A/N: I started this story a long time ago, and found it yesterday. Let me know what you think.
I do not own Harry Potter.
It's Never Too Late
Chapter 1: Toads Are Very Useful Creatures
He had always hated these rides. Hours of perpetual boredom, stuffed in an overcrowded, overheated train compartment, forced to listen to people gossip about the unimportant things in life. He had ridden this train back and forth from home to school and back for five years now, and he figured the sixth year wouldn't reveal any hereto unexplored joys. The most enjoyable part of the journey was the fifteen or so minutes right after the train started moving, and the students were still walking around, trying to find a compartment and still gabbing with their friends in the hallway. This was the time when he had time to himself to gaze out the window and ponder nothing in particular.
Today was a rainy one, which caused the window by his seat to fog up with condensation. With an almost lazy grace, he lifted his fingers to the damp window and began to absentmindedly trace patterns through the water. Within minutes, the lines had spider webbed across the window to create an artful maze on its surface. As the picture is completed, he leans back in his seat and watches the bead of water from the end run down the window, creating its own train in the design. Unfortunately, his moment of peace is over with the sound of the compartment door sliding open and a triumphant voice saying, "There you are Cor."
With great difficulty, he refrained from sighing, but he could not help rolling his eyes at his reflection in the window before he turned to look at the girl standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. "Well," she said coyly, "aren't you going to say hi?"
"Hello Blair," he replied dully. Unaffected by his less than enthusiastic greeting, Blair sat as close to him as she could and rested her head on his shoulder. "Oh Cor," she crooned, "I missed you this summer. You hardly wrote at all. I must have written you about a dozen letters, and I only got about three from you, Cor."
"I was busy," he replied shortly, as Blair ran her long, dark finger down the side of his jaw. Blair Zabini had indeed written him several times that summer. He had written her back just enough times to make his father happy and to stop the flow of increasingly sappy letters from continuing. In his opinion, he put up with her enough at school that it was unfair to make him write to her during the summer, but his father liked the pair to correspond.
Blair's father had been friends with his when they went to school. Not great friends from what he could gather, but her family was rich, and Blair was beautiful. Whatever else she was, he could not deny that she was beautiful. With her slender, dark-skinned body and waves of dark black hair, half the boys at school loved her just for her figure. Those who didn't like to watch her walk down the halls fell under the spell of her chocolate eyes and pouty lips. Despite her physical charm, he simply could not stand her. She was whiny, loud, and malicious, but what he disliked most about her was the fact that she insisted on calling him "Cor."
From the moment they first met, she had tried to rename him: "Your name just takes too long to say. You need a short, one-syllable nickname." She had promptly tried out several different versions: Scorp, Orpi, and even Us (that one just confused everyone). Finally, after a solid month of changing his name every day, she settled on Cor and has called him that ever since. He supposed he should be grateful that she hadn't picked a stupider option, but he had never understood it. Was it really that hard to add the extra two syllables to get Scorpius? His only consolation was that none of his other classmates had started to call him Cor.
He was saved from further chin stroking by the entrance of his best friend Edgar Goyle. Goyle, like his father before him, was a thickset boy who needed help finding the right end of a fork so he could shovel food down his mouth at a seriously alarming rate. Goyle's mental slowness did not bother Scorpius. In fact, Goyle was one of the few people he really enjoyed the company of, seeing as it was never uncomfortable to be silent with Goyle. Also, Edgar never pushed Scorpius into unwanted conversation. If Scorpius talked to him, Goyle would answer back, but he was just as comfortable staring at the wall for a few hours.
Just as Goyle took his seat across from Scorpius and gave his usual silent not as greeting, the door slip open once more and Scorpius' other best friends walked in. Melanie Flint had captured his attention on their first day of school at Hogwarts. He had been running late to class and rushed down the deserted halls, nearly crashing into her as she hid behind a suit of armor. "What are you doing?" he had asked. She had just shushed him and pointed further down the hallway. Peering around the armor, Scorpius had seen the caretaker's cat, Mrs. Norris, clawing into a mouse hole. Creeping silently, Melanie had snuck up behind the unsuspecting cat, whipped a Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes firework out of her pocket, attached it to the cat's tail, and lit the fuse. Yowling, Mrs. Norris had streaked off to get her master to put out the firework, and Melanie had grabbed Scorpius' hand and ran, chortling, in the other direction. Several seconds later, they had heard a loud bang, the screaming of Mrs. Norris, and the angry swearing of Filtch the caretaker. The two children had arrived at class five minutes later and received a double detention. Ever since, Melanie and Scorpius have been friends, and the hairless tailed Mrs. Norris has been mortally frightened of the pair of them.
Now, Melanie takes the seat next to the door, props her feet on the seat across the aisle, and winks at Scorpius while taking out the latest issue of TeenWitch. "Thanks for the letters Scorp," she said impishly, ignoring his frantic gestures for her to mention nothing of the sort. Scorpius grimaced as Blair shrieked, "What? You wrote to her! You barely wrote to me! Why would you write more to your friend than your girlfriend?"
Blair, it seemed, had the idea that just because they were the two best looking people in the year, he automatically belonged to her. No matter how many times he tried, he could not dissuade her. She cared nothing for anything other than the superficial, and that drove him crazy.
Blair continued to rant at him, while he blocked her out and glared daggers into Melanie, until the trolley witch came around. While paying for his licorice wands, he hissed in Melanie's ear, "Thanks for the help, Mel. I was getting on fine without you."
"Scorpius, the pleasure was all mine. We both know you don't like her, I'm just trying to make her see it."
"Well stop it. She's annoying enough when she likes me. Think of how bad she'd be if she didn't."
Chucking, Mel sat down, returning to her magazine, and Scorpius returned to the window to daydream, tossing a licorice want to Goyle on his way. The rest of the journey was spent in silence, at least on Scorpius, Mel, and Goyle's part. Blair did not stop talking the entire time. Even while they were putting on their robes she talked their ears off. She didn't even seem to notice no one was listening or responding to her blabbering.
As the train slowed to a stop, compartment doors all along the corridor opened and students filed out into the queue. Just as Goyle was leading the way out into the hallway, he was shoved back in by James Potter who shouted, "Watch where you're going GarGoyle," and received a few laughs.
Scorpius stuck his foot out the door; tripping James and making him face plant on the wooden floor. Making a fake sincere face, he offered his hand, saying, "Make sure you watch yourself Mr. Potter. You don't want to go breaking your face again."
James scrambled to his feet and was about to make an angry retort when a voice called, "James? Come on. What's taking you so long? We want to get good seats for the feast." Rose Weasley came hurrying down the hall, took James' arm and led him away before he could do more than shoot Scorpius a glare, but Scorpius was not paying attention. His grey eyes were fixed on the back of the red hair walking away from him.
He remembered the first time he had ever met Rose. It had been late November, and he had just come from Herbology class where he had been admiring Professor Longbottom's toad. He had been pondering whether he could convince his father to buy him a toad for his birthday; after all, toads were very useful creatures; when his food fell into a vanishing stair, and he tumbled to the ground. As often happens when someone falls, his belongings scattered across the stone floor. Yanking his leg out of its trap, Scorpius had bustled around, frantically collecting his belongings before they could disappear in the crowd of students pushing through the halls. He was reaching for the last notebook while trying to stuff the rest into his bag, but another hand beat him to it. His eyes followed the arm holding his notebook up to the face and found themselves staring into the unsuspectingly kind eyes of a Gryffindor. Rose Weasley was in the rival house. Why would she help a Slytherin? Scorpius reached out his hand for the book, which she dropped into his arms with a small smile before running off to join her cousin Al for lunch. Scorpius stood there, puzzled, until a few moments later when James came by and forced him to scramble around on the ground again.
From that day forth, he had been fascinated by her. Any chance he got, he would sit near her in the library or walk behind her in the halls. He never got too close, of course. He didn't want to draw attention or suspicion to himself, so he kept a respectable distance.
Well, he thought as he watched her walk to the horseless carriages, that was five years ago. I may not like toads anymore, but Rose still fascinates me. As Scorpius and his friends waited in line for a carriage, Scorpius made up his mind. This was going to be the year that he would finally talk to her, and at least become her friend. With this cheerful thought, he climbed into a carriage just as Goyle said, "Hey. That's funny. 'Break your face again.' I get it!" As they set off toward the castle, Scorpius' laugh mingled with Goyle's guffaws.
