The Forgotten Zodiac

Ewan shook Albus' hand quickly, nodding at him and deciding to ignore Scorpius and Lonnie until they decided to introduce themselves.  Socially, it was much easier than asking for their names and risking being refused or insulted in some way.  "My pleasure. Our next class is broomstick riding, right? I haven't gotten my schedule yet; they were short last night. I only managed to figure it out because I heard some other people talking as I passed them."
Scorpius' jaw clenched when Lonnie touched his food, but he chose to ignore her entirely and work on the remainder of his food. It wouldn't due to in anyway feed into her behavior. "I'm Scorpius Malfoy. It's nice to meet you, Ewan."

"Lonnie Acres," the girl introduced just after Scorpius. "Second year Ravenclaw. And I do believe broom riding is on your agenda - all first years have to take it for at least a week or two," she said with an airy shrug.

"She's right," Albus said, nodding furiously at Ewan. "Peter Parkinson said it was broom riding first today. Don't know with who, though," he said. Some part of him wished that it would be with the Gryffindors, but he didn't dare say that out loud. Even if most of his family was in that house, and that included Rose, who he wanted to talk to, he was a Slytherin. He still had some getting used to to do.

"Gryffindor," Scorpius supplied. Unlike Ewan, he'd managed to grab an agenda, and, unlike Albus, he had actually read it. "We're stuck with Gryffindor after we finish breakfast." He paused, watching Albus' face with interest and realizing that this would probably be an awkward group for Al. "Your cousin will be in that class, won't she?" He frowned as he tried to remember the Weasleys name, then got it. "Rose, right?"
Ewan nodded at Lonnie and Scorpius, grimacing slightly. "Great, brooms. I've only been on one once, and I broke both arms. Then again, my cousins always have had a weird sense of humor."

"Yes, Rose," Albus confimed with a nod. "We have to use the school brooms, don't we?" he asked, pondering this for a moment. "Because the school list said that first years couldn't bring brooms. I guess they have some for us to use."

"That's right," Lonnie chimed in. "Some of them are pretty rough, try to get a newer looking one. Although I don't think any of them have been replaced in the last century," she said, her somewhat-dry tone indicating that this was supposed to be a joke. When no one laughed, really, she took great interest in her fingernails, before reaching over to try and snag another slice of ham from the boys.

Unfortunately, Albus had siblings, and Lonnie wound up with a fork in the back of her hand. Albus drew back quickly with a muttered, "Sorry, reflex," and then a slightly louder "Eat your own food why would you do that?" before turning to Ewan, a new question brought up by the boy's comments.

"What does riding a broom and breaking your arms have to do with your cousins?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.

"Oh, well, uh." Ewan laughed awkwardly and focused on his plate, managing at least three mouthfuls of egg before he answered. "Like I said, they have a nasty sense of humor, and I was five, you know, so gullible enough to try pretty much anything. My cousins convinced me to try a new broom they had, before I knew how to fly. It was new, so it went really high really fast, and I flew into a tree, fell out from ten feet up, broke both arms, and fractured my skull. It sort of sucked."
Scorpius laughed at Lonnie, especially at the few red spots visible where Albus had broken the skin. While she was distracted nursing her hand, he reached onto her plate and grabbed a muffin, one she had just recently grabbed from a plate. "Lonnie, do remember," he took a bite of the muffin, chewed, and swallowed, "that Malfoys don't share."

"Sounds like it would suck," Albus agreed, frowning slightly. "James has done similar in the past, but I don't think anything actually ended in me getting hurt /that/ badly," he went on to say, before turning back to his plate.

Lonnie scowled at Scorpius. "Well, Mr. Malfoy, I'll keep that in mind next time you take your eyes off your plate. Sharing has nothing to do with stealing," she said, frowning deeply at him.

Scorpius sneered at Lonnie, looking every bit a Malfoy, and took as dramatic a bite of the muffin as he could. "Sharing, stealing, strategic spread of resources. They all mean the same thing." He looked around the room, scanning the remaining food on the tables. "Looks like we're almost done, doesn't it?"
Ewan smiled faintly, not looking nearly as upset as he should. "They didn't mean for me to get hurt that bad, though they did think it was funny. The goal was just that I would fall off epicly."

Albus glanced down at his plate, which was now mostly empty, and nodded. "Yeah, we should probably get going to class," he said, standing up. He tapped his pocket once to ensure that his wand hadn't fallen out while he was eating, then looked at Ewan and Scorpius. "Well, let's get going, then."

Lonnie, taking advantage of Albus' talking, snagged Scorpius' fork. She didn't do anything with it, but it seemed more like she was trying to make a point with him. She twirled the utensil in the air, then sat in on the table and pulled out her wand. "Have fun," she said. "Lapifors," she muttered, tapping the fork twice. She smiled as she sucessfully turned it into a rabbit, then turned back to the boys. "Don't fall off, I'd hate for someone to snap their neck on day one," she said.

Scorpius rolled his eyes as he walked away, inwardly trying to decide whether he dislike Lonnie or enjoyed the intense annoyance she brought up from inside him.  "If she shows up at lunch, she's sitting by one of you two."  He grimaced and ran his teeth across his tongue, scraping the taste of the muffin off in.  "Now that I think about it, I don't think I even wanted that muffin."
Ewan finished what was on his plate quickly and stumbled out from the bench, hurrying after the two other Slytherins so as not to be left separated from their group.  "Albus seemed pretty competent at stabbing her. Why don't you just foist her onto him?"

"I can ward her off," Albus said, smiling slightly as he was complimented... at least, that's what he thought it was. "Though she didn't really seem so mean. Not really nice, though... eh, we'll see what happens after this first impression," he said with a shrug, messing with his tie as the trip wandered outside.

"So, Scorpius, have you ridden a broom before?" Albus asked. They'd heard Ewan's story, but Albus was genuinely curious as to the experience of the others in their class. If there were any muggle-born first years in Gryffindor or Slytherin, of course this would be their first time, which might be a bit entertaining, but Albus certainly didn't want anyone getting hurt. He thought he'd check with his friends first, though.

"Of course. My dad taught me when I was," Scorpius paused in thought, locating that particular early memory in relation to the few memories with age-placers he recalled. "When I was seven. He would've taught me earlier, but my mother kept screaming that I would die and she would never have any more children, and then the Malfoys would die out so there. On the whole, I think she gets her way just because she screams louder than he talks." Out of curiousity, since he hadn't seen many other couples fight the way Draco and Astoria did, Scorpius broached a question to the other two. "What's it like when your parents fight? Who wins?"

Albus seemed shocked by the question, and for good reason, too. "Well, erm, Mum and Dad don't really argue that often, and when they do, it's not in front of us. I get the feeling Mum wins more, though; I think she's just a bit more stubborn than dad," he explained, though he still seemed a bit offput by the inquiry. "Maybe it's just a thing about mothers. They do seem to know their way around an argument, am I right?"

Before Scorpius could suppose that it was just his parents, Ewan took his turn answering the question. "My dad always wins. They don't really fight in front of me, but, the way he roars, you can hear it outside. As long as it's not about me, I don't really care any more. It's usually just once a month or so, though."
The conversation was broken off as they reached the shed where the brooms were kept, and the three boys were momentarily occupied in the rush to get brooms that weren't visibly cracked. It wasn't for several more minutes that they could speak to each other, especially as they weren't the first out there and good brooms were becoming a desperately wanted commodity.

Albus, thanks to his training with fighting James, managed to get a good-ish-looking broom and cling to it protectively a few yards away from the shed, waiting expectantly for Scorpius and Ewan to emerge.

"Are you going to make being late a habit, Al? I'll tell Aunt Ginny if you do."

Albus sighed, then smiled slightly as he turned towards the familiar voice, seeing his cousin Rose standing there. She had a good broom in her possession - Albus wasn't surprised, she was likely one of the first, if not /the/ first one, here.

"I slept in, and then we walked down here," Albus explained, to which his cousin nodded.

"We?" she asked.

"Yeah, me, Scorpius, and Ewan."

"Scorpius Malfoy?"

"Yeah, that's right," Albus said. "Why?"

"Dad's told me not to get too friendly with him, Al. His," here, she paused to glance around, and leaned in conspiritorially, her voice low, "His dad was a Death Eater, didn't you know?"

Of course, Albus had heard of that, for it wasn't unheard of for his father to mention Draco when asked to tell a story from his childhood, but the young Potter didn't see why it mattered. "Well, he's not his dad, Rose. And, quite honestly, I'd forgotten that. I hope I can do so again, soon," he said, frowning.

Rose scowled slightly, then shrugged. "Well, I warned you. But who's to say - dad's been wrong plenty of times," she conceeded. She glanced up as a certain fair-haired boy came into view, then looked back at Albus.

"Well, I better go, lest we be noticed 'conspiring with the enemy'," she said, slightly teasinly. Albus smiled as she headed back over to the group of Gryffindors, then turned to face Scorpius as he approached.

"Get a good one?" he asked, looking at his friend's broom.

Scorpius nodded and held the broom out for Albus to view, though he kept a tight grip on it. "As good as were left. We get to use our own brooms next year, right? That'll be so much better than these creepy old things."
"I don't know; I think they're kind of interesting." Ewan rejoined the group from the shed, holding a broom just slightly nicer than Scorpius, but also bleeding from a cut on his cheek. Someone hadn't wanted to let go of that broom. "They make you wonder in what way you would end up dying, or who they've killed over their long and illustrius career."

Albus laughed at Ewan's appraisal of the brooms, but agreed with Scorpius. "I'd still take my Cleensweep over this thing, any day," he said, evaluating the broom in his grip. The way Scorpius showed the other wizard his implied that he thought Albus would take it, but he was happy enough with the one he'd snagged. A few other first years, looking completely lost, had finally joined them on the pitch and took the last remaining brooms, which looked fairly brittle or were smoking slightly.

"This is going to be fun, I think," Albus said, looking up as the professor approached to start giving them directions on how to fly.

The broom class went fairly well, until the end, when Peter Parkinson flipped upside-down and flew into the Whomping Willow. After that, the teacher had hurriedly dismissed the class and rushed Peter off to the infirmary. There were still fifteen some minutes before class ended, but Potions was the next class, and it was notoriously hard to find.
Scorpius was among the first to return his broom and join his friends, looking around at the other groups. "Hey, Albus, isn't that your cousin? Does she want help finding Potions? I think I already know where it is, 'cause we passed it last night on our way to the dorms." He was somewhat nervous about making contact with a Gryffindor, especially a Weasley, but he'd seen Albus talking to her earlier, and so figured it wouldn't hurt to be occasionally nice to the Gryffindors to make Albus happy.

Albus looked pleasantly surprised at the offer, and smiled. "Oh, hang on, I'll go ask," he said. He hurried over to Rose and her small group of newly met friends. Rose appeared to give a round of introductions to the others before Albus relayed Scorpius' suggestion. The group conferred among themselves, then nodded, and Albus came hurrying back over.

"They said they'd like that, but they need to run back to their Common Room to get their things. They'll meet us next to the first floor stairs to the dungeons," he explained.

"Who're we meeting?" Ewan had gotten stuck in the line to return the brooms but had heard Albus' last comment enough to know they were meeting someone. "I can go get your books, if you want, since I have to go get mine." The offer was meant to accomplish two purposes. On one hand, he wanted to further integrate himself with Scorpius and Albus but, on the other, he couldn't quite tell if he was welcome, and this way they had the opportunity of escaping him by sending him for their books.
Scorpius shook his head and shrugged. "I think mine are still at the bottom of my trunk; I'll come with you and get them." He started toward the castle and glanced over at Albus. "What about you? You coming, or would you like us to grab yours for you? So you can wait for your cousin."

"If you can grab them, that would be great," Albus said. "I left them sitting on top of my bed so I could just get them and go, so they should be easy to find," he said. "I'll meet you."

With that, Albus headed off to wait on his cousin and her friends. It was only a few minutes later before he found himself waiting in front of the spiraling staircase. He belatedly realized that he could have walked this far /with/ Scorpius and Ewan, but he'd forgotten in his excitement that they were actually not rediculing the Gryffindor members of his family. The two other Slytherins were sure to pass him by any minute now, but it didn't really bother him - he didn't want to keep the girls waiting. Especially Rose - being in her family, he knew of her impatient side, but he had beaten them here, so, for now, things were looking good.