"I hate you," Rose said shakily, pulling her legs up to her chest and looking warily at all the cobwebs in the corners of the dark passage.
"Don't kid yourself," Scorpius said, reaching over and pulling strands of spiderweb off of her face.
Rose shivered, not sure whether it was from the thought of spiders on her face or his close proximity. "Can we get out of here?"
Scorpius slid the trapdoor open an inch and peered out into the hallway. "Wait another minute, till we're sure there's no one here."
"We should have stayed in detention," Rose said.
"On a Hogsmeade day? Are you kidding?"
"What if we get caught?" she asked.
Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Ready to run?"
Rose gripped his arm. "I hate you."
He pushed the door open and they ran, cloaks flying, shoes pounding against the stone floor. Scorpius looked over at Rose and she caught his eye, a smile creeping across her face. He grinned.
In moments like this he could never be happier.
The text was starting to blur before Rose's eyes when Scorpius walked in. She looked up from her spot on the couch, relieved to have an excuse to think about something other than Charm theory.
"Rosie, it's ten o'clock," he said condescendingly.
"That's what I keep telling her," Albus, who was playing one-sided wizard chess next to Rose, said.
"We have a quiz tomorrow! Don't you two remember? I'm going to fail the test if I don't study."
"There's something called sleep, Rosie, that can prove to be quite helpful when trying to function the next day."
Rose rolled her eyes as Scorpius took a seat next to her. "Rose, seriously. You'll do much better if you study in the morning."
She thought for a moment. "Maybe I'll just take a little break." She rested her head on his shoulder and he slipped his arm around her shoulders. She snuggled closer to him, closing her eyes.
Albus didn't miss the grin on his face.
"Someone's pleased with himself," he noted.
Scorpius rolled his eyes as Rose sighed contentedly.
Moments like these she wouldn't trade for the world.
Scorpius scanned the library and easily found Rose's red, untamed head. Before he could make his way over to his usual seat, however, it was taken by Emmet Finnegan, a quiet, book-smart Ravenclaw Scorpius knew she got along well with.
He stood there for a minute, anger building up in his chest while they talked, smiling and laughing. Then he turned on his heel and stormed out of the library. When Al, intercepting him on his way to the Slytherin dorms, asked him why he was so mad, he just glared at him and pushed past, shoes making sharp, angry sounds as they struck the tile.
This moment was when he knew it could never be the same.
Emmet was nice enough, smart, funny, just about everything Rose could ask for in a boy, and she really was happy when he asked her out. She had been in relationships before, and was relieved to have one now where he didn't insist on taking her on fancy dates or doing silly things like filling the Griffindoor common room with hundreds of roses. (Roses for Rose, get it? Ha ha ha... she'd heard that one to many times.) He was perfectly content just sitting in the library discussing a book that they had both read, or talking about what they were learning in Transfiguration.
But she couldn't help but notice Scorpius's abrupt exit that first day, couldn't help but remember that flash of emotion on his face before he spun around and walked away.
That single moment stayed in her head for the next few weeks.
Suddenly Rose and Emmet were dating, and suddenly Scorpius seemed to never see Rose at all. In mutual classes Emmet was always there, and every time he went to the library hoping to catch her alone Emmet was always sitting in his spot. Albus seemed to recognize his distress and tried to help him, saying they probably wouldn't last long anyways, but Scorpius knew better. Emmet seemed to be Rose's type, if she had a type, and Emmet was disgustingly infatuated with her. They would last.
The worst part was that, though he never actually saw her anymore, everything seemed to remind him of her. He could never go into the Room of Requirements anymore because it brought back all the times he and Rose had stayed up all night finishing assignments, consuming huge amounts of caffeine and whatever else they could get their hands on. Now he could never go to the Three Broomsticks with Al because he would spend the whole time staring at the empty seat next to him and knowing he was prepared to exchange just about anything to have Rose be sitting there next to him. And meals at the Great Hall were enormously dull when he wasn't able to make faces across the tables at Rose.
There wouldn't be a single happy moment anymore.
It wasn't that Emmet wasn't good enough; he met every standard she'd ever considered. She was quite happy, really, to have such a steady relationship with someone. The problem was more that it seemed too steady, uneventful, boring, even. When she compared it with her relationship with Scorpius, where they were just as likely to be found screaming at each other as they were cuddling on the couch, (Not cuddling; Malfoy's don't cuddle) she thought with a trace of nostalgia.
She wasn't complaining, though; she would probably never get anything better.
But moments with Emmet couldn't really be describe as moments; they were more like days, weeks, possibly months...
It wasn't until five weeks and four days after Emmet and Rose got together (yes, he was counting) that Scorpius finally got to talk to Rose. They had been put together for potions, something Emmet didn't seem too happy about, and Scorpius couldn't tell how Rose felt about it.
"Hey," he said quietly when she took a seat next too him.
"Hey Scorp," Rose said cheerfully.
They got started on their potion, and no words were exchanged for the next few minutes, until finally Rose said, "I haven't seen you in a while."
"You just noticed that." It wasn't a question.
"I-I...Merlin, how long has it been?"
"Five weeks, four days," he said bitterly.
She gaped at him.
"Aren't we friends, Rose?" he said, suddenly angry.
"Of course we are," she said.
"It doesn't seem like it," he said, slamming down the knife and stomping away to get the _, indicating he didn't want to talk anymore.
From that moment on they didn't acknowledge the other's presence.
Rose suddenly could see the gaping hole in the last few weeks that had made everything so dull; the absence of her best friend. She had completely cut Scorpius off without even realizing it in favor of spending more time with Emmet. Part of her argued that they were dating, that Scorpius should accept that he wasn't the most important person in her life, but she knew that wasn't true.
So when Emmet asked her why she was so distant she snapped at him to stop being such a control freak and leave her alone for once.
And suddenly she was starting to surface from these weeks devoid of moments and starting to think more clearly.
And as her life continued to disassemble she began to think in moments again.
Three days later Rose broke up with Emmet. As soon as Al told him all of his anger at Rose evaporated.
He found her in the library the next day and walked over to her.
"Hey, Rose," he said tentatively.
"Hi," she said, not looking up.
"How are you?" he asked.
"I'm busy," she answered shortly.
Surprised at her abrupt answer, he said, "Are you mad at me?"
"No," she said, "Why would I be?"
Scorpius looked at her, confused. When she didn't say anything else, he walked away.
Whenever he spotted her in the halls and yelled to her to wait up, she would hurry away, disappearing in the crowd. When he came into the library she would pick up her books and leave. She began sitting next to Alice in their classes, and rushed out of the room as soon as class ended.
"What's with you two?" Albus asked him after this had been going on for a week.
"I don't know," Scorpius said.
In that moment he realized he really didn't.
"Pleeeeeaaaaase?" Albus begged, looking up at her with his adorable puppy-dog face.
"You look like an idiot," she told him primly.
"Come on! I can't get another Dreadful in Arithmancy!"
"Why did you even take that class?" she asked.
"I don't know!" he answered. "I'm regretting it now."
"Fine," she said. "But you owe me."
Albus stopped at the tapestry, looked around to make sure the corridor was empty, opened the door and pushed Rose in before him.
The room resembled the Griffindoor common room, with the same red-and-gold couches and armchairs. The colors clashed ferociously with the boy ins Slytherin robes sitting on the couch.
He looked up, and locked eyes with Rose for a single moment that gave her shivers.
"I'm sorry, guys," Albus said. "I just got sick of you two fighting. The door will unlock right before dinner."
With that, he left, shutting the door before Rose could do anything.
There was a moment of awkward silence while Rose sat down on an armchair, bringing her legs up protectively to her chest and staring at the carpeted floor.
"Why are you ignoring me?" he finally asked, his voice barely audible like he was barely asking anything at all.
She didn't look up, sitting there for a few moments before answering. "I'm sorry."
"Why are you ignoring me?" he repeated.
"I don't know," she said. "I didn't realize what I was doing at first, time with Emmet sort of just disappears. You know? It's like being in a trance. Then when I came out of it I realized I was a terrible person, and...I dunno, you were still mad at me, and I thought...why would you want to be friends with me anymore?"
"Come on, Rosie. Of course I was mad, but you're still my best friend, okay?" He shook his head. "You're such a girl sometimes."
The mood lightened immediately. "I am a girl, Scorpius; you'd think I'd have the right to act like one sometimes."
"Not a dramatic one. Just don't do that again, okay?"
"Don't worry," she said. "I won't."
In that moment, everything that had fallen apart came back together.
It was a funny sort of way he realized it; there was no sudden epiphany, no huge lightning bolt out of nowhere. They were just sitting across from each other in the library, silently working on their homework. Rose stopped writing for a moment and he looked up, watching her contemplate her work.
In a way, she wasn't really anything special to look at; freckles covered her nose and cheeks, her hair was scraped into a messy bun, stray curls falling out, and she was wearing and old knitted sweater that was still too big for her and did nothing for her figure. But looking at her, he realized she was incredible.
And in that moment he knew he'd liked her all along.
"Hey Rosie?"
Rose looked up from her books to see Scorpius looking at her.
"Yeah?" she said.
"I have a hypothetical situation for you."
"Okay..." she said, bewildered.
"What if...say there's this hypothetical guy who is really good friends with this hypothetical girl...and while she were dating someone else, he sort of realized that he was really jealous and might have kind of liked her, and know he knows he really likes her a lot but is scared to ask you out or anything."
"Okay," she said again, her face beginning to hint at a smile as she began to realize what he was saying.
Gaining confidence, Scorpius continued. "So this hypothetical guy is wondering if the hypothetical girl likes him back, but he's afraid she doesn't and it will ruin their friendship and everything." He looked at her, waiting. "What do you think?"
"I think the hypothetical girl liked him from the start but thought he was too dense to notice."
Scorpius's face broke into a grin. "Really? It's that easy?"
"It's that easy." Then she stood, book slipping to the floor, strode across the room, and kissed him on the mouth.
And that was when moments and hypothetical situations became trivial matters and it was just the two of them, lost in the infinity of a single moment.