Mischief Not-Quite-Managed (Currently being revised and edited to the extreme)

Chapter Five ~ Rose

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Chapter Five ~ Rose

It was on Thursday at dinner when Rose opened the Daily Prophet she had snagged from Hedwig that morning that she almost felt her heart stop.  She hit Kat upside the head to get her attention, knowing that Stella would notice and start paying attention.

The ravenette yelped and clutched her head, glaring at Rose, "What was that for?!"

"Listen to this," said Rose impatiently, ignoring Kat's pain.  "There's an article in the Prophet - "

"Yeah, so?" interrupted an annoyed Kat.  "There's a lot of those, you know, considering it's a newspaper!"

"Shut up and listen so we can find out, stupid," snapped Stella from Kat's other side, hitting her upside the head once more, and the abused girl whimpered.

"What is this, 'Beat Up on Kat Day'?"

Rose sent her a warning glare before continuing, "It's about my - it's about James Potter and Sirius Black."

This got Kat's attention, as she sat up straight and immediately stopped grumbling threats under her breath.  Her stormy eyes went from annoyed to alert, and Rose continued, "They've been sighted - it was a Muggle woman who saw them, of course, she didn't really get it at first, since the Muggles think he's just an ordinary criminal....  In any case, she phoned the hot line, and by the time the Ministry arrived, they were already gone."

Stella frowned, and Kat and her both asked, "Where?"

Rose scanned the page before sighing.  "It doesn't give any specifics, but according to this it wasn't far from Hogwarts."

Kat paled considerably and Stella's eyes widened.  "Not far from Hogwarts?" whispered Kat hollowly.

Rose's brow was furrowed with worry for Harry - it was said that they were after him, after all, and it seemed like they were making their way to Hogwarts, which backed up that theory a lot.  She was feeling considerably conflicted - between her love for her family and reality.  Her love for her family kept telling her that the loving father and 'Uncle Padfoot' that she had known as a child would never do such horrible things, but reality seemed to be staring her down, trying to tell her differently.

The sound of angry footsteps coming towards her made her pull away from her thoughts and look up, thankful to see Harry but worried about what had upset him.  Frowning, she opened her mouth to ask him about it, but Kat beat her to it, inquiring lazily "What's got your wand in a knot?"

Rose rolled her eyes and sent her a glare, despite knowing that Kat really was concerned.  It was just the type of relationship that Kat and Harry had - they constantly teased each other, but they still loved each other like brother and sister.

Harry sat down across from Rose and glared at the table before sighing and dropping his angry expression, though he was still annoyed, he looked more confused then anything.  "Malfoy."

Anger flooded Rose, remembering the way he'd been teasing harry about passing out on the train when he faced the dementor.  "What'd he do now?" she growled.

"Nothing - not really, anyways, I just can't work out what something he said means, is all," Harry said frustratedly.

"Which was what?" inquired Stella, looking concerned.

"He said that if it were him, he'd go looking for my - for Potter and Black, to get his revenge or something like that.  What'd he mean, though?"

Rose's eyes widened, then narrowed.  She hadn't told Harry about Black and their father selling out their mother and him to Voldemort - or, at least, what everyone said they did.  She kept it from him because he didn't know them very much at all when he was younger, and she had wanted him to think of his father as a good person that had just made mistakes - large mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless.  She had also completely left out Sirius.