october, 1973

ROSALIND ********* WAS HAVING AN AWFUL MORNING. She had overslept, no thanks to James and Sirius, who had forced her along to Hogsmeade the night prior in order to get a sugar fix. Then, she'd turned up late to Slughorn's class and earned herself a detention for later that night, and a scolding from the teacher, resulting in the prescription of a tutor to her. She didn't need a tutor, though her teacher had insisted, as she hadn't been doing well in the class for a while(she'd opted for more entertaining endeavors than skinning slugs or steeping mandrakes). It was only her third year, she'd attempted to argue, it couldn't have really caused too much harm. Evidently, Slughorn disagreed.

"Moony," she feigned a pleasant tone, not even bothering to look at Remus directly, who was sitting beside her with amusement on his face. "Would you tell Potter and Black that if they don't stop their laughing, I'll make sure they can't smile ever again?"

"Jeez," whistled Sirius, leaning forward on the table. "Last names? That's cold, Strix."

Rosalind rolled her eyes. "You know what else is cold? The dungeons. Where I'll be stuck tonight cleaning cauldrons no thanks to you buffoons."

"It can't be that bad, Ros," Peter tried to reason at her other side, taking a sip of pumpkin juice.

"Detention I can do. But these extra lessons?" Rosalind shook her head. "Slughorn could have put me with Lily. But instead, he put me with that absolute geek, Vikram."

Her eyes trailed over to the Ravenclaw table where, unsurprisingly, Vikram Kumar was scrawling down notes from a thick book, his food long forgotten in front of him.

"Who knows?" James smirked. "Maybe this'll be the love story of a lifetime."

"Yeah, can you hear the wedding bells, boys?" Sirius chimed in, though he stopped as an apple came flying at his head.

"Do NOT start," she grumbled, gaze flicking between the potions homework in front of her and the boy studying across the hall. She heaved a long, dramatic sigh. "I suppose I should go and set up a time."

"Don't sound too excited," Remus joked as she got up slowly.

"Yeah yeah," Rosalind muttered before straightening herself up. She fixed her collar, to which the boys began to laugh, before walking confidently across the hall to the Ravenclaw table.

Vikram sat alone, though Rosalind knew he must have friends in his house. She'd seen him with two other boys earlier, who she recognized from the Ravenclaw Quidditch team(which Vikram was also a part of), but they'd left pretty quickly.

Rosalind almost felt bad he was alone. Then she snapped out of it. He had friends. She walked up to sit across the table from him.

She sat there quietly for a moment. She could imagine her friends's jokes about this when she got back. Sirius would never stop mocking her, like when he'd lost his mind over her voice when she'd ordered their drinks at the 3 Broomsticks.

Finally, after a painstakingly long amount of time in which he ignored her, Rosalind leaned in so she could be level with his face, as though she was trying to read his book, too. "Hey."

The boy finally looked up in alarm. His warm brown eyes were slightly swollen, as though he had been up all night. Rosalind's face softened a bit.

"Rosalind? What do you want?"

She cringed at the use of her full name. Only her brothers called her that. Her brows came together. "Slughorn hasn't told you?"

"Oh. That." The boy in front of her seemed rather annoyed with the whole ordeal.

"Yeah, that." she reeled back to rest her elbows on the table. "So, when would you be available?"

Vikram looked unsurely between his books before answering. "How about Saturday?"

Rosalind's eyes went wide. "Saturday?! You want to do potions homework on the weekend? Are you even real?"

He shrugged. "That's when I usually do it, so yes. Is there a problem?"

"I can't do Saturday, my friends and I do stuff that day."

His eyebrows shot up, face unamused. "Every week?"

"Yes, every week." She was beginning to feel frustrated now. "Could you do Monday night?"

The raven-haired boy pondered this for a moment before nodding slowly. "That should be fine."

Rosalind stood up quickly. "Alright, its a date!"

As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she knew she shouldn't have spoken them. Maybe Remus was right about her needing to think through her words better.

"Sorry?" Vikram looked confused, and maybe even offended. Which made Rosalind feel offended.

Was he really that upset at the idea of a date with her?

"I mean—Well, you know what I—you know what? Just forget I said that," she shook her head in embarrassment. "I'll see you here on Saturday? I MEAN—Monday?"

"Yeah, that sounds right," Vikram nodded, his lips in a thin line.

"Cool." Rosalind said, before turning and speed-walking back to the Marauders, wondering what kind of boy she had just gotten herself acquainted with.

What she missed, however, was the small smile on his face and the slight tinge to his cheeks as he watched the brown haired girl walk away.

—

AVERSION, vol 1.
THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
1991-1992