Rose Weasley and The Beast of the Black Lake, year 2

Alcor vs. Scorbus

Rose burst from her dormitory after depositing her school bag on her bed. She had been on a secret quest all day and had thought to have failed until sorting her books just two minutes ago. Jumping with triumph, she nearly knocked into Tyler Garner on the stairs. He shouted something probably snide or sarcastic as she continued into the common room, but she didn't hear what it was. Max was sitting on the couch shuffling cards and waiting for her. She jumped over the sofa to land next to him. The cards flew from his hands to scatter across the floor.

"Guess what!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"You're not going to help me pick up these cards?" he guessed, leaning down to retrieve them.

"I've just found a huge lead in Alcor's secret!" she bypassed his question.

"Alcor?"

"Albus + Scorpius," she explained. "Albus and Scorpius takes way too long to say."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to call them Scorbus?" Max asked.

"Uh, no. Scor and bus make actual words; it doesn't work like that," Rose replied.

"But Alcor is an actual name," Max said.

"Who has a name like Alcor?" Rose crossed her arms.

"Your version just sounds a little forced, you know, it doesn't roll off the tongue."

"And you're saying yours Scorbus does?"

"I think we're off topic," Max reasoned.

"You changed it... Anyway, I switched Al's and my transfiguration books!" she exclaimed, holding out Al's worn school book.

Max looked up at her disappointedly.

"I didn't mean to," she reasoned. "but I'm sure glad I did! Look!"

She pulled from the pages of A Slightly Less Beginners Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch a stack of concealed pages. She flipped through to find the one she had been considering in her dorm.

"What does this look like to you?" she asked happily, shoving a potions essay with a print traced over the pages under his nose.

She thought she saw something shift in Max's eyes for a moment, but it was gone when he looked back up at her.

"It looks like a duck print," he replied.

"But it's not!" she jumped up. "Why would Al have a tracing of a duck print over Scorpius' essay? I know it's Al's handwriting; he always drew lightly. But look, look, look!" She shuffled through the pages and pulled a small stack of notecards and thrust them into Max's hands causing him to drop the playing cards that he had been gathering.

He looked at the assortment in his hands then looked at her with pity.

"Don't give me that look!" she snapped. "It's something, I know it! See? These are all notes on transfiguration and potions and-"

"Rosie?" Max interrupted her, taking her by the hands like she was ill. "We are at school; there will be notes on our subjects."

Rose scowled. "Then how to do explain Sugamina?"

"What?"

"Sugamina," she repeated, taking the last note from Max's hands to jab at the words scribbled on the parchment. "It's all over their notes."

Max stared at the card for a moment then seemed to smile slightly. He handed the notes back to her.

"Want some advice?" he asked.