THORNS & VENOM | h.p.a.u

HOGSMEADE

"Rose. Rose. ROSE."

She folded the pillow over her ears. "I'm awake, you blithering idiot!"

Scorpius hit the door. "WE'RE LATE!"

At that, she jerked up, instinctively looking to her left where she normally had a window in Gryffindor Tower that poured the early morning rays in. But instead she was greeted by a black dresser. Right. There was no windows in the Slytherin dungeons.

"How late are we?" Rose hollered as she rolled out of bed to get ready.

"If we apparate now we can be there on time." Scorpius' voice sounded grim.

"Apparate? Within Hogwarts? Impossible." she scoffed.

He didn't answer, and she assumed it was because he'd gone back to his room to get ready.

After pulling her hair up in high ponytail and changing into her uniform, she snatched up her overnight duffel and met Scorpius by the front door.

He was dressed to impress, which seemed to be a Slytherin trait. Upon his uniform in place of his robes was a thick black trenchcoat. Wrapped around his neck was the typical silver and green of Slytherin. It really brought out his rain cloud eyes.

He had his wand in his hand- an 11 inch blackthorn wand with a unicorn hair core. It was a reasonably supple wand. She recalled using it once back in fourth year when she, Albus, and Scorpius had the genius idea of switching wands to see if they responded to another wizard or witch wielding it. Scorpius' wand responded fairly well with her. Her wand also answered to Scorpius. Albus' wand rejected both of them and vice versa.

"Ready?" he raised one platinum brow.

"Ready." she said confidently, hoping to hide how shaken she was over this. "But how are we going to apparate?"

Her bag was suddenly jerked out from her hand.

"Hux will take this for you." a nasally but quaint voice came beneath her.

She looked down to see a house-elf in a rather cute burlap dress.

"Hux, hand it over." Scorpius said firmly. "You don't need to carry it. Rose can carry her own bag."

Hux pouted, her ears pinning flat. "But I want to! Madam Astoria said I should carry the bags. It's my duty."

He frowned. "Mum always makes you carry small stuff, and that's only if her hands are full. I just need you to apparate to the front gates of Hogwarts. Can you do that for us, Hux?"

The elf reluctantly handed over my bag back to me. "Oh alright."

Hux grabbed both mine and Scorpius' scarf ends. I held my breath before the apparated. In a blink of an eye we were standing before the gates just as Headmistress McGonagall climbed down the steps to greet us. Hux vanished into thin air just as she crossed the courtyard entrance to meet us.

"Oh, good to see you here on time." she smiled. "Now, here's the list of things we need. I know it's a long list, and usually I'd have Hagrid take it up but he's gone for his wedding anniversary. I truly appreciate the two of you stepping up to the plate for this task."

"Of course." Scorpius said smoothly, taking the list from McGonagall's hands. "It's the least we as Head Boy and Girl could do."

McGonagall handed Rose a box of floo powder. "Use this for the way back. I heard it was going to be rather stormy on the second day and I don't want to risk you two catching anything before your next Quidditch matches."

As McGonagall said her parting words, Rose couldn't help but think what exactly was going on in the Headmistress' mind. A boy and a girl? Alone? In Hogsmeade? This time of year guaranteed romantic scenery. Now in no way was Rose insinuating that McGonagall didn't know what attraction was. Or teenage hormones. But to have that much faith in the Heads to let them go to Hogsmeade alone? Maybe someone slipped a little bit of firewhiskey in McGonagall's tea this past week.