"So for starters, we need a mandrake leaf," Chandler says to me. We are sitting in a corridor in the dungeons that isn't too far from our common room but far enough away that no one will see us.
"Well, that should be easy. Professor Longbottom has a bunch of them in the greenhouses." Chandler says. He stretches his arms up and groans.
"Are you mentally deficient?" I say loudly.
Chandler stops mid-stretch, "Jesus Christ Weasley, that was aggressive."
I roll my eyes, "Neville is one of my parent's close friends! I'll see him at my nan and pops for Christmas! If I ask him for two mandrake leaves then he'll sure as hell tell my parents what we are doing."
"Or he'll just think that you've finally decided to start taking Herbology seriously?" Chandler looks at me and we both start laughing really hard.
"I can ask Freddie for his map so we can sneak out and get them ourselves I guess but if I ask Freddie then he'll want to know what I've got planned."
"Your brother seriously needs a map to get from one spot in the castle to the next?"
I close the book that is in my lap, "Nah its some tweaked out map that shows where everyone is in the castle, makes it easy to sneak out."
Chandler raises one of his eyebrows, "And I'm just finding this out because...?"
"Because Freddie'll never let me use it. He always has it with him cause he's scared shitless of losing it." I gather all the books together and sigh, "It's getting late. I'll worry about the mandrake leaves, you worry about the small crystal phial that receives the pure rays of the moon." I get up from the floor and brush off my robes, bending back down and picking up the books.
Chandler laughs, "Yeah sure I'll just head on over to the small crystal phial store."
"I'm sure that Slughorn has a few lying around. He's the potions master, he's bound to have weird shit like that." I wait for Chandler to get up off the ground before I start walking towards our common room.
"And you think that Sluggy will just give me two of them if I say please and bat my eyelashes or something?"
I laugh at the thought of Chandler batting his eyelashes at our teacher. "You're a smart little wizard I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something."
We walk into the common room and find a spot to sit near the back of the room. I can hear the rain hitting the lake if I try to listen hard enough. Dominique and her friends have got loud punk music blaring from a speaker in the middle of the room. I watch in awe almost as she pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one up. Nope. Not a cigarette, definitely weed.
"Be right back." I say to Chandler. He complains but I don't listen to him. I sit on the arm of the chair that Dominique is sitting on and pluck the joint out of her hand and take a long drag. She stares at me with an impressed look on her face.
"What would Aunt Violet say?" She says as I give her the joint back.
"What would Aunt Fleur say?" I say with my eyebrow raised.
She takes another drag and passes it to her friend on her left. She shuffles over in the chair so I can squeeze in beside her, "This is my kid cousin If you don't know already. Ophelia, this is Rosa, Pearl, Calvin, Atwater, and Lucas." She says pointing at each person in her circle.
"Kid cousin as in...?" The guy Dom said was Atwater says, he takes a drag and passes the joint to Pearl.
"Kid cousin as in twelve going on thirteen you sick fuck." Dom spits.
Atwater puts his hands up in defense, "Oh god not like that Dommy. Like Who's is she?"
"My dads George Weasley, and my mums Violet LeStrange." Rosa hands the joint back to me and I take a drag before giving it to Dominique again.
"So your parents are legends is what your saying." Rosa says.
I never really heard anyone say it like that before, sure I knew that dad and uncle Fred ruled over the school when they were here, giving meaning to the Weasley name but no one has ever said both my parents were legends, wonder what mum did to get that title.
"Isn't Violet LeStrange the one that pulled her wand on that teacher all those years ago? Fuck what was the bastards name?" Lucas says. That takes me by surprise, my mother pulled her wand on a teacher?"
"Moany or some shit like that wasn't it?" Calvin says.
Pearl laughs, "Moany is that crazy bitch that haunts the girls washrooms dumbass. The teacher was Moody."
"Wasn't she also the one that threatened to kill someone like every other day?" Rosa adds to the conversation, "Fuck Ophelia you're mums batshit crazy."
"Oi! Are we all forgetting that my mum battled a whole ass dragon when she was our age?" Dom says. She's got that crooked smile on her face that most Weasleys have, "And my dad was attacked by Fenir Greyback?"
"Right but your Aunt literally lived with the Dark Lord. According to my mum Violet was the baddest bitch at Hogwarts for a long time." Calvin says.
The conversation quickly changes to school, to the future, to muggle sports, to dating.
"Dommy can you introduce me to your fine ass cousin? There's something hot about struggling artists with daddy issues." Lucas asks. It takes me a second to register that he's talking about Molly.
"Over you're dead fucking body there Madron." Dominique says back, "Leave her and her daddy issues alone."
Daddy issues? Molly? Why didn't I know that she doesn't have a good relationship with uncle Percy? I don't say anything though, I don't want to ruin whatever is happening right now. Dominique looks at me and winks, dunno what that means but I smile at her none the less. Maybe she think that I know more than I do? Molly and I have never been close. I mean sure she used to babysit me with Dom when we were little but that's about it.
"Alright fine. What about your sister. She's fucking smoking hot." Lucas wolf whistles after he says that making everyone but Dom laugh.
Domonique lights another joint and takes a really deep drag before responding, "According to mum, Vicky is going off to Japan or whatever. So unless you want to follow her out there..."
"Japan? Fuck me." Rosa says, "Heard the wizarding history out there is really interesting."
Dom shrugs, "All I know is that Vic wanted her boyfriend to come with her and he said no. Mums freaking out course cause she thought that there was going to be a wedding soon. Weddings, such a stupid fucking concept." It gets awkward, if there's one thing I know about Dom is that she really hates talking about her sister, but when she starts, she doesn't stop. "Perfect fucking Victoire not getting married. Oh what has the world come to." She says sarcastically, when she gets angry her French accent comes out more prominently.
"Hey Dom, maybe you slow down a bit." Rosa says. Dom waves her off and takes another big drag.
"Maman et papa adorent le sol sur lequel marche la salope." She spits, "Aucun d'eux ne peut attendre que Victoire ait des putains d'enfants parfaits avec son putain de mari parfait."
I take that as my que to leave. I don't even think that Dominique notices me leave cause she's still talking loudly in French waving her hands everywhere as she does it.
It's past curfew at this point, I saw Cassie walk into the common room and right into the dorm not too long ago. People everywhere are packing up their things and heading off to bed.
I stay in the common room till I'm the only one in it. A door creaks open and closes softly. Footsteps get closer and closer to me, "Hey..." Cassie says softly.
"Hey back."
She comes over to me and sits on the couch, "Wanna go watch the rain for a bit? I just texted Freddie and he says that theres a good lightning storm happening right now."
I smile and nod, "Course yeah. Let's go." I get up and wrap myself in one of the big knitted blankets that are in the common room. Cass gets up and does the same thing. We walk over to the common room entrance and sneak out as quiet as possible.
We've got the passage memorized. Go to the twelfth set of armour lining the wall in front of our common room and tug on the spear. The wall opens up beside it and you keep walking till you hit the end. Tape your wand seventeen times and the wall will open up. Then its just a quick dash from the tunnel to the front door and you're home free. When the two of us get outside Freddie is already sitting there. He's wearing one of the sweaters that nan made for him last Christmas and has got his arms wrapped around him.
"The fuck you sitting like that for?" I say joking around.
He turns around and looks at Cassie and I who are curled up in blankets. "Thinking about shit. The fuck you two wearing blankets for?"
"Cause its night time and September and cold?" Cassie explains before she sits down beside him. She carefully unwraps herself from the blanket a bit and throws some over Freddie's shoulders.
"Whatcha thinking about?" I say as I walk over and sit on the other side of my brother. I do the same as Cassie did and wrap him in some of my blanket.
"Just shit. It doesn't matter." He says. The sky lights up with a crack of lightning, followed by the loudest roll of thunder I've ever heard. The rain starts to fall harder all around us, getting the toes of my socks wet.
"Doesn't have to do with the girl you were talking to outside of the great hall does it?" Cassie says. I can barley hear her over the pounding rain.
Freddie's shoulder stiffen, "Forgot you saw that." He sighs.
"There's a girl? Damn Fred you don't waste any time do you." I nudge him with my shoulder and he laughs a bit. You can't not laugh when Freddie laughs, he's like mum in that way.
"Just wasn't the girl that I wanted it to be. But the girl that I wanted it to be is busy with someone else." He says it fast, like he'd rather talk about anything but.
"You're not talking about the girl that you paint bombed are you?" I lean forward and look at my brother so I can actually see his facial reactions.
"Wait wait wait. The girl you paint bombed was James' girlfriend wasn't it?" Cassie says trying to catch up with us.
Freddie scrunches up his nose. "Nope I'm not having this conversation with you two. I'm not having this conversation with anyone." Another flash of lightning, it hits a tree in the forbidden forest and I can hear it crack and fall to the ground. We all wait for the clap of thunder before we start talking again.
"Blimey Freddie it's the first day of fucking classes!" I say in a half joking manor.
"First day of classes and Leah's already getting high with Dominique and her friends." Cassie says casually. They both look at me and I want to curl up in my blanket and disappear.
"Getting high? If mum knew what you were doing..." Freddie says.
I roll my eyes, "Mums got her own weed stash, I found it when I was a kid. And don't act like you're perfect or anything mister, 'I've smoked too many cigarettes to run that fast.' Imagine the look on mums face if she heard that one."
Cassie stammers over her words for a second, "Am I the only one that isn't smoking anything?" She says it with a twinge of worry in her voice but it's mostly a joke.
"Course not! I don't think that Theo and Annie are smoking anything just yet." Freddie says making us all laugh. Lightning strikes, thunder rolls, rain gets harder.
"Some first day huh." I say finally. My sibling nod in agreement. "I mean, I set off fireworks, Freddie painted the bathroom, grannie Bellatrix was in the paper, bullies, panic attacks, studying up on how to – nevermind."
Freddie and Cassie both look at me, "Studying how to what?" Cassie asks. I know that she's been watching me all day, her eyebrows now live in the middle of her forehead cause she's been raising them at me all fucking day.
"Doesn't matter. Not even sure it'll work." I grumble.
I can tell that Cassie wants to push me on it but Freddie looks at her and she drops the subject.
"Thanks for not killing Isaiah by the way." Cass says after a moment.
Freddie cracks his neck, "What makes you think that I'm not going to do it later hmm?" he says to her. "I've spoke to Dom and Lou, even James if you can believe it. I'm going to hand him by his underpants off the astronomy tower and make him beg for mercy. Then let him drop to the ground." He says it so casually, like its just a normal thing to do on a Wednesday afternoon or something.
"Count me in." I say to him. Freddie looks at me and smiles. I can see Cassie out of the corner of my eye and she looks distraught.
"Mum said no trouble till at least the second week." Cassie points out.
Freddie snorts, "Why do you think I'm waiting to kill him?"
The conversation dies. We sit in silence and listen to the rain which is getting softer, the rumble of thunder growing distant. Cassie calls it a night and sneaks back into the castle, leaving Freddie and I alone.
"I need the map." I say once the big door is closed and I know that Cassie can't hear me.
"The hell you need the map for?" Freddie says almost in the same beat as my sentence.
I shrug, "Can't really tell you that? It'll only be for like two hours maximum. I just need to sneak something out of the greenhouses."
"Ask Neville for it if you need it out of the greenhouses." Freddie says back. He's shrugged the blanket off of his shoulders and stands from his spot on the steps.
I scramble up and pull the blanket around me tighter, "If I ask Longbottom then he'll tell mum and dad next time they see each other. Please Fred, just two hours."
Freddie rolls his eyes in a very mum like fashion. "Uncle Harry gave me the map." He says it so matter of factly.
"Uncle Harry gave you the map because it was dad and uncle Fred that gave it to him. We share the same father – "
"I know we share the same father idiot."
"Then the map technically belongs to all of us? It's two hours dude. Just give it to me."
Fred looks out towards the lake that looks more like a black hole of nothing in the dark. "Find me tomorrow after last class. You can have it till the dinner bell rings." He says finally.
"Have I ever told you that you're my favourite brother?" I say smiling.
Fred groans, "Don't let Theo hear that, he'd cry for a hundred years."