6.1 easier to find if you’re a little lost
"Tams, would you mind moving just a little bit?" Scorpius, growing a bit exasperated, turned to the Slytherin girl, who was practically in his lap, and severely impeding his intention to eat breakfast. He was mostly lost in thought, ruminating over the Quidditch loss so he didn’t see Tamsin gaping at him as if she was surprised that he wasn’t somehow flattered by her attempts to distract him. He glanced up and elaborated in a carefully polite voice, "I'd quite like my leg back, it is a bit numb, and really I'm much too tired to do anything-" he paused as he mentally decided what to start with "-apart from eat."

There were a few quiet snickers at the shutdown, but Scorpius barely noticed. The sixth year was torn between blaming himself and internally raging about his teammates. He certainly wasn’t interested in snogging Tamsin Urquhart right then. He didn’t want a consolation prize; he wanted to win Quidditch games. It’d be easier to blame the other Slytherin players or perhaps mentally justify the loss by accusing that blasted James Potter and the other Gryffindor players of cheating somehow, but realistically he knew that was futile. They’d played better. It was simple, and really as captain Scorpius was just as responsible for any of his team member’s weaknesses as they were as individuals. He was certainly the one who would be taking the fall so to speak. Slytherin’s student leaders had regular meetings and his peers would hold him accountable.

The draw meant that it’d be a few weekends before they were due to play again, plenty of time to really work on what wasn’t working. He felt so on edge, like he was going to implode or something, but he was so tired that he was sure he didn’t have the energy for it. The strange part about it all was that he was sure there was a moment there, during the game, where he’d just flaked out, his thoughts had wandered elsewhere. He had suddenly been thinking of a different game, a different time, and while getting lost in a memory wasn’t a bad thing exactly, there was a time and a place for daydreaming. He had to brush it off; he wouldn’t let it happen again. His tension was obvious to the more observant of his housemates, obviously Tamsin wasn’t one of those people and she pointedly moved a few seats away, in a snit with him.

Scorpius found a trace of resolve and proceeded to eat, trying to ignore everyone or risk having a fit. On the surface he appeared calm and collected, even distant. Apollo was watching him closely but hadn't yet said a thing. During the match it had been as if he was transported back to his very first Quidditch game, in second year. He felt the same rush of excitement and nerves, and for a second or two he could have sworn that Ryuu Haneda, his former Quidditch Captain was there and shouting orders. But the only Haneda there had been Takeshi of course. Despite spacing out for a few minutes, Scorp had managed a couple of goals, but he'd had to work hard for them, scoring only twice off four attempts. Unusual for him. Pucey had managed three and Hightower four. The game hadn't been lost due to lack of scoring ability, it was simply because James Potter had caught the snitch before Slytherin's Coraline Shettigar could even blink. She was subdued at the end of the table, the third year clearly taking the defeat hard, blaming herself. She sported more than a few bruises since Potter wasn't one to go easy on a fellow seeker just because they were younger and smaller and had nudged her out of the way a few times. It was hard having a brand new seeker but he had faith in his ability to put a team together. If she wasn't good enough it meant he shouldn't have picked her. His responsibility. She was good enough though. Scorp vowed to work with her. Help her find that confidence.

There was silence at the Slytherin table. Coming down from the high of the previous term’s Quidditch cup win wasn’t an experience that any Slytherin relished, and in the case of the snakes, false commiseration was unwelcome. The entire team, those who had played and those who had been on the bench, were varying degrees of sullen and snappish. Hearing the cheerful and boisterous voices of the Gryffindors didn’t much help matters. Scorpius knew he should say something, but he couldn't bring himself to search for the words yet. In fact, he actually quite liked the idea of being alone with his thoughts. Being as his morning was free, Scorpius buttered some toast and added honey, then took his breakfast with him as he left the great hall. The library would probably be pretty quiet, it was still early.

It didn't take long for Scorpius to get there, and he headed right to a certain dusty section where there just so happened to be a journal hidden away. He needed something mindless to distract him from everything, preferably something mindless that didn't talk back, which was why an inanimate object was a good choice. He hooked the journal out of its hiding place and rather than sit there amongst the dusty magical language books, he tucked it under his arm and found a comfortable chair right under the stained glass windows, choosing an out-of-the-way corner so that he would be relatively unexposed and hopefully left alone. He sat down and opened the book, choosing to pick up where he had left off. It was boring, sure, but that was exactly what he needed right at that moment.

1 September 2017

Dinner:
Too much to list!!!

I don’t think I ever really believed Dad’s stories about the food at Hogwarts, but truly, I’ve never seen so much food in my entire life. Not even at family Christmas, when the house is so stuffed with people that we have to set up tents in the backyard, and Gram spends days working on that Christmas dinner.

Huh. Scorpius couldn't imagine living in a house so small that people would need to stay in tents outside. He also couldn't imagine ever having enough family visit that would make it an issue.

The best part about the feast, though, is that it comes after the Sorting. I felt so ill when we got off the train, and J was just making it worse by telling horrible LIES about what we were going to have to go through. Even thought I knew exactly what was going to happen, I was still nervous. Dad was kidding when he said I had to get into Gryffindor, but that’s still the house I wanted.

Ravenclaw wouldn’t be bad, I suppose. Hufflepuffs seem terribly friendly and gave all their new housemates a standing ovation as they were sorted, but I think I’d find it dreadful. Dad says you can’t trust people who smile that much, not to mention they have to wear so much yellow! Forget what they say about redheads and pink - yellow makes me look like I’m suffering jaundice.

In spite of Dad, I think Slytherin wouldn’t be half bad. I'm pretty sure that's where A expected to end up, and I really only wanted to be with him in the end. Besides, no one in our family has been a Slytherin for ages, so there wouldn’t be any comparing. Downside, of course, is they probably get trained at birth to hate us. Little flash cards of who to glare at over dinner every night, which is silly since I only just met the lot and they shouldn’t have reason not to like me yet.

I met one on the train, only briefly, called Nera Zabini. I actually had the thought that she seemed just the sort of girl that might be an interesting friend, but then her sister saw J and said, “Oh, that’s a WEASLEY” like it was a disease or something. And they hurried away as if being ginger and freckled was catching. Rude.

Scorpius had his eyes narrowed at the hypocrisy of the idea that Slytherins were the judgmental ones. It was just part of their nature not to immediately trust people who were too reckless, too friendly, or too smart for their own good. And from what he knew from talking to his parents and grandparents, all of whom had been Slytherin, things were different now. He couldn't say better exactly, but for sure it seemed to Scorpius that being Slytherin or from a Slytherin family automatically lost you brownie points in the eyes of anyone who considered themselves or their family to be on the winning side in the last war, regardless of whether or not the Slytherin individual had anything to do with any of it personally. He was thinking about this so busily that at first he did not pick up on the mention of red hair, which would have begun to narrow the field about who owned the journal since there weren't a great number of them. Scorpius kept reading and let out an exclamation both at mention of Nera and the revelation that this particular journal belonged to a Weasley. He sat bolt upright and stared at the page in horror, blinking not at the words but at the general thought that he'd been reading... well his year, it had to be Rose Weasley's diary. He flipped back and skimmed the parts he'd read already. So A was Albus Potter, J was James Potter, H had to be Hugo Weasley and was L the little one? Lily Potter? Merlin.

He let out a breath and slouched back in the chair again, not entirely sure if he wanted insight into Rose Weasley's mind, despite the fact that he hadn't quite figured out what in Salazar's name had actually driven her sit with him in potions class back before try outs. He'd decided to be done worrying about that but now he found that he'd been reading her bloody diary! He told himself that the only reason that he was going to keep reading -just to the end of the entry mind you- was because it had mentioned Nera and he owed it to his cousin to make sure that Weasley didn't say anything she shouldn't about his cousin. A deep breath and he eyed the page again.

I did meet a nice girl called Jayne while we were still on the train. At first, I thought she was the dullest person I ever met, and I hoped she’d be a Hufflepuff and have to wear yellow forever. She complained for a full ten minutes about how unfair it was that first years couldn’t have a broom at Hogwarts and then she fell asleep on A’s robes, so he couldn’t get changed right away!

But then she got sorted to Gryffindor with A and me, and she told the FUNNIEST story about the time she went to a Quidditch match and the Snitch got caught up under the bleachers. The winning Seeker thought to use his broom as a lever to pry up the seating, and just as the Snitch escaped so he could catch it, his broom splintered. She even had F and J laughing, and J said she was a pip.

Anyway, the Sorting: A went ahead of me, of course, and when he made it into Gryffindor, I knew I had to make it, too. So when it was my turn to wear the hat, I just told it that I was sorry to hurt its feelings and all, but I just HAD to be a Gryffindor. It said this weird thing, though. “You’ll be easier to find if you’re a little lost.”

But I said no, no, I have to be with A because he needs me. And the Hat went quiet for a while, and I was worried I’d be a hatstall like Scorpius Malfoy had been, but then it finally said, ‘Yes, alright, if you’re sure.’ And I was a Gryffindor. And everyone clapped, and the Gryffindors cheered, and so did Vic and Dom and Molly and Louis at the Ravenclaw table.

And then we had dinner, which was marvelous.

“You’ll be easier to find if you’re a little lost.” Scorp murmured out loud, not sure why the sentence struck a chord with him, then he scowled at mention of his own name and the subsequent flash of memory it evoked about his own sorting. Being a hatstall wasn't exactly something that he was proud of. It still made him nervous, not knowing what that meant about him, about the bits of his personality that drove that blasted hat to indecision for long enough that he'd gone numb from sitting on the stool.

After dinner, they took us to the common rooms for the first time. I don’t think there is a more beautiful room in the castle, and it’s special to just us because only Gryffindors are allowed in here. J and F said that firsties have to stay up all night the first night to prove we belong in the house. I knew they were lying, but it was so nice to curl up on the squashy sofas and look at the fire and talk about what we expected school to be like. When the prefect woke us up later and sent us all to bed, the fire was burned almost all the way down.

It must be very late right now, but I needed to write it all down to remember. Tomorrow is our first day of classes, and I expect I’ll be too busy to write again soon.

Scorpius skimmed through the rest and then snapped the journal shut, refusing to read any other entries. He stood and marched back to the deepest part of the library and returned it to its hidey hole under the shelf, resolving to forget about it entirely. Fancy Rose Weasley keeping a bloody diary. And a pointless and boring one too. He'd have guessed, had he ever had cause to wonder before, that any diary kept by her ought to be far more interesting than this. But no, she even wrote down what she ate for Merlin's sake! The most interesting parts had been mention of Nera and of himself! Well he was done with the journal.

He left the library and headed down to the dungeons. As he walked his mind wandered and all unbidden, he found memories of his own sorting fighting to be remembered. He supposed it was better than dwelling on the Quidditch defeat, but Scorp didn't much like recalling it. He could remember it like it was yesterday...