Here We Go Again

Chapter 3: Magic Dreams

POV: Rose

I was standing center stage. Lorcan Scamander stood beside me, smiling brightly at me. I stuffed my hands into the pocket of my robes, clenching them into fists just as I returned the smile. I liked the guy on most days, even after all these years, but I wanted to take him down.

"The results are in," Mum said from the podium, looking away from the camera flashes and our family all lined up at the front of the audience. Scorpius sat next to Dad, both reaching for the other's hand, grasping tightly as Mum continued with, "The next Minister of Magic is—"

"ROSE!"

My dream was torn away from me as my eyes abruptly opened, dissolving my desired future into nothingness. Emily peered down at me, shaking my shoulders before tugging on my arm, forcing me to sit up.

"Stop, stop," I whined, slapping her hold away from me. "I almost beat him! I almost won Minister of Magic over Lorcan!"

"Lorcan doesn't even want to be Minister of Magic," Emily said with a tone that suggested that was more than obvious, like that was something I should have known about the Ravenclaw Scamander twin. "He's going to be a Naturalist, just like Luna and his father was."

I groaned, throwing myself back down at the warm comfort my four-poster always provided me. I covered my eyes from the beautiful, harsh morning light with the weight of my left forearm. "I don't care, Em. I just want to go back to sleep and beat him for the title I so rightly deserve."

Emily was not about to let me, though. She grabbed my hand again, tugging, just as the door of our dormitory burst open. James came stumbling in, cursing as he struggled with the blonde girl in his arms. 

"Nia!" I scrambled out of bed, hurrying to help James as he carelessly dropped her on the nearest open bed.  "What happened?"

Nia's only response was a loud, painful moan.  I put the back of my hand to her sweaty, pale forehead. She let out another sob, like my action added to her miserable circumstance. 

"She's been sick since yesterday night," said Emily as James moved to her side. Both grimaced at Nia, one out of sympathy and the other out of disgust as he wiped his hands fervently on the material of his trousers. "I figured she was doing better since I woke up and saw her bed was empty. But I went to the girls lavatory on the first floor and found her clinging to the toilet. I think she's been vomiting for hours."

"And being the wonderful, amazing human being that she is, my girlfriend saved her life," James said, his arm now finding its way around Emily's shoulders. He pulled her in a little closer to him, pressing a tender kiss on her temple. It made Emily blush until he then pecked her lips.

Nia let out a louder groan as she kicked a leg in their direction. "Stop," she managed to say, "I'll throw up again." 

James scoffed at her, aiming a kick of his own. 

"How'd you even make it into the girls dormitories?" I asked my cousin, pushing him a few steps further from Nia. "McGonagall reinforced the wards after Dominique got pregnant last year."

Before the words, "Why, dear ol' Uncle George thought of everything to help us this year" left his mouth, the smirk on his face told me exactly that. There was only one person reckless enough to defy Minerva McGonagall for the mere sake of rule-breaking. 

"Didn't Aunt Ginny specifically tell you to stay out of trouble, James?"

"I am staying out of trouble," he retorted, his hand sticking out to gesture at Nia. "All I did was bring her here since she's dying out there. Merlin's balls, I do one nice thing for my ex girlfriend, and all of a sudden—"

"Oh, shut up," Nia heaved, clutching on to her stomach as she tried to force herself up. She paled further at the action. "I'm not your ex girlfriend. Stop telling people that."

"You're telling people you dated?" Emily asked, her brows furrowing with a frown.

"Technically, we did date."

"No, we didn't. You tagged along with me to Hogsmeade because you were sad Emily didn't return your feelings," Nia hissed back. 

James glared at our friend. I thought he would surely try to keep making a defense for himself, but instead he took a deep breath and brought out his smirk again. "Wonder why you're sick, Harper. It couldn't have been the elf-made food. Nothing they've cooked up has ever made anyone ill. Maybe you and Albie have been violating too many broomstick closets? Maybe you've got a little something in the oven."

From her ire I have seen Nia conjure strength powerful enough to produce astounding magic. In this case, that ire gave her enough energy to let out a scream and lunge at James. She grabbed a handful of his hair, pulling just as she kneed him in the ribs. 

They both fell in groans of pain and a tangle of flailing limbs.

I moved to help Nia up again just as Emily looked sadly at James, sighing as she stretched a hand out to him. He cursed, hugging himself, making his girlfriend kneel to help him up instead. 

"What's wrong with you?" I demanded from Nia. "You can't go attacking people like that when you're clearly dehydrated!"

"Oi!" James hissed. "She can't go around attacking me like that!"

"You deserved it," I huffed at him. 

I was helping my friend back to the four-poster when a tapping echoed off the glass window of our dormitory. I looked behind my shoulder to see a brown owl just outside; Emily got up from James' side, much to his displeasure, and went to it.

"Are you all right?" I murmured to Nia.

"Does it look like I'm okay?"

"Not the vomiting part," I said as I adjusted the pillows for her. "You've gotten really defensive about you and Al lately. Did something happen?"

Nia pressed her lips into a tight line. There was something in her blue eyes I often did not get glimpses of: vulnerability. 

While I knew she was not going to start telling me what has got her feeling so frightened and angry, Nia was saved from having to come up with an answer to my question when Emily appeared beside me. She handed me a scrap of parchment. My name was written in elegant cursive on it. It was attached to a lone, long red rose. 

"Malfoy is such a corny twat," Nia mumbled, scrunching her nose up as a smile pulled on my lips. Emily squeezed my shoulder, giggling as I did. 

"Agreed," said James instantly, leaping to his feet. "And unoriginal, I might add."

"Not to mention cheap," continued Nia. "Cut that from the greenhouses. I can tell. Blimey, he's worth how much, and he settles on  stealing from Neville?"

"All right, that's enough. You're ruining something nice for me," I scolded, untying the parchment from the stem. I opened it:

'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'

"What?"

"Yeah, what?" James echoed my question as he yanked the note from my fingers. He turned it over, examining every ridge. "This poem sucks."

"It does not," I frowned at him, extending my hand out for the note. "It's Shakespeare."

"It's Romeo and Juliet," Emily added, her dark brows knitting together again. "A tale of star-crossed lovers."

"Oh, Merlin," I sighed. "Are you saying...?"

"Maybe?" Emily took the note from James, narrowing her eyes at it like it was an Arithmancy problem that had been stumping her for hours. 

"Most definitely," Nia commented from the bed. "Makes sense."

"What does?" James demanded. "That Malfoy copies confusing, shitty poetry?"

I elbowed my cousin in the ribs alike Nia had. As he cried out, I said, "No, you idiot. It means Scorpius would not have sent me this. He doesn't even read Muggle authors—don't make any stupid Pureblood, Death Eater jokes or I will hit you a lot harder."

James glared, letting out a grimace as he stood straight. "Wait. Star-crossed lovers? Are we thinking Lysander Scamander? Blimey. What is with the Scamanders fancying girls already in relationships? First Harper and now you?"

"Em," Nia muttered from below, "please take Potter out of our dormitory before I die in the process of killing him."

"I'm just saying," James grunted, rolling his eyes, "that I heard Lysander saying how much he missed Rose. And from what I heard yesterday on the train, he and Alice Longbottom broke up just before summer holiday was over. Coincidence? I think not."

Emily raised a brow at her boyfriend. "Are you gossiping now?"

"Forget that right now," I told Emily as I turned to my cousin. "Are you telling me the truth?"

"As fun as it is to mess with you lot, I actually never lie to you. I'm telling you exactly what I overheard. Besides, why would Malfoy send you something and not sign it? He's the arrogant type, your boyfriend. He would've made sure you knew it was him." He reached for Emily's hand, leading her to the door. Before they crossed it, he added, "If you doubt me, check your flower for Nargles."

I threw the rose at him, but the door closed just in time. I could still hear his laughter bouncing off the walls outside.

X

The first day of every academic semester was my favorite time of year. There was nothing I loved more than the smell of new advanced textbooks and the sound of my professors' voices when lecturing upon new advanced topics (which often helped as a revision since Mum had long taught me these subjects). I was the first one in a classroom, sat at the very front, with my quill, inkpot, and parchment all neatly lined up, my heart beating away with excitement. 

That was how I found myself in my N.E.W.T level Ancient Runes class, bursting with joy as Professor Wells finally begun the term teaching symbols from Atlantis. 

Then Louis happened and ruined everything.

"You think you have it bad?" my cousin scoffed at me, his blue eyes glaring in my direction as I opened my textbook a little too harshly. "I have to actually pass the bloody class in order to graduate."

"I have to tutor you," I reminded him through clenched teeth, making sure to keep my voice in clear, but hushed tones as to not anger old Madame Pince. "Or have you forgotten this is all your fault?"

"My fault? I didn't ask for a tutor, yet Wells assigned you out of all fucking people—my younger, bossy, know-it-all cousin. Like it isn't bad enough you're in the same class as me."

I gripped the spine of my quill. "I didn't make you cheat on our first quiz. You had all summer to read the first two chapters of the book, but instead you blew things up with James and Freddie. If you're lazy and stupid, Louis, that is all on you. I have better things to do than to spend my entire term preparing you for your N.E.W.Ts."

The blue in Louis' eyes darkened into a navy shade, just as his pale cheeks turned red. He yanked his Ancient Runes textbook toward him, his sharp jaw squaring off as he opened to a random page. 

"Louis—"

"I wasn't blowing things up all summer," he hissed at me, his gaze firmly on the wrong page of the textbook I was going to correct him on. "I was with my girlfriend. In case it skipped your mind while you pranced around with Malfoy and kept your nose buried in different books, Coral's mother was murdered by some supremacist twats. While the only important thing to you is that 'O' on your coursework, mine was making sure Coral was eating and sleeping."

I had no intention in giving Louis an apology for what I had said, especially since it was his fault that we were both stuck at the library going over our Ancient Runes lesson when we both wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else (I specifically wanted to be going over my History of Magic essay). Still, I knew I was partially wrong for not taking into consideration how tough the summer holiday had been on him. I had heard he spent most of it taking care of the McLaggens. And while that was sweet of him, Louis knew better than to cheat. He knew better than to fight Professor Wells even after being caught. 

 "Look," I said with a strained sigh, "I just need you to focus for an hour every day. Do that, and I promise I will get you to graduate."

Louis said nothing, but he did look at the page of my textbook, turning to the right one on his own. While he, James, and Freddie shared a lot of personality traits, Louis was different when it came to his emotions. He was less open than the other two, and definitely (surprisingly) more conscientiousness of those emotions. He knew we were both wrong and right. 

While he read the chapter quietly to himself and I finished the outline of his future tutoring sessions, I looked up to find Nia exiting the Herbology aisle. I smiled seeing a lively pink on her cheeks, evidence that the Pepper Up potion I'd given her had helped her regain her strength back, but lost it when out from that same aisle came Lorcan Scamander. It was not just the bitterness of my recurring dream (him and I competing for Minister of Magic), but the slight annoyance I had against his friendship with Nia. While she claimed he had moved on, the twinkle in his eye when he looked at her was not lost on me. 

My assessing of them made them look in my direction. Upon spotting me, Nia nudged Lorcan forward, both now heading for me. I forced the smile back on my face.  

"How'd you find Herbology this term?" I asked.

"Turns out we don't have Advanced Herbology," Nia said with a scoff. "There was a typo in our timetables. Apparently they hired a Finnegan as the head of the Academic Office and she mucked up a lot. McGonagall promised she would sack the idiot."

Lorcan gently elbowed Nia. "She did not. You wanted a sacking. McGonagall told you it was a mistake that could happen to anyone."

"Oh. You were there, too, Lorcan?" 

He nodded at me. "My schedule was wrong, too. Now Nia and I both have N.E.W.T Ancient Runes with you."

Louis turned from his textbook, looking up at Nia and Lorcan to finally acknowledge them. "It's a partner class, you know, Harper?"

"Your point, Weasley?" Nia returned, her hands already coming to rest on her waist. 

"I'm just saying," a smirk appeared on Louis' lips, "it's a good thing Scamander is there for you."

"There for you where?" I cringed when Albus and Lucas came from around us. There was a box in Albus' hands decorated in pretty pink shades and tied with a lilac bow. "Heard you were sick. I went to look for you at Gryffindor Tower, but they said you weren't there. You look better, though. I didn't know Scamander cured illnesses." 

Nia's frown deepened while Lorcan shifted on his feet uncomfortably. "Um," he cleared his throat, "I'll just see you later."

"Lor—"

"It's fine. I have to find some Transfiguration book, anyway," Lorcan assured Nia, turning on his heels and walking away without so much as a look back. 

Louis chuckled to himself, returning to his book, while Lucas and I looked back and forth between Nia and Al's stare down. She was clearly more inclined to grow angrier, but he extended the box to her after composing himself.

"Sweets for my sweet," he said with a cheesy grin. 

I knew Nia like the back of my hand; she was going to smack that box out of his hand and smash it with her foot. Before she did, I cleared my throat loudly, forcing her to look at me. I shook my head at her, urging her silently not to do it. I was not entirely convinced I had enough power to sway her anger, so I was pleasantly surprised when she forced herself to return his smile.

"Thanks, Al," she said to him without reaching for the box. "How thoughtful of you. But after all the throwing up I did this morning, I think I should lay off the candy."

"Excellent!" Zabini exclaimed, yanking the box from Al to raise it up. He waved it energetically in the direction of the other tables. I leaned to peek around him and spotted Roxanne, Lily, and my brother Hugo at one of those tables. "Roxy, my love, I have something to sweeten up your day!"

Roxy's tan cheeks turned a lovely shade of red as other onlooking girls looked absolutely jealous of the loud gesture. 

"Settle down, twat," Louis said, now pulling the box to inspect. "This is for Rose. Says so on the tag."

Nia reached over to hit Al beside the head. "My chocolates are for someone else?"

"You didn't even want them!" Al said, stumbling back into a safe zone. In the distance, Roxanne cast a spell that sent a book hurling at Lucas. "They came into our D.A.D.A class! Professor Alan asked me to give them to Rose and to tell her his classroom is not an Owlery. And, no, before you ask, Scorpius didn't send them."

Horror filled me up, making me forget we were inside the library and the sacred rule of silence within its walls needed to be upheld. "Please," I practically shrieked, "Please tell me Professor Alan pulled you aside and gave them to you personally and not in front of Scor."

Al removed my grip from the front of his robes after I had leaped from my chair, shaking him desperately. "Sorry, Rose," he said, "but Alan is a downright dickhead. You seriously think he would not take advantage of an audience to berate Scorpius and then me? He told Scorpius to deliver his 'cheesy attempts of romance' to you personally."

I groaned, turning around to throw myself at Nia. She caught me, arms tight around me as I buried my face in her blonde hair. 

"Someone's sending Rose anonymous gifts," she explained to Lucas and my cousins. "I think Malfoy now knows."

"Figured," said Al, patting my back in solidarity, "because he stormed out of the classroom. I didn't want to add to whatever is happening, so I decided to re-gift them to you, Nia."

"Cheap," scoffed Lucas. "Kinda like these chocolates. Basic Honeydukes stuff."

I removed myself from Nia's comforting embrace to glower at my Slytherin friend. "I happen to like those. Are you calling me cheap?"

"Your tastes could be better," Nia laughed. "I mean, you are dating Malfoy."

"All I'm saying," Lucas continued before I could redirect my glare at the blonde beside me, "is that if this bloke—"

"Or girl," said Nia.

"—is trying to romance you, they could have spent more than a few sickles on a ordinary box of chocolates." Lucas then turned the box around, pulling out a letter tucked into the lilac bow. "And written something better than this love poem."

"Give me that, Zabini!" I hissed, jumping to tear it out o f his hold. "I can't believe you read it!"

"Can you blame us?" Al said with a loud scoff. "Some bloke—some person—is trying to steal our best mate's girlfriend. Of course we needed to investigate!"

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. And if I had to venture all the unknowns the universe has to offer, I rather do it with you. 

My love for you is the only thing I'm certain about. Please meet me by the oak tree near the Black Lake for a final gift.

"That's not much of a love poem," said Nia as she peeked over my shoulder. "Sounds like a Third Year wrote this."

I crumbled the parchment, throwing it over Lucas' head. Letting out a growl, I moved to my side of the table.

"Oi," Louis said, snatching my notebook from me before I could shove it into my schoolbag, "you're supposed to be tutoring me, remember? "

"I'm supposed to be murdering someone who's trying to ruin my relationship with Scorpius," I hissed at him. "Let go!"

"You don't even know who that is," Louis pointed out.

"It's obviously Lysander Scamander," Lucas said before I could. "Saw him stuffing his face with chocolate all throughout our Charms lesson."

Al glared. "Yeah, Scamanders have a thing about girls with boyfriends, don't they?"

Before Nia could demand what Al meant exactly by that, I marched out of the library intent on finding a certain blonde boy to kill. 

I was focused on exactly that when Alice Longbottom impeded my path. Although our parents were the best of friends (having had grown up together and experienced war together), we were not necessarily good friends ourselves. Admittedly, I respected her. Alice was extremely intelligent and sensible, but she was also a brute. Or hardheaded. According to Al, though, that was exactly the reason why Alice and I were not better friends – because I, too, was hardheaded. 

 I disagreed. 

Still, whether or not Alice and I were best friends or mortal enemies, I was curved by the look of absolute anguish on her pretty features. 

"Can you spare me a moment, Weasley?" she asked, blocking my path toward the exit of the castle. 

"Sure," I cleared my throat. "Something the matter?"

Alice took a shaky breath like she was trying to cast away her pride. "You know I like you, right? I would jump into a duel for you, but probably not choose you to be my lab partner or anything like that."

Naturally.

She continued: "'Sander broke up with me just a few days before returning to Hogwarts. I won't get into details, but we were happy. At least, I thought we were until he Owled to tell me it was over. I was devastated....still am. And I sort of have to accept that, don't I? You can't force someone to be with you if they don't want to, but...It's gotten back to me that he misses you. It's strange seeing as your date wasn't anything spectacular or romantic-–"

"It really was not," I interjected, shifting on my feet at her words and hurt. "I liked Sander-– Lysander, I think he's sweet, but we established we were just capable of being friends on that date. I swear."

"I'm not accusing you of anything," Alice said. "I'm just...trying to ask something of you."

"All right."

"If he so happens to declare his love for you, please...please, Weasley, let me know. I won't hold that against you. I just need to make sense of what happened. The question is driving me mad."

I exhaled, blinking away from her for a quick moment before looking upon her rosy, sad expression again. "I promise, Alice. And...I also promise if that's the case, then I'll obliterate him from existence."

The corner of Alice's mouth slightly lifted. "Thanks." Then, with a clearing of her throat, she raised her chin, narrowing brown eyes at me. "Now, you have ten minutes before curfew is called. Don't let me catch you outside your dormitory."

Instead of frowning, I smiled. I respected her own respect of our school's regulations as a prefect. With that, I hurried out past the doors, set on once again finding Lysander Scamander and giving him a piece of my mind (more so now that Alice Longbottom had made it personal).

In my hurried pace, I made out blonde hair slowly darkening into a charcoal shade by the dim, evening sky. I broke out into a sprint, anger bubbling in my chest at the mere thought that it was Lysander waiting for me under that tree, ready to profess his love for me once more. 

With the momentum of my run, I jumped on the figure's back, bringing him down. I tugged on that blonde hair, letting out a screech. 

"Are you an idiot?"

"Oi! Get off!"

I was flipped over in the next second, my brown eyes looking into very familiar silver ones. "Scor?"

"Obviously," he grunted, pushing my hands to my side, blade of grass stuck to his face from when I had pushed him into the ground head first. "Who else?"

"Lysander."

"Scamander?" He knitted his brows. "Why would Scamander be waiting for you?"

"Alice said he broke up with her. And James said he overhead him saying these things about me, and I've been getting these gifts, and Al said you were mad when one of them came to the D.A.D.A class, and–"

Scorpius let out a snort. "Emily told me you'd freak out about the anonymous gifts. I owe her five sickles now."

"What?"

"I sent you those gifts," he told me, flicking my forehead with his index finger, right where my frown was settling. "I thought it'd be romantic. Like that one film we saw over the summer. You'd said it be nice, so I did something nice."

"I said it'd be nice if I was being courted!"

"Who says courted?"

I flung my arms back up, attempting to hit him over the head for his mocking comment. "The point is, we're already together. Anonymous gifts are sort of terrifying at this stage. Example being that I came to blunder Lysander for trying to get in between us."

Scorpius laughed. "Then that would be like the film we saw." At my frown he said, "Admirable as that is, Rose, I don't think Scamander is into you. Anymore, that is. In fact, yeah, he said he missed you, but the other part of that statement was you being his studying partner because Saar Finnegan simply does not have focus. Unless it's to blow things up, then suddenly he's a genius."

I raised my own brow. "How'd you know all that?"

"I asked," he said with another laugh and flick to my forehead. "Some bloke throws my girlfriend's name around and you don't think I'd go check? But this school does love rumors, so naturally it got tangled along the way."

I sighed, letting my arms fall back to my side. "Why are you doing this, anyway?"

"Now you're asking the important question, Rose Weasley," Scorpius said with a large smile as he stood, extending his hand out to me to help me back up on my feet. As I dusted my robes from the damp grass below me, he added, "Today marks five years of me knowing you."

"Does that mean Al got romantic poems and gifts, too? You did meet us the same day and you and I both know how much you love him."

He narrowed silver eyes at me. "Anyway," he said, making me laugh, "while I was too young to know what it actually meant then, I sort of knew you'd be someone very special to me. That feeling scared me. Combined with our families history, I was unable to function around you because of it. It terrified me all those years ago, just as it did just six months ago, but I'm glad I overcame it long enough to tell you that I loved you and only you."

I couldn't resist the grin that broke across my face. Why would I want to, anyway? Scorpius was the source of my happiness. To see what I felt reflected back at me...well, there weren't any words to describe it.

"I got you something," he said, reaching into his pocket. When he opened his palm, a silver ring with a diamond rose glittered back at me from the growing moonlight above us. "Don't be scared," he said when my jaw dropped. "It isn't what you think it is. Not yet, at least. It's a promise ring. To symbolize that one day, if you want to, we will spend forever together."

With tears in my eyes, I stretched my hand out to him. He took it, gently sliding the ring on.

"Only after I'm Minister of Magic," I told him.

"You'll crush Lorcan Scamander," he said with a grin, tugging me toward him. "And I'll be cheering you on from the first row."

It really was out of a film the way we kissed beneath the stars and our favorite tree.