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

Amortentia Attempt

A blinding ray of sunlight woke Rose the following morning. She blinked the light from her eyes and squinted at her hands which her folded in front of her face. Flashes of the previous night flickered into memory. Rose rolled over and stretched with a yawn. She moved to kick the blankets off as she did most mornings but found that something was under her feet. She sat up to see Max asleep at the bottom of the sofa, her feet propped on his legs. He had a book open against his chest and looked incredibly peaceful.

"Max?" Rose whispered, finding it odd now how deserted the common room was considering the time of day. "Max?" She shuffled her feet to wake him.

"What? Oh," he mumbled, opening his eyes and scratching his hair which was lopsided from where he had fallen asleep.

"Why are you down here?" she asked sweetly. "Where is everyone?"

"Third years and above are at Hogsmeade," he yawned. "Then everyone else is outside; it's surprisingly warm."

"Why aren't you outside?" she asked.

"I was curious," he replied. "Curious to see if you were right."

"Right about what?" she asked, curling her legs into crosses.

Max reached out and touched her face. "We were right," he said. "They're gone."

Rose felt her face quickly. Her bruises and cuts from Danielle and Mary hurt no longer and most felt nonexistent under her fingers. Rose grinned and punched him in the arm excitedly. "I told you! Oh, Max, you are the most incredible person I know!"

"I've done nothing intentionally," he said, blushing slightly as he always did when people would compliment him.

"Where's Daniels and Pye?" Rose asked with a sour taste in her mouth.

"They're outside as well," Max replied. "They got detention for a month though. Dalbert spoke to them this morning. Luckily, you had enough witnesses to vouge for you."

Rose nodded thoughtfully.

"Rose," Max tilted his head to see her face. "Why did you get in that fight?"

Rose crossed her arms and scowled. "Danielle is a psychopath, and I told her that. She got angry and hit me. Mary joined in, and that's it," she finished shortly.

Max squinted slightly and nodded slowly. "That's it, huh?"

"Yes," she lied.

Max smiled to himself and half laughed. "Okay, well, how about a game of checkers?"

"Why?" Rose asked. "If it's a nice day then why don't we go out?"

"Because you only got four hours of sleep last night and you need to relax," Max replied, standing to choose a game from the shelve.

"How do you know?"

"Because by the time I came down, you weren't yet snoring," he said, returning with spells and battles instead.

"I don't snore!" Rose called.

Max stopped when opening the box to raise an eyebrow at her then he smiled and shook his head to himself.

'knock, knock, knock.'

Rose jumped to hear a faint pounding coming from the fireplace and for a wild moment, thought that someone was about to emerge by floo. She stood from the sofa and lent to the fire.

"Oi! Max, are you there?" Rose jumped again and noticed that the voices were coming muffled from inside the walls.

Oh no. She thought and pulled away the tapestry of the great roaring lion to stare at the blank stone wall behind.