Chapter 12
Rose woke up earlier than any of the other girls in her dormitory. She was used to staying up late and then waking up early the next day. For several years, she would spend hours and hours studying until the early hours of the morning, only to be the first to wake up the next day to study again. During those years, she was extremely hard on herself, determined not to let anyone outdo her in anything. She was the best in her class—in all her classes—and the best in Quidditch too. Everyone wondered how she managed to excel at everything.
Of course, after years of pushing herself to be the best at everything, fulfilling every expectation, and doing even more than what was asked of her, she developed anxiety. That was when her parents had to step in and force her to drop some of her classes, quit Quidditch, and see a therapist once a week, an idea suggested by her maternal grandmother. It really helped her, and after a year, she learned to relax and even returned to playing Quidditch.
She began to sleep and wake at normal hours, socialized more, and allowed herself to relax a bit—not much, but a bit.
After a year, she stopped having daily anxiety attacks. They only occurred when she was stressed, angry, or felt powerless. The worst was when she experienced several of these emotions at once.
This happened in her fourth year. Now, in her sixth year, she no longer had anxiety attacks at all. She was proud of that; it had been a year without a single attack.
However, after the events of the previous night, memories of her early years at Hogwarts, when she was so demanding of herself, returned to her mind. The memories of her anxiety attacks also resurfaced, which she didn't like at all. She began to feel short of breath and her legs started to tremble, but after taking several deep breaths, she was able to control it. The memories of those years still affected her, making her feel vulnerable. She tried not to think about her fourth year, but sometimes it was impossible—the memories would come back to her, as was the case at that moment.
In the beginning, when she remembered that year and her attacks, she needed a family member or friend to calm her down and prevent the anxiety attack from becoming serious. After months of practice, she learned to control it on her own, using techniques to prevent it from escalating.
It had been a long time since she had needed those techniques, but today she did, and she felt bad about it, as if she had regressed and lost all the progress she had made. Feeling vulnerable, she decided to keep her mind occupied.
She changed into her Hogwarts uniform and woke Lily, telling her to get dressed and wake up Emma and Lisa in a few minutes because she was going to try to talk to Hugo. Lily grunted in exhaustion, not used to such little sleep—they had only slept four hours.
Rose went down to the common room, where only a few people were present. Most were either still in their rooms struggling to wake up or in the Great Hall having breakfast.
She found the person she was looking for and approached her brother, sitting down beside him.
"Good morning," she greeted him as she sat down. Hugo stood up to leave. "No, don't go," she grabbed her brother by the arm.
"I want to leave, Rose," Hugo tried to free himself from his sister's grip, but it was in vain.
"Hugo, can we talk?" Rose's voice was neutral, showing no emotion.
"No, Rose," he managed to break free from her grip.
"Hugo, please," Rose pleaded with her brother, wanting to know why he hadn't trusted her.
"Rose, there's nothing to talk about," Hugo was about to leave.
"HUGO! THIS ISN'T FAIR!" Rose's voice sounded angrier.
"No, Rose, no," Rose's hand began to tremble.
"Hugo, why?" Rose's voice came out in a shaky whisper.
"Rose, I don't have to explain anything to you. There's nothing to explain," Rose tried to stop her hand from trembling, but it was useless.
"Hugo, what are you talking about?"
"If you don't understand, that's not my problem."
"Hugo, listen to me."
"No, no, we don't need to talk about anything," Rose's breathing grew more rapid. She stood up, trying to catch up to her brother as he walked away.
"Hugo, please listen to me," her legs began to shake, and soon her whole body was trembling. She collapsed to the floor, feeling powerless, angry, betrayed. What had she done to make her brother treat her this way? "Hugo," she repeated as her breathing grew heavier. She couldn't breathe, her entire body was shaking, and she couldn't feel her legs. It was happening again. Everything around her became blurry, she couldn't see clearly, and she heard voices as if they were speaking from far away. She understood little of what that voice was saying— "calm... Rose... breathe... good... breathe... calm..."—the words began to make sense, and her breathing started to slow down—"calm down, Rose, breathe, you can do it." She recognized Hugo's voice and remembered what she needed to do. She took a deep breath, and her breathing began to normalize.
She managed to calm down completely, but she didn't move from where she was. She stayed on the floor, wrapped in her brother's arms, who, once he noticed she was calm, hugged her tightly.
A few minutes later, Lily came down from the girls' tower and saw her cousin lying on the floor with tearful eyes, wrapped in her brother's arms. She approached them.
"Hugo?" Hugo gestured for her not to come any closer; his sister was still shaken.
"It's okay, it was my fault. Go on and explain to everyone why we haven't come down," Lily nodded without asking questions. She went back to the dorm to tell Emma and Lisa not to approach Rose when they came downstairs and then went to the Great Hall. All of their cousins, siblings, and family members were there. She explained that Rose and Hugo wouldn't be coming down for breakfast.
In the common room, only Rose and Hugo remained, no one else. They were now sitting on one of the couches.
"I'm sorry, Rose. I didn't mean it. I was in a bad mood and took it out on you," Hugo felt terrible. Because of him, his sister had had another attack after so long.
"It's okay, Hugo. It wasn't entirely your fault," Hugo looked at her, confused. "The girls and I stayed up talking until the early hours, and this morning when I woke up, memories of my first years at Hogwarts came back to me. I was able to prevent my anxiety from taking control, but I was left feeling a bit 'vulnerable' and sensitive," Rose didn't want her brother to feel guilty.
"Rose, are you okay?" Hugo was genuinely concerned.
"Yes, yes. It was just the exhaustion and the late night that reminded me in some way of when I used to force myself to study until all hours," the memories of the first time Rose had an anxiety attack appeared in Hugo's mind. He quickly erased the memory from his mind.
"What did you want to talk about?" Hugo asked. His sister wasn't to blame for what had happened the night before; he had no reason to take it out on her.
"Isn't it obvious? My brother has a boyfriend and didn't tell me anything. Does that sound familiar?" Hugo laughed.
"Hey, that's not fair. When you started dating Scorp, you didn't tell me anything either," Hugo defended himself.
"But you were the first person I told. Let's not count Albus, since he's the one who got us together in the first place," Hugo rolled his eyes. "Were you planning on telling me? I mean, if I hadn't caught you kissing, when would you have told me?" Hugo felt a pang of guilt; he hadn't thought about telling his sister.
"I don't know, maybe when I told everyone else," Rose felt a little hurt but didn't show it.
"Well, you know you can trust me, right?" Hugo nodded. They had a pretty good relationship, always getting along and trusting each other with everything.
"The truth is, it feels good that someone else knows. It's killing me to lie to Mum, and I feel like she already knows—she's so smart." Rose laughed and nodded. Their mother always knew everything; she never understood how she managed to find out everything they did.
"She probably already knows. A few months ago, she confessed to me that she already knew about my relationship with Scorp and that she made all those jokes about us dating just to see how I'd start spouting nonsense." Hugo's eyes widened, and he laughed uncontrollably.
"Ha! She knows! She didn't stop asking me questions about Louis during the short time we were there," he covered his face with his hands, red with embarrassment. Rose laughed.
"We got an intelligent mum," Hugo nodded.
"She must have spies at Hogwarts spying on us," they laughed, and Rose nodded. That had to be true.
"When are you going to tell her?" The conversation took a more serious turn.
"Someday within these two weeks, and then when we return to our time, we'll tell our parents again."
"Okay," Lily entered through the Fat Lady's portrait.
"Guys, Dumbledore is calling us. Don't worry, it's nothing serious." The three of them headed to Dumbledore's office, where everyone else was already present.
"Thank you for coming. Please take a seat," three chairs appeared out of nowhere, and they sat down. "I've seen your performance in your classes yesterday, and some of you will need to be moved up a year," Dumbledore took out a piece of paper from his desk and read aloud, "Rose Granger-Weasley, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, Albus Severus Potter, Victoire Weasley, Edward Lupin, James Sirius Potter, Lysander Scamander, Lorcan Scamander, Louis Weasley, and Fred II Weasley will be in seventh year. Alice Longbottom, Lily Luna Potter, and Hugo Granger-Weasley will be in sixth year, he put the paper back in his desk and handed out their schedules. Everyone then went to their respective classes.