The Empty Chamber (Harry Potter Next Generation Fanfiction)

Chapter Eight: Rose

Roxanne Weasley was too quiet. Rose had always known this; had always been able to ignore this. At family gatherings, what did Rose care if Roxanne hid in corners with her sketchbook and her muggle music? Rose had Al, and Hugo and James and Lily and Louis and more cousins than she could count on her fingers. But Al was a Slytherin. Rose didn't have Al anymore.

Rose wasn't very loud herself, but she'd never minded before. Ella was loud in the softest way possible. Cheerful conversation and obscure observations. "Rose, have you ever noticed that hippogriffs are in lyrics far more than they should be? Hardly anyone's ever seen a hippogriff, they're such uncommon creatures. Except in song lyrics. Why are they always in song lyrics?" Lydia was loud in the typical sense; she had a loud laugh and always made her sarcastic comments loud enough that everyone could hear her.

Al's actions were loud, even when his thoughts were jumbled or hushed.

But Rose was quiet. Quiet and comfortable, quiet and at peace, quiet and surrounded by friends. Without her friends to be loud for her, Rose might as well fade into the tapestries hanging in the Gryffindor common room. She was beginning to wish that was a possibility.

One week had passed at Hogwarts, and it had proved far worse than Rose could have imagined. Her parents loved Hogwarts. There wasn't a dinner time that passed when either her mum or her dad didn't reflect fondly over something that happened there. The time they attended a Death Day party, the time their nemesis was turned into a ferret, the time they fought a mountain troll. Rose expected great things at Hogwarts, to see something remarkable within her first few days, because Hogwarts was just as spirited as the students who attended it, and wouldn't be able to resist showing off its unpredictability.

Hogwarts wasn't that great, but Gryffindor was.

Gryffindor was the best house; Rose had always known this and believed it, too. Even as she guiltily wished she was in Slytherin, Gryffindor was a glorious sanctuary. Being with friends would be preferable, but there was no better place to feel abandoned. Living with Gryffindors was like living with a tornado - even with her eyes closed and her back turned away she could feel the whipping winds, and even locked in her dormitory, she could hear the persistent storm shaking her walls by means of invitation. Gryffindors had a bold energy that spread - James and Fred tossed fireworks back and forth in a "hot potato" reincarnate and jumped when the room exploded with color. Sixth years tested out new charms on each other and laughed as they went disastrously wrong. Occasionally Victoire Weasley would show up in the common room with her arms full of pastries she stole from the kitchens, and insist that everyone perform a dare to be allowed to take one. The Gryffindors swore an oath to never reveal why August Wood appeared in the hospital wing with antlers.

The spirit of the Gryffindors was what kept Rose going, but she couldn't quite contribute to it. Quiet Gryffindors were oddities, and the only Gryffindor quieter than Rose was Roxanne. It was inevitable that they would become friends.

Of course, they were "friends" in the vaguest sense of the word. They hid together in corners of the common room and didn't talk; not to themselves or to others. They sat besides each other in classes, but didn't help each other with homework. There was no need for introductions, because they were cousins. Cousins weren't best friends of choice, but Rose was grateful to have a default. She could tell Roxanne was too.

On Saturday morning, Rose and Roxanne made their way to the Great Hall together, taking turns checking the ceilings of the upcoming corridors for Mr. Brown. It was three days since the Dungbomb affair had passed, and Roxanne was still thoroughly humiliated. Of all of Roxanne's contradictions, the one that made the least sense to Rose was that the quietest girl in their year grew up in the loudest corner of the wizarding world - Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Fred embraced it; his suitcase was so full of products from home that he forgot to pack his robes, and had to wear James' until his parents sent him his own. Roxanne knew she would be tied to all mayhem caused by her father's work, and so she avoided it. She was positive every student she passed in the hall was glaring at her because of the Dungbomb incident in the Great Hall, but Rose couldn't take Roxanne's nerves seriously. Rose knew no one was glaring because a) everyone thought it was hilarious and b) everyone knew to blame Fred, not his flustered first year sister.