The Forgotten Zodiac

It was of little importance, for the other two boys went and came back quickly. Albus was only on the stairs by himself for five or so minutes before Scorpius and Ewan ran up behind him and Ewan held Albus' book out. "They're not here yet?" he stated, though it was phrased as a question. "Figures, I suppose. They do have to run all the way up to the Gryffindor dorms and then run back down."

"Yeah, the Gryffindor dorm is on the third floor, isn't it?" Albus asked. "James always complained about the stairs," he said.

Soon after, though the group of girls came around the corner. The two that Rose brought along with her seemed highly suspicious, but the expression relaxed a bit as they found the boys there, as promised.

"See, told you," Rose said, smiling slightly as she headed over.

Ewan froze briefly when the Gryffindors came around the corner, but he jolted himself back into speech to prevent making the entire situation awkward for Albus. "These are the people we're waiting for? I'm Ewan Allaway; it's very nice to meet you," he greeted, holding his hand out toward Rose.
Scorpius, after a moment of evaluating the girls, decided to greet them as well. "Scorpius Malfoy. The classroom's this way." Not expecting the Gryffindors to be particularly friendly or caring to be particularly friendly with them, he scanned the girls quickly and spun on his heel. "Come on, I'd like to be early first class of the year."

Albus hurried after Scorpius, not wanting to be late. Of course, that wasn't really a huge concern, seeing as how they'd gotten out of their last class so early.

Rose evaluated Ewan's hand for a moment, before shaking it as social protocol demanded that she do to be polite. "Rose Weasley," she returned. "I'm Albus' cousin." With that, she and the other two girls, who didn't bother introducing themselves, hurried down the steps after Scorpius and Albus.

Ewan, regretting his attempts at friendliness, scampered after the rest of the group. They entered the classroom shortly after, and Scorpius waved a hand at the room. "We're here. You are officially the first Gryffindors to find this place their first time without getting horribly lost." He shrugged, then made his way over to a desk and cauldron on the far side of the room. It wasn't as if Gryffindors and Slytherins would sit together. That would be disgusting.

Rose and her friends sat down near the door, in the front of the room, while Albus and Ewan went to join Scorpius. A few moments later, the professor entered, his nose in a book as he came into the room. He appeared a bit started to see students already in the room, but said nothing of it as he headed into the back room to get the supplies for class that day.

"That's our head of house, right?" Albus asked. "Cummings, right? James says he's an awful teacher, but James says that about all the teachers. He doesn't do his work, so it's to be expected that he gets yelled at a lot," the young Potter reported in a low voice to his fellow Slytherins. "Teddy and Victoire didn't seem to have anything bad to say about him, so further proving my point that James just doesn't know anything," he snickered. Albus would only ever tease his brother like this when said brother was out of earshot - for all the time he didn't spend studying, he sure knew his way around a few nasty hexes. Albus suspected his that uncles, Fred and George, had something to do with that, but he'd never gotten the courage to ask. Perhaps that was yet another reason he wasn't a Gryffindor.

"My dad's favorite class was Potions," Scorpius speculated. He frowned vaguely at the professor, wondering what kind of teacher would be so wound up in a book that he wouldn't be able to put it down to teach his class. "He's expecting me to like it too, but I guess I'll have to wait and see."
Ewan nodded to Albus, verifying his question about the teacher. "Yes, that's Cummings. Who're Teddy and Victoire? They more relatives of yours?" Albus seemed to have an endless supply of relatives at Hogwarts, which was a stark contrast to Scorpius and Ewan. Scorpius was an only child with no cousins. Ewan was the first Allaway to attend Hogwarts; the rest of his family went to smaller schools closer to home.

"Teddy and Victoire are my cousins," Albus said. "Teddy's a prefect in Gryffindor, he's a fifth year, and Victoire is, too. Prefect and fifth year, I mean," he said. He glanced over to Scorpius. "Ted's related to you, isn't he? Something like... third cousin?" It got pretty confusing to try and keep up with wizard family trees, but Albus tried to do so with those that he was closest to. "He mentioned something about writing you a couple times," Albus continued, then tilted his head at Scorpius as he waited for a reply. A few more students had trickled in, mostly Slytherins, but they still had a good five minutes before class was officially supposed to start.

Scorpius nodded, pausing briefly to run through the family tree. Like most pureblood wizards, his parents, mostly his mother, drilled him on the family tree on a quite frequent basis. Especially the side that they didn't speak of. "Yeah, he's my cousin. My grandmother was his grandmother's sister, so my dad and his mom were first cousins. We're second cousins, then." Scorpius frowned slightly and nodded again, making sure he had it right. "Yep, second cousin."

"Oh, cool," Albus said. "I thought so." Then, his attention was drawn back to the front of the room as Professor Cummings emerged from his storage closet, carrying things like porcupine quills and bat wings with him. He stopped at each desk to hand out the ingredients, before returning to the front of the room and flicking his wand, making a few words appear on the board.

"Welcome to Potions Class. I am your instructor, Proffessor Cummings. To start our lesson today, we will review basic safety guidelines for potion-making, and then we will start working on brewing the cure for boils. Open your textbooks, and might I get a volunteer to read the first safety rule?"

Ewan flipped his potions book open to the first chapter and started reading. At home, he was known for burning water, which was one reason he wasn't allowed in the kitchen. He'd been threatened quiet strongly to keep his grades up, so the lad intended to focus quite hard in this class.
Scorpius, too, stayed silent, expecting someone to leap at the chance to answer a teacher's question. He grabbed the book and slid it open, scanning the page casually. "Gosh, this is all frightfully obvious, isn't it?"

"A bit, yeah," Albus agreed. He glanced up as a familiar voice started to read aloud the first paragraph.

"Rules for the Potion-Maker. Rule One: Never smell the fumes from your cauldron. Rule Two: Always follow the directions for potion-brewing and the direction of the Potions Master. Rule Three..." Rose continued on in this matter through all fifteen rules, hardly taking a moment to breathe, it seemed, but she still managed to take forever.

Something about Scorpius' demeanor changed when he heard Rose speaking, somewhat annoyed that a Gryffindor who needed his help to find the classroom was speaking already. He scowled and waited for the next question. When it came, he had his hand up far faster than Rose's had and accidentally elbowed Ewan in the jaw. "The first property of potion stirring is that potions require no deliberate, personal magic."

"That's right," Proffessor Cummings gave Scorpius a nod, smiling slightly at the Slytherin boy. "Please turn your textbooks to page fifteen, where you will find the instructions for brewing the cure to boils. We will work on this potions for the next three classes. By the fourth, I will see about a test. Provided no one has blown up their cauldron, the test will be from memory, so it would serve you well to learn this brew as quickly as possible," he instructed.

Albus turned to the directed page and tenatively began brewing. He'd never tried potion-making before - he could only hope that Scorpius and Ewan would help him out if he needed it.

Classes went quickly that day. Most of the teachers were inclined to be friendly, though some of them were plenty scary anyway, such as Luna Lovegood. She had been quite friendly, but being grabbed by the shoulders and told "FREEZE! THERE'S A MUFFLIGUS MIMBLEDON ON YOUR NECK!" was enough to scare anyone.
Scorpius was now in the Slytherin Common Room with Ewan and Albus, musing over the Daily Prophet, which he'd snagged when someone else set it down. "Al, your dad's with the Aurors, right? Do you know anything about these guys?" He asked, flipping the newspaper over to show a line of protestors bearing signs demanding the "Opening of the Realms" and "True Equality".

Albus glanced at the paper, before nodding quickly. "Yeah, I think. I mean, dad's mentioned something about certain factions of wizards and witches wanting to reveal the magical world to the muggle one," he said. "It's gotten to the point where there have been a couple cases of protesters performing magic publicly or trying to slip stuff like the Daily Prohpet into muggle houses. The Obliviators are really up tight about it," he said. He then paused. "Doesn't your dad work for the Ministry, too, Scorpius? He hasn't told you about this?"

Scorpius nodded, then shook his head. "Yeah, my dad works at the Ministry, but he's in the Department of Mysteries, so he doesn't ever talk about work. It's all Unspeakable stuff." He glanced over at Ewan, realizing they'd left him entirely out of the conversation, and did his best to remedy that problem. "What about your dad, Ewan? What's he do?"
Ewan had been listening in interestedly, not having realized that his two friends' parents were so involved in the Ministry, then shook his head. "No, my dad owns a sort of owl rental service. The Daily Prophet owls come from us; we care for them, and they send them off. He doesn't have any political stuff, not really."

"That's interesting. So do you get to hear about the stories before they go in the Prophet, or is it just all delivery?" Albus asked, looking genuinely interested. "Also, I really like those owls. They never try to bite, not like the owl James has. Though it is funny when it bites him," he said. He then shook his head slightly, getting back on topic. "The Prophet's been all over the Ministry stuff lately. Makes me wonder about how they're getting their information," he commented.

"They have inside sources, plenty of 'em." Ewan commented. The Daily Prophet was one thing he understood well, for his mother had been a reporter and his father worked with them closely on a regular basis. "The current speech laws actually say that the Ministry can't prevent them from discussing stuff, unless it's Untouchable, in which case there's spells to keep them from blabbing. Most people will talk, especially if they can get paid for it."
"Really, that's allowed?" Scorpius scowled vaguely, annoyed at the idea that people could sell out their country and receive no ramifications. It wasn't that he was hugely patriotic, he wasn't, but it seemed poorly planned on the government's part. "That's ridiculous."

"...maybe I should bring that up to dad or aunt Hermoine sometime," Albus mused. "I mean, dad's Head Auror and aunt's really up there in the Muggle Relations Departmet. They could probably fix that..." he said. He then glanced at his watch quickly, viewing the time, and yawned. "Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to turn in for the night, guys," he suggested.