"Don't fuss, Albus" Tanya said weakly, her face barely visible from under the swathes of bandages. "I'll be fine. You heard what… she said."

"I can't help it, Tanya. I know what Madam Pomfrey said, but I've never seen anything like it. It was awful. You were lying in a great patch of blood."

"Look, I'm not staying here any longer. Madam Pomfey gave me some blood replenishing potion, and that's all that was needed. I was only knocked out. It's not like I was in a coma!"

"I'm not so sure. I mean, how long were you there for? The blood was dry by the time I got there, and that wasn't long –at all- after they found you. Maybe there was trauma! Perhaps you should stay for a bit longer."

Tanya seemed to have no answer to that, a fact for which Rose was extremely grateful. She'd been allowed to stay out of class for the morning; the only reason she was still in the stupid hospital wing. Tanya was clearly fine (if quite red- Rose supposed that the bandages must be sweltering) so what was the point of hanging around and getting agitated? Then again, when the alternative was History of Magic… it was a close contest. So close, in fact, that Scorpius had chosen the lessons. Although he's a bit of a freak about History of Magic, Rose thought wryly. Scorpius actually seemed to enjoy the subject, and had a vast knowledge about wizarding bloodlines. An advantage of being a pedigree pureblood, perhaps.

It was two days after Tanya had been found. She hadn't been allowed out of bed until now –under observation, Madam Pomfrey had called it. Albus had barely left her side, which Rose found pathetic, but Scorpius had said was romantic. It showed what he knew. Alright, it had looked quite scary when they had seen Tanya. Her usually bright blonde hair was crimson, and sticky with blood, and about a foot of the floor was covered in the stuff. Not pretty. But still, not call for a full-scale panic.

Actually, Rose was impressed with how Tanya was dealing with it. Instead of whining (as Rose would have expected), the girl was pretty cheerful. Of course, that had the unfortunate side effect of Tanya NEVER shutting up. And this in turn had the effect of making Rose even more grouchy than usual. Which, even she had to admit, was no mean feat.

Madam Pomfrey came bustling out of her office, interrupting Rose's musings. After carefully checking Tanya's temperature, she slowly unwound the bandages, revealing a large purple bruise on the poor girl's head that looked twice the size of a chickens egg and protruded from her head. The nurse tutted and shook her head, but whipped out her wand and then performed a spell that seemed to make the lump deflate. The nasty colour remained, but as Madam Pomfrey said, "It'll die down in a trice, and there's no need to waste valuable potion ingredients on something harmless and temporary." Tanya looked ok about that –she wasn't terribly vain- and Rose hung around for a few minutes to make sure that she could get out of bed, and wouldn't need Rose's assistance. Albus had a steady hold of the girl's arm, so Rose said her goodbyes and slowly walked off to History of Magic.

It was quiet on the corridors, since everyone was in class, and Rose enjoyed letting the voices from behind doorways wash over her. There was no need to rush, since nobody was expecting her in class, and in any case, she had a note.

Rose knocked on the classroom door, and handed the note to Professor Binns silently. He blinked at her owlishly, no doubt trying to work out who she was, and then waved her into the classroom vaguely.

"Sit down, Miss… Wetherby," he wheezed. Rolling her eyes, she complied, and nodded at Scorpius.

"Is she out?" he whispered, as soon as the teacher had continued droning.

"Was just leaving, last I saw" replied Rose quietly as she unpacked her quills and parchment, and the textbook. "Did I miss anything interesting?"

"You really did!" said Scorpius, eyes shining. "We were debating the role of hags in the wizarding uprising of 1758."

Rose stifled a yawn.

"Sounds unmissable, Scorp, it really does. But I think I'm going to have a nap just the same."

Scorpius grinned slightly, far too used to her teasing to be offended.

"You can if you want, but we only have" –he checked his watch- "five minutes until herbology, so I wouldn't bother."

He was probably right, Rose reflected. But that didn't make the lesson any more interesting, so she quickly put all her things back into her bag. There was no real need to be particularly quiet about it; Binns was about as deaf as it was possible for a ghost to be, and anyway, 'Miss Wetherby' had been given a lot of detentions in this class. Rose hadn't served any of them.

Not a moment too soon for Rose –five minutes in the class and she was already about to drop off- the bell rang, and the children shuffled out of the room, all with dazed expressions, except for Scorpius. He bounded out by Rose's side, as if he had too much pent up energy to simply walk.

"And it was really good Rose! I had no idea that hags were so important! I've met a few, but they just smelt bad. I don't think they'd know what to do in an uprising if someone gave them instructions!"

"That's great, Scorpius" said Rose distractedly. "Hey, is that Albus? HEY! ALBUS!"

The last part was directed at the shaggy black haired boy walking down the staircase opposite Rose. Clinging to his arm, and looking thoroughly bored was a pale Tanya. She nodded at the two of them, as Albus headed towards them, battling through the crush of students.

"Hey Rose, Scorpius" Albus said casually, glancing at Tanya to make sure she was keeping up. "Off to herbology?"

"Course," said Scorpius. "Hey Tanya. How are you? I'm sorry I didn't stick around the hospital wing, but I really couldn't miss History of Magic."

Tanya gave him a really dirty look, and stuck her nose in the air.

"Well if you think that a lesson is more important than me, then who am I to judge?"

Scorpius looked guiltily at the floor, but remained silent, and Rose knew that he was sensitive enough to feel bad about leaving Tanya, despite the fact that she was in capable hands. It was just another reason to dislike Tanya- she was good at making people feel bad.

"Tanya! You're out o' hospital!"

The four students turned around to see Hagrid ploughing through the crowd to get to them.

"I'm glad to see yer up an' about again, Tanya. Feelin' alright?"

"Yes Sir," Tanya replied, staring up at him uncomfortably. Albus gave a small chuckle.

"Sir? Hagrid's not a sir. Are you Hagrid?"

"Weren't a Sir for the firs' sixty three years o' my life, an' I'm not now. Not for you, anyhow."

Tanya laughed, blushing slightly.

"Right. Sorry, H-Hagrid."

"Ah, it's alright. Bet you're feelin' a bit rough after spendin' all that time in the hospital wing."

"Yeah, that's right." There was a brief silence. "Well... we have to go. We've got... Herbology, I think?"

"Yeah. Come on then. See you Hagrid!"

"Bye. Take care, you lot!"

"We will," they chorused, before hurrying to the greenhouses.

"Are you ok?" Albus asked Tanya, a little concernedly. "You were acting odd with Hagrid back there. You don't mind him, do you?"

"No! Well... yeah. A bit. He's so tall. And a half giant! You can't tell me that's safe. I'm sure he's a really... nice... person, but you can never quite tell, can you?"

She was brought to a halt as Albus stopped moving, jerking her arm in his surprise. It was, of course, Rose that broke the stunned silence.

"Oh well of course you think that. You know, I'm really glad we've got this sorted out. Just as I was starting to not hate your guts, you say some stupid thing like that, and I realise that, no, my first impression of you was totally right. A brainless bimbo, who doesn't understand that children don't always turn out like their parents." Rose gave Tanya a meaningful look, and gestured at Albus.

Tanya didn't look particularly offended, although she did whip around towards Albus, and say loudly
"Are you just going to let her talk me to me like that?"

"Well, the thing is Tanya, yeah I am." replied Albus sadly. "Hagrid is a good person. He helped my dad all through Hogwarts, and I don't see that you have any right to judge him because of his mum."

Tanya looked quickly at Scorpius, who shook his head.

"I'm not getting involved. I don't know him myself, but he seems nice enough."

"I'm sorry!" pouted Tanya, suddenly contrite. "I didn't mean to upset you." She tugged her arm from Albus' grasp, and wrapped it sinuously around his waist. "Forgive me?" she said, a pathetic quiver in her voice. Behind her back, Rose stuck her finger down her throat, making Scorpius chuckle slightly. Even Albus looked annoyed, not that surprised by her sudden change, but definitely unimpressed. He struggled to detach himself from her, glaring slightly.

"Tanya, are you ok? Are you sure you're not still ill? Feeling headachey, or forgetful?"

"Don't be silly! I'm fine" She replied, with a brittle smile.

"They why on earth would you think that I'd just ignore what you said about someone who I've known my entire life? Look, just go away. I don't even want to talk to you right now."

A look of intense frustration and anger filled Tanya's face, but she looked around, and, noticing that the last stragglers were watching with interest, schooled her expression. Nose stuck in the air, she flounced off, leaving Albus, Scorpius and Rose standing in dismay.

"See, Albus" said Rose quietly as Tanya disappeared down a flight of stairs. "She's not some delicate flower. The stupid cow can take care of herself."

Scorpius slapped Albus across the back gently, as the trio began following Tanya to herbology.

"Better luck next time. Besides, she might change her mind and mature a bit," he said sympathetically.

"Oh don't be so pathetic both of you! You're acting like you were going to get married to her, Al! You're eleven; act your age. Besides, I never liked her. You should have listened to me."

Scorpius winced, screwing up his eyes at Rose's lack of tact. You could always trust Rose to speak her mind, but she was always so... brutal. It didn't surprise him when Albus stiffened, and sped up, leaving him to walk with Rose.

"You don't think you could have been a little bit more kind?" he asked hesitantly, not wanting to get his head bitten off.

"Look, I've been saying this since he first met her- the girl is a complete idiot! If he'd only paid attention to me then, he'd be a lot happier now. Not my fault."

"But-"

"Not. My. Fault." she growled. "Now come on, we're like five minutes late for herbology already, and I don't fancy being stuck with another detention.

They were lucky. Although they arrived ten minutes after the bell had rung, Professor Longbottom merely gave them a long-suffering look. He didn't even take any points, which Rose thought was rather nice of him. She joined Albus, Scorpius following behind her. Looking around, Rose realised that Albus had taken the trestle table furthest from Tanya, who was forced to pair up with a few Slytherins who didn't look happy. Nor did she, really though. She looked about ready to attack them, her jaw clenched and she seemed to be speaking very little. Rose smiled in satisfaction, and turned back to her own table.

Albus was carefully avoiding looking up, totally focused on the small shrubs that they were examining. Rose rolled her eyes, but knew that Albus didn't like direct confrontations. She considered it one of his main character flaws; how was he supposed to get ahead in life if he was too timid to do anything about his problems? But she knew he wouldn't change. And so she kept (mercifully) silent on the subject.

The lesson passed relatively pleasantly, with the three of them cracking jokes and laughing loudly. Only in the brief moments of silence did the strain become apparent, but those moments were few and far between. However, their classmates seemed to notice the tension, and soon a few of the more gossipy students were sidling up to Tanya and asking her what had happened. To Rose's surprise, Tanya didn't seem to be giving anything away- in any case, the gossips all returned to their places with faintly disappointed expressions, but Rose was sure that it wouldn't last. Tanya liked attention.

The bell soon rang for lunch, and Albus was so hungry that he decided that it would be a waste of time showering first. Besides, it wasn't an extremely practical lesson, and the dragon dung hadn't been touched (thank god). And so he headed immediately to the great hall, Rose and Scorpius both deciding to follow his lead. There were in the minority, which was quite pleasant; after the little display in the corridor and herbology, there were sure to be some curious classmates. But they managed to escape the worst of it, and by the time most of their fellow students had arrived, hair still damp from the disgusting school showers, Rose was on her second helping of lasagne. It was, as usual, truly delicious, and in between bites, she considered going down to the kitchens to thank the house elves. Her mother had suggested she do this at least once a month –as she put it "They might refuse high wages, but they still like to be appreciated". Rose had agreed, and soon discovered the hidden benefit – house elves weren't above sending their best food to the house that was kindest. It wasn't… favouritism exactly. More that they wanted to impress the people who showed an interest.

Rose's musing were interrupted by the arrival of Susan Carter, who immediately sat next to Rose, draping an arm around her shoulder.

"Hey Rose!" she said chummily, a far cry from her usual disdain. "How are you?"

"I'm alright thanks, Susan…" Rose replied cautiously, suspecting why the girl was there.

"Are you sure? In Herbology, you seemed a bit… unhappy."

Now that was a downright lie. Rose had deliberately been as cheerful as possible, to try and avoid any gossip.

"No, Susan" she cooed in a sweet voice. "I'm afraid you must be mistaken. Your imagination playing tricks on you, most likely."

Susan looked frustrated, a slight frown creasing her brow, but she continued, unwilling to give up.

"Not had a fight with Tanya then?"

Rose was fast becoming irritated by the interrogation, and wondered why Susan Carter had decided to approach her, rather than Tanya. She cultivated a reputation for inapproachability, preferring the company of a few rather than many. Tanya, on the other hand, was far more open, and much more prone to chat.

"Well don't you ask her?" she asked, her voice tinged with impatience.

"We did, but she didn't answer. Acted really oddly. Barely said a word throughout Herbology." Susan gave an offended sniff, and rose from her seat. "Well if you're sure you're not upset, I suppose I'll be on my way." Picking up her bag, she began to walk off before pausing, and saying; "remember, you can always talk to me. I won't tell anyone."

The day I confide in her is the day mum owns a house elf! Rose thought snidely. Slippery little serpent, she is. She scowled at Susan's retreating back, and turned to Albus who had watched the scene with amusement.

"Thanks for your help, cousin dearest," she said sarcastically.

"Well, you seemed like you could handle it. Besides, who am I to come between you and your new friend?"

Rose snarled at her cousin, giving a rude hand gesture, but Albus merely laughed, and started chatting with Scorpius who had remained silent throughout the encounter. Grouchy and silent, she was the only person to see Tanya walk through the doors, alone and with her eyes trained on Albus. At this point, Rose would usually feel the first pangs of pity, but the expression on the girl's face -outright loathing- left Rose feeling cold, despite her warm surroundings. However, the girl seemed to master her expression, and seconds later, there was only a faint smile on the girl's face. The change was so sudden that Rose half wondered if she had imagined it, but she looked away quickly all the same. From the corner of her eye, she saw Tanya sipping her drink as she took her seat at the Gryffindor table; as far away from Slytherin as possible, and with her back to Rose.

Rose shivered. Sometimes, what with the girl's prattle, it was easy to underestimate Tanya. She'd have to remember not to.