not at her leg, but at Max who was spinning about the room and fussing with the mantel-piece, looking for something.

"Max.... What?" she muttered.

"I have to find the floo!" he choked. "We have to get you back before she appears. Somewhere, somewhere."

A terrible smell of dust and decay entered her nostrils, and she was trying to make out where they were through the cloud of ash that had arisen since they landed in it. Dull moonlight was making its way across the cracked and moldy floorboards through an ivy-covered, shattered window.

"Max," she croaked. "Max the window, we can make it out through the window."

"The window is second story," he said hurriedly.

"The door?"

"Is downstairs."

"How do you know?"

"This was my house when I was six," he said backing into the room and looking around worriedly and toward the top of a staircase. "We have to get you out of here, Rosie!" he said in a desperate whisper. "Can you stand up?"

Rose shifted her leg and toppled over sweaty; she shook her head.
Max hurried over and flung one of her arms around his neck, and tried to support her down the pitch black hallway. She could have screamed again in pain, but regaining her thoughts, realized that Belladonna Drury was somewhere in this house; that thought made her weak and sick.

The floor creaked below them, and Rose wondered if it was going to give way. Broken glass littered the floor and the smell of dead animals lingered. Max had illuminated his wand tip, casting a three-foot span of blue light across the floor and blackened walls. She could hear Max's heavy breathing and watched him shift his eyes back and forth.

"Where are we?" she asked as he stopped mid corridor and turned as if trying to remember.

"Elvinshire, Scotland," he replied. "This is where I lived when Will was taken. It burnt down after we left, well, she blew it up," he added.

"Who's 'she'?" Rose grunted.

Max hushed her and turned his wand toward a white wood closed door and shifted a moment before entering. The door creaked when he pushed it open, and he scooted Rose higher because she had been slipping. Rose looked around the room. It looked to have once been a bedroom for a young boy. A moldy blue rug lay on the wood floor; a window cast moonlight through the dusty air. A couple of pathetic looking, cheap toys were laying across the ground, and a few torn posters were hanging from the wall around one metal beds, plastic stars were cast about the wall over the second. The first bed looked almost exactly like the second, from its rusted red frame to its thin pathetic mattress, except the first bed's sheets were not moldy and now home for rats, but new covers lined the mattress and something rather large was stirring under them.

Max dared to draw closer, but not to enter the room. "William?" he whispered.

The lump under the sheets stirred more and sat up, Rose could only see the silhouette of a boy around their age, but could not make out his face.

"Will!" Max breathed, half relieved, half horrified. "We need to go!"

"You're not supposed to be here!" she heard Will say in a familiar voice. "Go! Go now! She'll be here any minute!"

Max half entered the room but backed away hurriedly as the door shut in his face with a slam Rose thought was heavy enough to blow the house down. Rose saw the bottom of a long black dress sweep by and looking up, saw the face of Belladonna Drury standing above them.

"Well..." she said in a voice that was soft and icy. "It's been a while hasn't it... Son?"