Scorpius Malfoy was walking down a narrow path in the woods a few miles out from the home his family occupied during the summer (and spring, and fall, and most of the winter, actually they occupied the house all year long but for a few weeks in the Christmas season when they stayed at Malfoy Manor with Scorpius' grandparents), he was hand in hand with a small girl with white blonde hair in two long braids on either side of her head who looked to be somewhere around the age of seven of eight.
The girl, Lyra Malfoy, was smiling brightly as she skipped and hopped and swung on her brother's arm. Surprising, after over an hour of walking the trail the novelty hadn't worn off for Lyra, as it had for Scorpius.
Don't get him wrong, he loved his sister and spending time with her but at the particular moment she'd rushed into his room and begged him to take her on a walk, with her big blue puppy dog eyes and pout in place, he'd been working on finishing up his summer reading list for his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They were only a few weeks into the summer holidays but he liked to finish his work quickly so he had time for other, more important things, like spending time with his parents and sister both of whom he only got to see on holidays.
He couldn't just say no when she essentially forced him (there was really no chance of the puppy dog eyes not working) to spend time with her.
He would admit that the at first it was exciting and he enjoyed the breaks in walking to climb trees and pick flower and search for bird feather in the bushes, but as previously stated, the novelty had worn off.
Now he was just being used as a play set as they ventured through the wilderness.
"Scorpius, look! Look at all the colorful flowers!" Lyra piped up, looking at Scorpius with wide eyes.
Scorpius looked to where she was pointing up a head, indeed there were a multitude of colorful flowers, ranging from bright yellows to deep purples, each color clumped into small patches. As they got closer, Lyra dragging Scorpius by the arm, he noticed that the path opened up to a large clearing. There was a path directly in front of them a ways across the clearing and one to their left, Scorpius made a mental note that the one to the left was probably the fast way to get home from here.
Lyra stopped abruptly, causing Scorpius to nearly topple over, he looked over at her, alarmed.
She leaned forward, once again wide eyed and whispered (loudly), "There's a person over there!"
Scorpius took a closer look at the clearing, and she was right, there was a person there, sitting criss cross apple sauce (he had a 7 year old sister, okay?) in the grass. He didn't know how he'd missed them before. Long vibrant red hair fell in front of, supposedly a girl's, face . She was sitting near the middle of the clearing, picked flowers laid out in front of her, she seemed to be doing something with them in her lap.
Lyra was staring intently at the girl, "Should we say hi? I bet shes's nice, she looks nice!"
"I dunno if that's the best-" but before he could finish he was being dragged across the flower laden ground towards the girl, welp, no use turning back now.
"Hi!" Lyra yelled when there were around 10 feet from the girl. She looked up, startled, but as soon as she took in the scene before her, her face relaxed and she smile brightly at Lyra.
"Hello." the girl said.
Now that he had a good look at her face he recognized the girl sitting in front of him. Her name was Rose. Rose Weasley. He'd never actually spoken to Rose Weasley, that is if you don't count requests to pass a quill in class or apologizing for bumping into her in the halls on one occasion. He didn't actually associate with the Potter/Weasley clan, just about all of them were Gryffindor's or more than 3 years below him. In fact the only Potter of Weasley he'd ever had an actual conversation with was Louis Weasley, a third year in his house, Ravenclaw, and that was only because he was tutoring him in Transfiguration.
Given his limited contact with her family, Scorpius found it even more strange to stumble across Rose Weasley in a remote woodland. Lyra, however, didn't seem at all phased. She plopped herself down a few feet away from Rose, on the other side of the row of flowers.
"My names Lyra, I'm seven and a half, what about you?" she asked animatedly.
"My names Rose. I'm sixteen." Rose answered, looking slightly bemused but keeping a good natured smile in place.
"That's a pretty name. Like the flower, there are lots of flowers here, I don't see any roses though. Well except for you that is." Rose actually laughed out loud at this. "This is my brother by the way, he's great, unless you catch him on a bad day, he's a giant drama queen." she sang the last two words. Scorpius couldn't help the blush that crept up his neck at her words.
At this Rose finally glanced up at the other human being in their presence, she gave a start when she locked eyes with him, "You're Scorpius Malfoy." she said simply, stating the obvious.
"Er, yeah, yup, um, we sorta, kinda, a little, go to school together." he, also, stated the obvious.
"Just a little." she replied, making her sarcasm very clear.
Just as Scorpius was about to speak, Lyra interrupted (it was probably for the best considering he didn't actually have a clue what he was going to say.), "What are you making?" she asked, waving her hands over the flowers and giving what appeared to be a string of flower in her lap a pointed look.
"Oh." Rose looked down at her forgotten flowers, when she looked back up a wide grin broke out on her face (he'd be lying if he didn't notice how pretty she looked when she smiled), "I'm making flower crowns," she she told Lyra.
"A flower crown? What's a flower crown?" Lyra seemed very excited about the prospect of a 'flower crown'.
"Well," started Rose, "it's a crown. Made of flowers."
"No duh." Lyra deadpanned. Scorpius panicked at Lyra's rudeness until he saw Rose's amused, rather than offended, face. Well, there's one bullet dodged, he thought.
"I wasn't finished!" Rose laughed, "okay, so you take a bunch of flowers," she motioned to the line in front of her, "and you pick some colors or types or whatever, and you put them together like this," she held up the maybe 11 inch string in her hand " and than when you think it's big enough you put the two ends together and, wallah! Crown."
"How do you put the flowers together?" Lyra asked, completely transfixed with the new game she was being presented with.
"I can teach you if you want," Rose said eagerly, than glanced towards Scorpius, "if you guys have time that is."
Scorpius signed, and realizing they were gonna be here awhile, flopped himself on the grass beside Lyra, nodding, "We have all day." he stated, eyebrows creased, "and by all day I mean under dinner time." He lifted the corner of his lips in a lazy smile.
"Brilliant. Let me just finish this one off and we can both start new ones." It wasn't long before Rose had joined the two ends and setting the crown aside, "Alright, first you have to pick out your flowers." Lyra set to work carefully picking either color and flower and putting them in some order or another on the grass in front of her "Did you wanna make one, Scorpius?" Scorpius jumped at his name, having been watching Lyra. He noted that his name sounded nice coming out of her mouth, he usually hated the sound of his name unless it was Lyra speaking it. Or his mother. It didn't sound too bad out of his grandmothers mouth. Maybe it just only sounds nice from a woman's voice . But then again it always sounds terrible when Tamera Gates, a fifth year girl in his house who basically stalked him, says it. So, really it was just the females that he cared about in his life that made his name sound nice. Rose Weasley being an exception apparently.
Remembering he was supposed to be answer her question he tried for cool and collected with a "No thanks, I'll just watch." but it probably just came out as a hurried mess, at least that's what her got from Lyra's giggles
Rose shrugged and starting talking to Lyra about how to connect the flowers to one another, Scorpius watched intently. Rose slid the flowers through each other with ease, where else it took Lyra four broken flower stems and a frustrated shriek before she got the hang of it enough to get at least every other one right. Rose didn't slip up once. He noted Lyra's color choice with a silent nod to himself, orange and pink, her favorite colors. Rose's was simply white, he glanced at the only she had already made, it was a haphazard of jumbled colors.
Scorpius had stopped listening to Lyra and Rose's conversation a while ago, he switched his gaze to Rose's face, every few minutes a few strands of hair would fall in her face and she'd flick her head back multiple times in an attempt to get them out of her face, every attempt ended in more hair falling in her face until she got frustrated and set the flowers down to tuck hair behind her ear. It would stay there was all of a minute and fall back. He didn't understand why she didn't just tie it back, but then again he didn't see any hair ties on her so there goes that theory.
When they got to the end of their crowns (Rose having finished at least 5 minutes before Lyra but waiting patiently) Rose showed Lyra how to connect the two ends. Rose did her's in a few seconds, Lyra broke at least 10 flower stems before she got it right. Rose had had to demonstrate three times with different flowers.
During her demonstration Scorpius couldn't help but notice how good with her hands Rose was, she was careful and firm in her movement, the mental imagine that appeared in his mind had him blushing a deep red within seconds.
He coughed loudly, "I think Ly and I are gonna have to get a move on soon, we're at least half an hour away from home."
"Oh," Rose looked at her watch, "I'd better be going soon too. Which way do you live?"
"Pretty sure that path will lead us to where we need to be, checked a map before we left." Scorpius point to the path to the left.
"Me too, I'll walk with you guys a bit, I'm only about 10 minutes away though." she got up, brushing off her jean shorts. She had nice legs. Snap out of it, Scorpius. He stood up too waiting for Lyra to place her crown on her head before she stood.
"Hey, Scorpius," Rose said, bending down to pick of up the flower crown she'd just made with Lyra, she stood up on her tip toes and places the crown on his head, "I here by dub thee, King Scorpius." Scorpius could feel himself blushing at the close proximity of Rose's face to his.
Lyra picked just the perfect time to pick up the crown Rose had been making when they found her and hand it to her, pronouncing loudly, "And you can be Queen! And I'll be the Princess!" she said making a little ballerina spin.
Scorpius' blush deepened but Rose seemed unaffected as she grinned at him and placed the crown on her head. This just made Scorpius blush even more, if that was even possible.
They started making the walk back in silence until Scorpius broke it with an awkward, "Look, I'm sorry Lyra kind of jumped on you and wouldn't let you go, she always does that, she just finds people and makes them play with her, we're trying to stop her but it never works. One of these days she's gonna go home with a serial killer or something. Anyway you were probably out there to be alone and it was totally wrong of us to intrude-" she cut him off.
"No!" she said loudly, but quieted when she realized yelling wasn't a necessity, "No, it's fine, I was just avoiding family. Besides, Lyra's good company, she told me this great story about when you were ten." He groaned. He need he should've been listening to their conversation. Rose laughed. Rose had a nice laugh. Incomes; more blushing. He needed to do something about that.
Changing the conversation would do for now, "I didn't know you lived down here," he commented shyly.
"I don't." Rose stated, hopping on and over a rock in the path about the size of his fist. "My Aunt Audrey and Uncle Percy, and their daughters Lucy and Molly do, they have Sunday brunches and I've faked sick one too many times. Molly graduated ages ago so you probably don't know her, you probably know Lucy though, she's in your house, second year."
"I may have seen her around." He had absolutely no clue who she was or what she looked fact he probably wouldn't have a clue who Rose was if she wasn't in his year thereby sharing classes with him. Oh, and there's also the whole famous parents thing about whatever.
"Anyway," she waved his comment off, "they're whole families bonkers. That's why I was hiding." he snorted. "Seriously!" she said, "If I have to listen one more comment about improper cauldron bottoms from Lucy and Uncle Percy or hear Molly and Aunt Audrey scold me for having my elbows on the table I might just," she searched for words, "just... just, just blow up!" she exclaimed, "Yeah, I would blow up." Scorpius was laughing loudly at this point, which caused Lyra (who'd been running slightly in front of them) to turn to make sure he was alright.
"Please don't blow up, that would be sad." He said semi-seriously before bursting out laughing again, Rose joining him this time. For somebody he'd never talked to before Rose Weasley was a surprisingly easy person to talk to.
They walked in a comfortable silence for about five minutes before Rose stopped at a split in the path, pointing down the right one, "Well, I've gotta go this way, so this is where my journey ends"
Lyra walked right up to Rose and hugged her around the middle as if she'd known her all her life, to her credit Rose hugged her back. Lyra then turned to be me, "Scorpius, I think we should invite Rose over to play sometime."
"Ly, I'm sure Rose has better things to do than-"
"I wouldn't mind." Rose interrupted.
Scorpius stared at her, this girl was almost as mentally as Lyra, they could be serial killers for all she knew (they weren't for the record, but they totally could be), you don't take invitations from serial killer!
"See, Scorpius? Rose wants to come over and play!" Lyra exclaimed.
"Yeah, Scorpius, I wanna come over and play." Rose said nodding, a much too innocent look on her face, was she teasing him? Regardless, he blushed.
"See." Lyra said again.
"Fine," he said, "but you're the one who has to go ask mom and dad." he stared straight at Lyra as he spoke.
"Fine." Lyra said, sticking her nose up in the air. That didn't last long however because her face broke into a grin.
"Well, I'll be actually going now," Rose said, giving Lyra one last hug and, to his surprise, him. He stiffed for a second before relaxing and hugging her back. Not without his cheeks tinting pink he was sure. She was good at hugs, probably to do with the large family. "Bye," she said waving them off as she starting down the right path.
Scorpius stared at her retreating form, well, he thought, that explains why Ly and her got on so well so quickly, they're both way way to comfortable with strangers. Females are bonkers.
"You think she's pretty." Lyra said knowingly, grabbing his hand and pulling him down the left path.
"Shut up." He mumbled, blushing furiously.
A/N: So I was on a walk and flowers everywhere because spring and I sat down and made flower crowns and got this giant plot bunny and really had to write it down, so that's this. Reading it back it seems a bit rushed so sorry about that.
If you wanna leave a review please do. You should, it's a great idea.
Constructive criticism and other forms of criticism are welcome, as are good wishes and nice reviews.
This is just a one shot but in the future I might add onto it if I get a random ton of inspiration dumped on my head so yeah.
~CandiedIce